Grab GTDInbox 3.0 Alpha 3 by clicking the link. If prompted, tell it to open with Firefox. If you have any trouble, download it to your computer first, and use Firefox to click ‘File’ then ‘Open File’ and select the XPI you downloaded.

We’ve focused on stability here, so no UI changes; but it should be much more reliable (I realise I’m asking for trouble saying that!).

In addition to the stability, I concentrated on a key area of the Gmail API (local email management) that will pave the way for faster and more robust future features.

And speaking of those new features… that is the next phase. Next week we’ll be tweaking the UI and finally adding in Preferences (they’ve been a real pain so far).

We’ve got a really clear idea of the overall look & feel we’re now going for – a true ‘task manager’ within Gmail, and as streamlined as possible for handling incoming emails. I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks.

Keep up with little updates on GTDInbox’s Twitter page, and use the blog here for feedback.

Known Issues (as we couldn’t tackle some higher level stuff):
* If a new message arrives, it confuses the Preview popup
* There are some circumstances (like after clicking Archive to move next) where the Labelling Box doesn’t show in a Conversation

PS It’s a Bank Holiday here in the UK (as other places I expect), so I won’t be able to reply to any emails until Tuesday.

Although it’s currently lower priority that GTDInbox itself, I must confess I’m really digging the new website. It’s got a few rough edges and no images, but you can take a little peek at http://www.gtdinbox.com/3/

Would love to hear what you think, and any ideas to better explain what we’re doing.

The 2nd alpha doesn’t appear very significant, so you’ll just have to trust me there are big changes underneath! Those changes are mostly preparing to add the Preferences back in, and that they’re capable of supporting our upcoming mini-plugin system (experimental features galore!). They’re also going to link to our imminent and free ‘GTDInbox Account’ that will let you share Preferences (and other useful data) between machines. But all that’s in the future…

Right now, I’ve attempted to target some of the worst bugs, like not loading or causing Compose/Reply to hang. I’m not 100% of my success with that yet; but critical bugs are obviously top priority in the alpha stage.

I hope – although I can’t say for certain after the setbacks over the last few days – that we might be able to sneek another alpha release out tomorrow (Thursday), but if not there will definitely be one by the weekend. I’ll be able to start focusing on front-end bugs/fixes from tomorrow, so improvements should become more obvious.

Download the new alpha at http://www.gtdinbox.com/gtdinbox_3-0a2.xpi (it opens with Firefox – you may need to download it to your machine first).

I was impressed when quite a few people found our Twitter account through their own detective work… this is the first time we’ve actually linked to it! The reason for going public is that we – that’s Pete and I right now – have started using it for smaller bits of news about our progress.

Please come and follow our updates at http://www.twitter.com/gtdinbox

Just a little update on progress… I’m working on fixing the updates to problems everyone reported on the first alpha. It seems that for some people it will not load, and for others it causes it to hang when they Compose/Reply. Attempting fixes on both but I’m not yet 100% sure what causes them.

I should have another alpha release ready tomorrow (Tuesday). It’s taking a bit longer than planned because I tried to squeeze in Settings; and it’s a lot more complex than I anticipated! But for a good reason – it’s a key part of our new ‘expandable’ platform that should – in good time – see experimental new GTDInbox functionality introduced faster, and possibly even from 3rd parties.

It is a little behind schedule, it is far from finished, and it may do less than earlier versions of GTDInbox did… but no one can now deny it is here!

Most importantly of all, I hope donators feel exceptionally proud – you are directly responsible for the new found momentum GTDInbox has. I hope I said thank you to every one of you personally, but I’ll never hesitate to say it again – thank you all.

The new website will go up either later on tonight or tomorrow, but it doesn’t yet have any help documentation anyway – so you are not missing anything.

As such, this release is only for people experienced with GTDInbox. There are no options to customise, no install routines to set labels up, and no help guides.

It’s also important to note that none of your settings will be carried over, but there are virtually no settings anyway. (I will try and set up the Options interface as soon as possible).

