Golden Rules Organizer Blog

Golden Rules Organizer v1.4 Features Tags Support

Tagging facility has been added to Golden Rules Organizer, with the following functionality:

• Maintain tags and hierarchical tag bundles via new Tags main tab
  
  
  • Bundle example: music-->mp3-->free-mp3
• Allocate multiple tags, or tag bundles, to Listings, Activities, and Logs

Case Study: Golden Rules Organizer as Blogging Back-End

I'm currently publishing series of blog articles Case Study: Golden Rules Organizer as Blogging Back-End at my new content blog Mind Listings.

I invite you to read and comment.

You may find articles on personal finance tools (Budget Tool, Retirement Planning Tool) next to productivity topics - and there is a reason for that.  My involvement with productivity tools started years ago with exactly this - personal finance.

Blogging back-end case study isn't accidental - Golden Rules Organizer entered the content publishing back-end domain with recent addition of HTML editor, and will stay there for good and be expanded to support content upload and other content authoring topics.

Stay tuned by subscribing to Feedburner RSS or e-mail feeds!

Golden Rules Organizer v1.3.1 - Images in Descriptions

With the new minor sub-release 1.3.1, images can be added to descriptions. (Note: this blog entry was prepared in the Golden Rules Organizer using the new facility.)

To invoke Add / Edit Image dialog, press mountain-shaped Image icon   in the Editor, and the following dialog will appear:

Image File (mandatory) - points to .png, .jpg, or .gif image file located either on your local network (selected using button) or on the web (you may cut & paste address from a web browser).

Alt. Text (optional) - text that will appear when image file cannot be located, or when HTML browser lacks image support (by default, 'Image').

Width, Height (optional) - desired image width and height, in pixels. When not specified, actual width and height of the image file is used.

Note: It is recommended to specify width and height even when no resizing is needed, to avoid scrolling effect every time editor completes loading an image with unknown size.

Alignment (optional) - positioning of the image relative to the surrounding text (important when image is located inside a text paragraph). Possible values - top, middle, or bottom (default).

Hyperlink (optional) - a web page or a file to be invoked upon clicking on the image.

Show Border - whether to show the blue border around clickable image (default - yes).

Other Small Changes

• Editor window height is increased, to accomodate larger images (recommendation: resize images that don't fit)
• Expired plans are no more filtered out, to allow easy navigation to recently expired plans.

Tip: Exchanging Data with Other Users

The best way to exchange information between Golden Rules Organizer users is to send or publish exported data (here Listings data sample) together with respective report (here Listings Report sample).

Exporting data and report

To export data, select tree node (or one or more table rows), press right mouse button, and choose 'Send To File' option in the popup menu. It will be saved as XML file.

To produce report, do as above, but select 'Report'option. After Report is opened in your Web browser, save it as .htm or .html file (not as complete HTML page).

Now send both files by e-mail, or upload them to a Web site (like I did with the samples).

Importing data

The recipent(s) can first review the accompanying Report in Web browser, and decide whether to import the data.

To import the data to Golden Rules Organizer, the XML file with exported data has to be downloaded and saved on local network.

Following that, open respective tab in the Organizer (Listings, in our case). If it's a tree (as in Listings case), select the parent node for the imported data. Press right mouse button, choose 'Import from File' option in the popup menu, and select the downloaded XML file.

Data will be imported.

Usage Tip: Working with Multiple Databases

Golden Rules Organizer supports one database per user account. If you need to work with multiple databases, the following methods may be applied (sometimes, combined):

Export / Import Method

To work with several databases in one account:

• Ask other database owner to export database with Export Data
• Export your database using Export Data function (don't use Backup Data)
• Import other database using Import Data, and work with it
• If you made changes, export using Export Data and send export file to the owner
• Import your database, and proceed with your work.

Multiple Accounts Method

Open multiple accounts and download Golden Rules Organizer in each account.

Major Plans Defect Fixed - Please Download

In case you downloaded an Organizer version with Build Date before March 2 2009 that includes Plans tab - please download new version with a major Plans defect fix.

New Screenshots Uploaded

My son helped me to populate sample data, and new screenshots were uploaded to site.

I almost haven't made any censorship - if you find some contents inappropriate, please respond here or in the forum.

Feel free to donate your screenshots - I will consider adding some of them to the site.

Major Sub-Release v1.3 Uploaded

Here the summary of changes done in version 1.3:

• Plans - major addition to Organizer's core functionality, allowing to manage multiple, auto-renewable periodical plans (e.g., daily, weekly, half-yearly) with objectives related to values, projects, and activities
• Editor enhancements. The following editor actions now work properly :
  
  
  • Copy & paste
  • Undo / redo
  • Delete at the end of a paragraph
  • Backspace in the beginning of a paragraph
• Remaining effort now automatically updated when actual effort is logged for an activity / project
• Navigational improvements
  
  
  • Go To popup menu now includes Value choice (goes to the first value)
  • Related To column added to Logs, Activities, and Recurring Tasks, compactly displaying related master object (e.g., project to which activity belongs) and its status; recommended to make this column visible instead of Activity, Project, Contact columns.
• Derby log no more appears on the desktop (the existing derby.log file may be freely removed)
• Reports sort order now correctly reflects manual changes to sub-node order for newly added sub-nodes

New Major Facility: Planner!

New facility - Planner - has being added to Golden Rules Organizer with recently uploaded release v1.2.4.

It is now possible to maintain multiple periodical (automatically renewed) and one-time plans of any duration (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly plans).

Each plan includes a number of objectives related to selected activities, projects, or values that are to be reached during the planned period. Specific due date may be set for each objective. As progress is done, objectives can be marked as fully or partially complete.

Objectives can be viewed from related activities, projects, and values.

Version 1.3 (coming soon) will be accomplished with Planner Reports, but otherwise Planner is already fully functional . Highly recommended to download and try!

Tip: How to Link to E-Mail Message

Following methods can be used to link to an e-mail message from Golden Rules Organizer:

Method 1 - Internet E-Mail

• Open the e-mail message in the Internet account (e.g., Gmail), archive it to a permanent folder, and copy its Internet address (http://...) to clipboard (Ctrl-C)

• Paste the Internet address (Ctrl-V) as link text in the Organizer (in References, Description hyperlink, or Listings).

To open the message, sign-in to your Internet e-mail and press the link in the Organizer.

Method 2 - local e-mail client

• Save the message as file (using Save As function of the e-mail client)
  
  Recommendation: create a folder for e-mails with sub-folders in format YYYYMMDD , and save in the current date sub-folder for easy location from Golden Rules Organizer.
  
• Link to the file from Golden Rules Organizer.

To open the message in your e-mail client, press the link.