Dev-Plan and Bugtracking

Current plan of things to come (as of Summer 2002)

(Mid-summer 2002) Now that Shadow Plan 2.5.0 is out the door, its time to get some work in on Shadow Desktop (and the conduit). Theres a few minor fixes for Shadow 2.5, but the focus is on the rest of the system for awhile. Do some toolkit upgrades, test for OS 5 compatability, worry about Handera and Sony virtual grafitti... it never ends :)

(From summer 2002) Shadow Plan 2.5.0 is very nearly ready! Documentation needs to be written and the website needs some updates, but the software is in the very last stagesof testing. Customizable and savable views, filters, and tags are all in, as is a new titlebar option to make the display prettier and provide fast sorting. Lots of new stuff in the handheld, and nothing new in the desktop (which will get its share once 2.5 goes live). Handera and Sony NR70 extensions will be done a bit later (Sony already has 320x320 highres mode though). Importing from ToDo is much cooler now.

(From Spring 2002) Shadow Plan 2.2 has just been completed (mid-March) and supports Sony's Palm OS extensions (oh how I'm sick of each vendor extending in their own proprietary way!). Handera extensions yet need to be done, user definable filters, item tagging/sorting/etc, getting the mac and unix desktops out to alpha, conduit improvements and desktop features all need to be done. For the sake of argument, I thought I'd list off the order to be worked on more or less..

Long view

1. Work on the desktops (and conduits, bugs and major improvements)
2. Work on the handheld side again (Handera, Sony NR70, etc)
3. Consider directions; OS5 fancy stuff? Better desktop? Update look and feel of handheld?

Shorter view

1. Recover from electrical storm destroying half my servers :(
2. Website redux
3. [med] Minor Shadow Plan 2.5.x (2.6?) release
   • Printable manual and manual html cleanups!
   • Fix: Piles of views.. [V] shows junk. (28+?)
   • Fix load progress bar sometimes has wrong item count?
   • Fix conduit issue where it clobbers custom view item overrides (item by item views, not list level views) (change to broken)
   • Two-tap tagging
   • [easy] [V] -> Toggle wordwrap
   • Find/ShadowLinkHack goto.. sometimes screen scrolled not right? Maybe goto-scroll depends on title wordwrap? misc-calc?. Pre-calc?
   • "No numbering" too long in Details window
4. [med] Handera; file selection screen doesn't get cleared where empty
5. [med] German test-build (later to do a production build)
6. [easy] Palm OS 5 readyness testing (do this: http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/palmos5/testcases.html)
7. [med] Desktop; toolkit upgrade
8. [med] Unix desktop alpha (no sync, just pdb edit) (leads to Mac)
9. [hard] Mac desktop alpha (no sync, just pdb edit) [lots of work]
10. [med] Mac/Unix getting out the door to public
11. [hard] Conduit improvements (robustness, error free (item moving up/down, dups, crashes), etc)
12. [hard] Desktop feature enhancements (drag and drop, grid editting, import/export, etc)
13. [med] Shadow Plan 2.7 minor feature update
    • Link arrow <-, ->, <-> update
    • Pref to sort undated to bottom always
    • [fix] Investigate; symbols at beginning of lines (say, "#") sort out of order with each other? ("adam")
    • Some way to toggle tbar between columns and view/filter name?
    • Reverse whole filter checkbox?
    • On load, ensure scroll is within list (auto-view may decrease list disp length during loading)
    • File sel screen; hardkey up/down scroll more?
    • Asterisk; trunc to show, in wide tags; don't show in thin tags.
    • Exp links to tag column
14. [med] Category support on VFS?
15. [med] Handera/Sony extensions (high res icons? vanishing grafitti? Then high res font display for Handera?)
16. [med] Investigate New From missing items (ToDo and Datebook) (ie: Shadow should help you; since repeating items do not physically repeat until the time approaches, Shadow should find for you events that would repeat on the target week, even though in fact you're finding the item which physically exists in a prior timeslot)
17. [easy] Improve New From? "List all todos *since* date" instead of "show week"? Try and omit ones that have append-origin detail on them?
18. Shadow Plan 3.0 == Shadow Plan 2.5 + new stuff + Desktop/Conduit 2.0

Ideas by location, in no meaningfull order!