What we do have is a brand new backend that is more robust, and a brand new UI that has stripped all non-essential features and focused on making the remaining core features work as well as possible.

Over the next few weeks you will see rapid releases as we fix the bugs you find (please email me for now – andy@gtdinbox.com – the forum is no longer the best place to report bugs); and build in the features we want for launch (there’s really just a handful of filter functions and a lot more polishing remaining). So stay peeled on this blog.

Please download it from,
http://www.gtdinbox.com/gtdinbox_3-0a1.xpi
(You should be able to open this link with Firefox and it will automatically install; otherwise download it to your computer, then in Firefox click ‘File’ -> ‘Open File’ and select it from the location you downloaded to. In both cases you will need to restart Firefox).

Just a quick update while we’re waiting for 3.0a1… both the public release and the 2.1 alpha release have been updated to fix some recent glitches. To update go to the GTDInbox website and click Install.

It has not been our best kept secret, but it’s time to come absolutely clean… we have spent the last 4 months working – funded by your donations and inspired by your feedback – on what has become GTDInbox 3.0. Pete (Lambert) and I started by going right back to basics on the details of how GTDInbox will look, feel and work; Stephen (Augenstein) has put together a very robust framework for interacting with Gmail (far better to anything that went before); James (McCarthy) has been busy preparing the server-side account; and courtesy of Rob (Mientjes) we even have a new logo!

Now for the contrition… what will be released later this week isn’t really ready in the traditional sense of the word. We’ve stripped the features right back (but improved the quality of each one), it’s not been tested outside the core group, and it’s entirely unoptimised. (The reason for the premature opening up I hope is about to become clear…).
Meanwhile, you may have noticed that communication (on the blog, email, forum, etc.) has been poor over the last few weeks. I’ve optimistically believed we’ll be ready “in the next few days” for about a month; and as a consequence have repeatedly put off taking the time to update everyone on what’s happening. The constant small setbacks are mounting our internal stress, and I expect the silence is no fun for any of you either. And frankly, it’s a shoddy long-term approach (as there will always be new features coming, and we cannot keep going quiet). The root of all of this is a lack of resources that makes it difficult to simultaneously plan, develop, support and still communicate – but happily, the sentiment is now such that it is time to start solving this problem systematically.

So what is the plan? In essence it is to go back to our earliest days of open and regular frankness!

1. 1) We will be launching a new blog on www.gtdinbox.com (ProductiveFirefox.com is being steadily written out – all our focus is now on expanding GTDInbox) where we discuss upcoming features, announce releases, share tips and generally bounce ideas and feedback around.
2. 2) We’ll be launching a new kind of forum for suggestions and bugs that makes it far simpler for us respond to ideas, and for everyone to vote up their favourite topics (to ensure the general consensus drives us forward).
3. 3) We will use a wiki (internally-edited initially, but we will try and find a way to open it up) for documenting features, roadmaps, etc. It’ll be easier to update than the current website, so we will be able to keep it up to date; and slowly open up to allow more contributors to edit it and add useful details.
4. 4) We will fully document our development/feature roadmap as far as we can, so everyone knows – and can comment on – our general direction.

We have found our business model, that will is intended to allow us to expand our resources for more rapid development. It’s almost embarrassingly simple, but then again simplicity is our goal in every aspect of GTDInbox! All standard features will remain free forever, as will some new features; but we will develop several Pro plugins (with a fair annual fee) that specifically appeal to people with more advanced needs. We’re also considering a (neatly segregated) advertising area for other (interesting – they’ll be hand approved) productivity solutions.

Finally, both the Gmail Abstraction Layer and the standard GTDInbox code will be fully open source (as of the ‘final’ release of 3.0 – due in June). We will support contributors as much as we can.

So what are the next steps?
On Thursday (7th May) we will release the new alpha of GTDInbox 3.0 on both this blog and the new one, along with the new website and forum.

And lastly… take a quick peek at our new logo (I love it!):