ForumsNewsPlugin for ActiveWords


Plugin for ActiveWords
Author Message
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
Toodledo now has a plugin for ActiveWords. ActiveWords is a windows application that relates words with actions, giving you instant access to what you want. You can use it to quickly navigate to Toodledo from within any application on your computer.

UPDATE: Once you have ActiveWords installed, be sure to download and install the Toodledo plugin: http://www.activewords.com/applications.html


This message was edited Aug 21, 2009.
Anders

Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
I've never heard of ActiveWords, but it looks very interesting. It seems a bit like one of my favorite FF addons, Hyperwords, only it does a lot more. I will definitely have to try their trial.
David Turner

Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
will this tool allow you to add task to toodledo through activewords?
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
In a way. Its more of a super fast bookmark to our website where you can add a task and then return to what you were doing.
Anders

Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
It looks like it just allows you to search for things in your tasks, and quickly access stuff on the website. But I am going to try it out in a bit, and I'll report back if no one else answers that first.
buzz

Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
Hi All... We, e.g. ActiveWords have been working with Jake to create the ActiveWords Toodledo WordBase. The idea behind ActiveWords is to let you type, ink click on and ultimately speak a word, letter or acronym in any app at any time and get a predictable result. Hence I know type "ntask"... anywhere and ActiveWords takes me to the add a task window at Toodledo.

I just did this little video, let me know if it helps you understand ActiveWords better, and plan to do one for Toodledo.

http://www.screencast.com/t/PCdINrDI

We only work on Windows, and would love to find a great Mac developer to talk to about building a Mac version.

Try ActiveWords and tell me what you think.

Buzz
[email protected]
Claudio

Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
Uh, guys ... you've left out the link to the plugin.

It's here: http://www.activewords.com/downloads/awzips/toodledo.awzip

You first have to install ActiveWords.
buzz

Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
My error on not including the link! I am planning on doing a video so that you can easily get the power of the idea...

Buzz
Anders

Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
I just wanted to say I have been playing around with ActiveWords for a little while, and it is quite impressive. It is so unique that it takes (at least it took me) a while to figure out everything it can do, but I can see this revolutionizing the way I use my computer. Very cool stuff. The Toodledo addin is just icing on the cake. Also it has a 60 day free trial, so you have plenty of time to decide if it is right for you.
Anders

Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
Only issue I've found so far is that the "new task" active words just take me to my list. It would be better if it would actually pop open the add task box as well. By the way I just navigated here by typing "forum". Very cool :)
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Aug 21, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
The "new task" active word will directly open up the add task box in our next website update, which should be in the middle of next week.
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Aug 24, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
The "new task" active word will now open the webpage with the "add task" forum already open, to save you a few clicks.
ben

Posted: Sep 01, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
Buzz I've been an ActiveWords user for years and am very excited about the ToodleDo plugin. However when I try to install it gives me the error "The WordBase you are trying to insert is intended for use only with ActiveWords SE" I am running ActiveWords Plus v1.9 What's up with this?

ActiveWords Plug - If you are a Windows user Get it!!! I saw David Allen many years ago at a GTD seminar and this is one of the productivity tools he talked about. The mouse is a horribly inefficient time suck, keyboard as much as you can, AW is your path, extremely powerful!

Thanks
-Ben

update: corresponding directly with Buzz via email, will update with solution once we work it out.


This message was edited Sep 01, 2009.
ben

Posted: Sep 01, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
I also thought about combining AW with this...

http://toodledo.rubyforge.org/toodledo/

Anyone implemented this ruby API for ToodleDo on windows for command line entry?

-Ben
buzz

Posted: Sep 01, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
I have been trading E-Mail with Ben offline. I think his issue is that he was using an older version of ActiveWords which may not have recognized the newer architecture of our WordBase design.

He's going to upgrade, and we will see if there is a problem.

Our EULA provides that if you buy a copy of ActiveWords, upgrades are free and that you can run ActiveWords on any computer that you use. We don't care. We want ActiveWords to be with you always and everywhere, just like Toodledo.