• Handheld unscheduled
• Desktop unscheduled
• Conduit unscheduled

• Linked todo/datebook items; mark dirty more carefully
• Add shift indicator to Custom Filter Details window
• Editting c-filter moves it to the top; list focus should also move :)
• Auto-Unzoom can sometimes leave title incorrect?
• Include built-in filters as a rule in c-filters? Or at least allow "next step only" type rule as that may be the only one missing that cannot be built?
• Send all visible to clip? (since c-filters can then let you define what you see very carefully?)
• Start, Finish date view options
• new item inherits siblings tags
• "this quarter" to custom date picker
• origin info on "send to file" items
• Have col-bg effect travel with item? (More specifically, it starts at 0; why not start at 0 or 1 based on item count? Can't use scroll value, since that is higher granularity than items..)
• Trans to Spanish: azurdo@movistar.com
• Keyboard shortcut for local find?
• Prefs, default list view, allow saved views
• Bigger drag threshhold?
• Remove all tags operation?
• Duplicate view operation?
• Tag Wizard: Create instant filter for one tag?
• Fix: Move selection up/down (keyboard) ignores filters
• Edit for filter rule?
• Manual ordering of c-filters and views and links?
• Custom View options; sort, sort after changes, etc. Use C-Views as list prefs spot? autonumber option?
• Repeat datebook items showing garbage in link text?
• "Request for linkage" options, so that desktops via xml can request linking but not perform it
• Password protection? (and what to do with XML for pass prot'd lists?)
• Pref to auto-import when opening Shadow?
• [easy] Widen category picker on file selection screen; wide cat names don't fit
• Pref; when set, todo date syncs to Finish date, when item checked.
• Cmd-A to send Note button hit, in Details window
• More "date picker" options: No Date*, Yesterday*, Today*, Tomorrow*, Day after Tomorrow, This Friday, Next Monday, One week later (from date listed, not from today)*, Today +1 week, Choose Date*
• Smarter VFS support; A pref to include VFS files in Global Find (so you can opt them out or in as you so desire). Handle filename links.. if not found internally, check for VFS with an auto-implicit open?
• File selection screen is slow to open or change categories, when the unit has many files (non-Shadow) on it. (Perhaps a smarter insertion is all that is needed?) (Due to the OS speed for scanning its internal directory, as it were). Caching the file listing could work but woud lead to trouble. As such.. we coudl do it, if it was a pref to enable this feature at all, and if there was a Refresh button on the FSS screen (and perhaps an auto-refresh after hotsync, withotu desktop).
• Minor bug: In some custom layouts, you can clobber pri-bubble?
• Snaz up file selection screen? At least fix the scroll arrows clobbering file ops arrows. Perhaps ditch filesize (unless pref?), and replace x/y with progress bars? button icons?
• Merge files [medium]? (Send-to-file from Clip works now, so not needed?)
• Shadow item to item (same file) linking
• Shadow item to item (multiple file) linking
• Redo "drag and drop" system (on handheld)
• Address lookup?
• BUG: When indent exp/collapse arrow on, and priority bubble on, sometimes pri-bubble can clobber the exp/coll arrow? (unverified, need to investigate)
• When wordwrap is off (lines truncated), allow expanding single items?
• When you want to make a datebook link in LM, and theres no target date set, you must return to details; have the error alert have a Set Date button, to make it easier
• File selection screen; show the earliest unfinished items target date
• BUG: Tiny one. When a todo link is updated on closing, it is not resorted. So if a todolist is sorted by priority, and you change the priority in Shadow, when Shadow updates the todo, it will now stay in the same location, despite that it should move in the database.
• "n/a" %age and n/a hilight; when an item is 100%, it should become checked. Unchecking it shoudl then change the items to n/a, rather than revert to previous value. Maybe a sort or filter on n/a items?