Buzz
ben

Posted: Sep 02, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
Buzz thanks for your help yesterday, the Toodledo plugin installation issue was addressed by upgrading to v1.95, yay!

Fantastic support for an excellent product! I'll report back next week once I've had some time to play with this.

-Ben
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Sep 03, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
By the way, for those interested, here are the pre-set ActiveWords for Toodledo. You can always create more on your own.

word :: description :: location
===================
main :: Toodledo main list :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/index.php
folder :: Toodledo folder list :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/folder.php
context :: Toodledo context list :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/context.php
goal :: Toodledo goal list :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/goal.php
date :: Toodledo due-date list :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/duedate.php
priority :: Toodledo priority list :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/priority.php
tag :: Toodledo tag list :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/tag.php
status :: Toodledo status list :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/status.php
share :: Toodledo sharing :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/sharing.php
calendar :: Toodledo calendar :: http://www.toodledo.com/calendar.php
schedule :: Toodledo scheduler :: http://www.toodledo.com/scheduler.php
files :: Toodledo files :: http://www.toodledo.com/files.php
notebook :: Toodledo notebook :: http://www.toodledo.com/notebook.php
forum :: Toodledo forums :: http://www.toodledo.com/forums/index.php
new task :: Toodledo add task :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/index.php?quick=1
search :: Toodledo search :: http://www.toodledo.com/views/search.php?i=-9
lite1

Posted: Sep 07, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
I've spent about 5 hours with Active Words and intend to purchase it after the generous 60 day trial. It is a great tool and fabulous time saver. Since I keep urging TD to add more keyboard shortcuts as this is the fastest way for most users to navigate and make entries, AW which is primarily keyboard driven is a worthwhile tool on its own and helps with speeding up TD. It is one of my workarounds for dealing with some of TDs lack of keyboard shortcuts in many areas.
For example, I have modified the standard keyboard shortcut which allows you to get to the add new task entry set of fields regardless of what program I am in by typing "new task" then hit F8 key to my own preference of simply type "tdn" then hit enter key. So I can be in the middle of an email, or in a word doc, or browsing the web, or in excel and I simply have 4 keystrokes and I am ready to start defining a new task in TD. Really nice.

TD has shown above my post the standard Active Word(s) for triggering an event (go to a part of the TD website), and while I am new to AW, I think the following advice from an old timer of AW is worthwhile paraphrasing. Like TD which has great flexibility and can be customized, AW also allows easy modification of the Active Word(s) that trigger an event. The old timer suggested this as best practices:
1) If you are likely to use the AW frequently then make it unique and make it short. While some set of letters that might have personal meaning will help, if you use it daily you will know it your sleep in no time. Hence for me I took the long entry AW and modified it to just "tdn". I often refer to Toodledo in my own notes and communication as td and since I don't do football "tdn" is extremely simple for knowing this is how I can trigger entering a new task in TD. And rather than "folder" I use "tdf". But of course you can type the default or change it to whatever you want.
2)If you will want that "event" infrequently then you might have the Active Words be lengthy, descriptive, and naturalistic to your own thinking; e.g. type "IRS tax advice" then F8 key to go to website of your favorite source of information on tax tips.

I would add as my own suggestion:
Early on establish an Active Word that opens a word doc or excel sheet so that you can keep track of the Active Words that you have created or modified and what they trigger. I have already modified or created about 40 Active Words and while I have a good memory, it is nice to have a list. Seeing them suggests ways of clumping them which for me helps with retention e.g.
I have numerous Active Words that start with "w" for website e.g. wtip wpdx take me to the Tips forum of TD, and to weather for Portland Oregon. I'd suggest that you see that you will use AW a lot that it might make sense to establish Active Words but not actually start to use too many of them for the first day or two other to get the feel for how they work. I found that I wanted to shorten a lot of them more and more and saw more ways to clump them. Rather than starting to get motor memory for AWs that would soon be modified and need to be re-learned having them on a list and then scanning across them can show where there might be conflicts (you want the same 3 letters or 4 for two different triggers), or combinations that are just too hard to type rapidly (if possible use home key row combinations for AWs where it makes sense and where you are going to use them a lot).

If you try Active Words and I highly suggest that you do so (even though unlike TD there does not seem to be any referral program) I think the above suggestions will make sense to you quickly. The basic program is installed first and then there are perhaps 25 free add ons that you can then download from the website. One of these is the Toodledo add on, and there are others for Outlook (which I do not use)GTD for Outlook, Google and etc. These add ons have already mapped many useful AWs that you can then modify e.g. I can open the Google advanced search URL with a couple of keystrokes.

User forum has good advice and users indicate that developer/customer support is excellent. To me, it seems like a prog like TD which I wish I had found months or years ago. I am downright enthusiastic.

One final thing: AW has a built in productivity calculator which based on assumptions that you can modify (your typing speed; hourly fee; etc) it tracks your use of AW and how much time and money you have saved. It is a nice piece of marketing but supports some of my other posts that more native keyboard shortcuts for TD would be a huge collective time saver ( a second or two here and there across thousands of users adds up very quickly.)

As I get more familiar with AW and perhaps with a particular focus on using it with TD, I will possibly try to start a thread in the Third Party Forum where most of this post really should probably be.

Anders, as a keyboard shortcut junkie like myself, I expect that you are loving AW.

To all ... Enjoy your experimentation with AW.
Edward
buzz

Posted: Sep 09, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
I just read Edward's post above in detail.

A number of ideas:

1. There is no practical limit to the the number of ActiveWords that you can have, or the number of ways that you can use ActiveWords to do the things you do.

2. Here is one simple tweak that will help a lot once you install ActiveWords:

Right click on the ActiveWords monitor, go to options, go to confirmation options, and then enable the spacebar/spacebar box at the top 1/3 of screen.

This way you don't have to reach for the F8 key, and can just use the space bar to trigger ActiveWords.

3. If you want to see the ActiveWords that you have created, just type the word "view" hit either F8 or spacebar twice.

4. We are constantly looking at buiding what we call WordBases or ActiveWords agents, e.g. http://www.activewords.com/plusapplications.html So...any suggestions as to apps/ideas we can enable, please let me/us know.

5. In terms of ActiveWords best practices, we would like to think that with ActiveWords the limiting factor becomes your imagination. But there are somethings that I do all the time that seem to work well.

Examples...

a. I name things with either words or acroynms according to what comes first to mine. An example might be that in my ActiveWords world, using either "w, wd, write, or word" when triggered launch Microsoft word.

b. I travel about a week a month, and have learned to name the weather underground sites for the cities that I go to by a convention, e.g. wusea, takes me to the weather here in Seattle, e.g. wu for weather underground and then the airport code. This allows me to make sure that when they slap the baggage tag on my suitcase that at least for the moment it is going in the right direction.

c. And for TD, I wrote a quick script this morning, e.g. Try this little script and tell me what you think.

<tdt><WAIT FOR WINDOW:TITLE=Toodledo>@Trader Joe's<TAB:6>

Where TDT... is my ActiveWord for "Toodledo add task" e.g. see below...
I am mulling over building a whole list, e.g.

@costco =atcos
@computer = atcom

ActiveWords is a bit like an erector set, we don't care what you build, we just want you to have fun and get both the machinery out of your face and and get things done.

Buzz
[email protected]
IceHeartX

Posted: Sep 11, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
So, yeah, active words is pretty awesome, and integration with TD is pretty much a dream come true.

I took the standard td wordbase and shortened a lot of the standard names and genericised them.

n.td - new task
m.td - add multi
s.td - search, etc.

while n.em is a new email in thunderbird and n.gm is a new gmail msg.


I know that n. is always new and just have to remember my program short forms.

oh, and the "find" activeword can be used to give you a quick list of defined words in your base if you name them consistently

find[space][space]n.[enter]

gets me a list of all the fancy new types of things I can create.
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