• Virtual grafitti (as part of Handera for sure; must do the Sony version now too)
• Large note attachs; rather than 4k, allow 16k or 32k? How will that effect performance? Should "giant" notes be unexpandable, or always cached out? (and if so, then the peopel who need them, for writing books etc, would have crappy performance, since all notes could be giant? Thats not right..)
• User definable colours; background1/2 (for ledger colours), default text colour (normally black), etc.
• New selection bar; instead of simple reverse, for colour units allow a colour of selection bar to be set. (ie: Yellow bar). Perhaps have selection bar foregroudn text colour settable (since one could pick a dark colour as selection bar, so obviously need to have contrast)
• "Prettification"; simplify the GUI (withotu sacrificing any power). Some thoughts include: Instead of New File showing the List Prefs screen, have it show a simple filename screen, and maybe let you pick existing files to inherit their layout. Or even just filename, and a "New From File" option in file selection screen. Then List Prefs can have the filename piece removed. When I add more customizable types, they dont' belong in list prefs anymore either, so the Customize button will have to move. The goal being to make it easier for newbies and more consistent for oldbies). Lots of analysis to do here.
• Misc field? (with limited calculation options?) wide and thin versions
• AN/DB4 icons?
• "Import ToDo Since..." option on Import Todo screen or Transfer menu? Shows a list of ToDo's "since", and let you import them into files of your chosing. Hard to streamline filename selection. Perhaps tie into New From this same thing, with implicit chosen file of current file.
• list or global pref; when active, hitting New asks you what Type; when using the mini-ed, perhaps instead of popping up a list of choices, have a list of choices in the mini ed; tiny little icons radio button style?
• Mini-ed: Put back the [N] (under [D]) button to summon note editor
• Speed up open and close times for lists, and file scanning for showing directory in file selection screen
• New from: New items should pick up sibling type if option set
• Add custom options; start and finish date columns
• /X to toggle expanded status?
• Weighted tasks
• "lock" recent files (so new ones don't push off old ones)
• BUG: New From doesn't sort, when sort-after-changes is set. New does (and new child, etc).
• BUG: Mini editor fails to inherit bullet type from rest of sublevel
• When tap on parent progress-bar, should perhaps pop up a one-height list showing current percentage? (tap is ignored currently)
• File selection screen; rhs popmenu. "Category" option will show "All" when in "All" category; should it show the files actual category?
• VFS and hires pref checks in 2.2 break OS2.0? mask them?
• BUG: (clatham) New File, change category, go to Opt, return, category isn't shown properly
• Increase full todo import split from 75 to XX on newr units?
• Bug: When filtered on handheld, keyboard up/down movement may disappear into items filtered away (the cursor moves down, ignoring filter shown items and going to hidden items, and thus cursor is hidden)
• On finish-date popup date picker, have an option for "target". If you wish to set the finish date to the target (especially at a later date, knowing you finished a project but not exactly when), this could be usefull.
• "Mark" and "Apply"-menu; Mark would be another column (say) where you could tick/check an item. Then an "Apply" menu would let you do things like "Apply -> Delete" (delete all marked), and such. Handy, to let you multi-select and do operations on groups. Due to now redundant with "Delete all checked", we'd have to remove all those badboys, and replace with "Mark all checked" and "mark all children" and such, and people would remember to "Mark all children" and then "Delete all marked". Complicates users life, or keep redundant.

• Autonumbering
• HTML export; "%" becomes a big mess..
• Print and exports; include creation date?
• Rich textl; click on a URL to launch browser. (ie: Should magicly work when toolkit upgrade done?)
• Plugins for import/export?
• REPAIR operation; given a PDB (likely corrupted), extract all text from it, and build an XML file from that text. Easy and could be a lifesaver.
• XHTML compliance; see doug@m-c
• Move, drag and drop, clipboard
• Shadow access button from Palm Desktop
• Autonumber class needs to be set
• Filter; use it for scoping of print and display and export? checkbox.
• Print options; consider funky ones like: hide notes, with or without date borders
• Print option; include creation dates?
• Decent tree view (all the Shadow widgets)
• Find function (replace is low priority; find is handy)
• shadow.exe should take a filename(s) and open them
• Ask user if they wish to associate XML with Shadow? (ask only once, store answer in config XML). Shadow.exe takign a filename ought to take care of this working, too.
• Category support? Sync cats, or always have handheld override? (ie: no cat mgmt on dt.. just copy cats from handheld?)
• What to do with OLE pastes? Keep objects? Convert to text? What about linking to other things than the handheld supports? Do we allow that, and do these foreign links get sent to handheld (and thus pass to other desktops?)
• Preference for "all lists to sync"?
• Format date display in localized format
• Re-order entry panel to be similar to handheld layout
• Open Word docs of various forms? (import) OR only outline type documents? Something like AbiWords importer filter..
• Import simple flat text files, too, and maybe CSV (level number based)
• HTML export; convert newlines to <p></p> pairs
• Internationalized HTML export; umlauts, etc borked.
• International support in filenames
• International support in filenames in links
• Files editted/reated on desktop and put out as PDBs need the desktop tag set, so handheld can warn on non-registration properly

• Are items linked to ToDos dupping a lot? (unconfirmed)
• [fix] Files sent from desktop to handheld do not have category; this can confuse list preferences dialog. Files sent up include deleted items!
• Handle filenames with international characters
• Internal note to self: EAB based unique-id marking, HH sort post-sync.
• Consider: Changes to allow syncing when handheld application not available (as if its on a card, for instance)
• Store ShadowPlan160 location in registry; desktop can then pick it up, even when its screwed up.
• Dups made when no changes made? (sync sync sync sync, dup? unconfirmed)
• Conduit hacking; I think if we improve (less picky) the slow-sync comparator we'd get less dups. give more granular options so user can control when to clobber or when to dup. Eliminate crashing? Allow moves? Conduit is done. OR do the rewriting of core to handle out of order items, with handheld resorting post-file-sync or post-sync or on first-open after sync? (very little mod to handheld..)
• "Always trust handheld" or "Handheld overwrites desktop" type options for conduit, to alleviate duplication issue
• Before and after scripts? (ie: To do crazy things like sucking websites into Shadow)
• Skip scanning files that themselves are not "updated" (the file modification date)
• Support multiple user specified paths to store XML files (network drive support as well)
• Syncing against a remote repository; if this isn't covered above (user defined path support), perhaps support ftp or http-uploads to keep files in remote location, and allow multiple people to sync against one file (basic groupware)

Website specifics:

• Add a simple everyman description of what Shadow Plan is. An "About" section
• Successfull recipes for reusable template files, and examples?
• Some better "user guide" type helpful documentation, as opposed to reference guide type information which we already have aplenty

And yes, theres lots of goals for after these and down the road. Hundreds of them.

Bugs and Feedback

If you find a bug, please email the author or join the discussion or development mailing lists in order to inform the author of the potentially unknown problem.

1. Palm OS revision (like 3,1, 3,3, 3,5,2, etc)
2. Shadow Plan version
3. Shadow Desktop version
4. Hardware Platform; Visor, TRGPro, Palm Vx, etc
5. Hardware Expansions; memory cards, CF cards, etc.
6. Any hacks you have activate during time of the incident
7. Clock speed; are you using Afterburner or similar?
8. Can you reproduce the problem, or did it occur just once, or intermittently?
9. Exact details of how you made the problem occur