Hot on the heels of Alpha 4… one of the biggies is “Notes”, which is mercifully self descriptive

The mockup from late last year is how I think it’ll look:

But… before I get cracking on building this, it would *really* help Pete & I to understand what *you* will use it for (excess emphasis alert – way too much coffee circulating right now!)

Here’s what I think I’ll use it for:

• As the conversation gets longer (e.g. over several days/weeks), store – in one line – the current topic, so that next time you return you can instantly remember what’s going on. This would include any private thoughts you’ve had that will help guide future discussion to your goal.
• Store the next actions you must do to complete the conversation (this really does transform the email into a task, in my opinion).
• Link the email to wherever you’ve “escalated” it too. E.g. if you created a calendar event, link to that event. If you moved the contents into a wiki, link to the page. If you created a task in Basecamp, link to that. And so on.
• Join to other emails that are relevant. In Gmail, each email has its own unique URL (in the address bar) that you could store in the Notes field (this may one day work as a dedicated feature, if it were useful).

So, thoughts please  What will you do with Notes & shall we go ahead and implement it??

(As ever, this is better in the comments rather than by email, so we can all discuss together)

New Sidebar Priorities and Groupable Actions

The big lesson from you all during 4.0.0.3 was that the new sidebar categories (Today, To Do, Overdue and Low Priority) were pretty dire. Oh, and that you hated not being able to pin your own items I was duly humbled!

In response, and to get myself back into your good books (I hope!), I’ve simplified it down to just two things: Top Priority (Today, Overdue, Next/Starred) and To Do (Action, Some Day, Waiting On)… and those items are pinnable

That, I hope, takes care of the sidebar…

… which brings us to the ‘Active Results’ tab. 4.0.0.3 was a really early build, but it definitely did not *feel* right. The tabs weren’t quite making sense. But I felt there was something there, so I’ve pushed on with it, refining it to see if we make this work.

So, whatever you click on the sidebar open the appropriate search results, but skips straight to the ‘Active Results’ tab.

This gives you the results, separated by their status/deadline, and now (I love this bit!), groupable by Project, Deadline and Contact!

For example, you might have Overdue items split into their individual days, and you might have your ‘Action’ items shown under their associated Projects.

Prettifying the Overbearing “Mega Queries”

One big behind-the-scenes bits I’ve taken care of is ActiveInbox’s super queries (e.g. for ‘Overdue’ – which is a huge collection of deadline labels, clogging up your screen). Now, those queries are effortlessly changed into “Deadline:Overdue”, “Top-Priority”, “Project:Issues”, etc.

Making the HAB a little more functional

I cleaned up a few bugs David and others were requesting:

The Finish button now removes deadlines (and is the first choice if a conversation is archived, but has a deadline).

The calendar italicizes the current day.

There is a preference that makes ActiveInbox remove all status labels if you select a deadline; and vice versa. So, you can’t have S/Action and ‘Today’. This is in the preference cog on the HAB.

What’s Next?

It would be great if you could help me prioritize

So, we have the choice of:

1. Notes on conversations
2. Continued improvements to Active Results
   Tidy up the visuals to be more useable (the alpha is ugly!)
   Add an ‘Horizontal Action Bar’ to the results, to change labels
   Add a count to the ‘Active Results’ tab to make it clear something needs your attention
   Make it work with general searches (Active Results will fail for a search on ‘blah’ for example)

As ever – hit me with all your feedback on 4.0.0.4, good, bad and aggressive

In particular, are we on the right track with Active Results. Shall we keep evolving it?

How To Download ActiveInbox 4 Alpha 4

Please note, this is very important:

• It is only for Plus users. If you don’t have Plus, and you upgrade, you will not be able to use ActiveInbox 4 Alpha (and will have to uninstall & downgrade).
• It is only for Google Chrome (for now!)

1. Click Install ActiveInbox 4.0 Alpha 4 for Chrome and install as usual
2. Close the Gmail tab and open a new tab, and load Gmail in it (otherwise you will get visual glitches)

What’s New In Alpha 3?

The Sidebar Statuses Have Become ‘Today’, ‘To Do’, ‘Overdue’

I’ve hidden the old single Status choices (Next, Action, Waiting On) and bundled them into cognitive groups. E.g. ‘To Do’ comprises of ‘Next’, ‘Action’, ‘Waiting On’.

I found in v3 that I was avoiding certain lists too easily (e.g. ‘Action’), and emails were just building up.

So now we can click ‘To Do’ and get a complete, scannable overview of what must be done.

Tabs For Search Results: ‘Gmail’ & ‘Active’

These are a little like Multiple Inboxes for search results, but split into tabs.

So, rather than a big list of jumbled conversations, ‘Active Results’ – for any search you do – groups the results by a Status and Deadline.

(Theoretically in the future, it could also group them by Project, or person.)

What Is To Be Cautious About In Beta 3?

This is a really unpolished release! I just wanted to get a discussion going about the big questions below, before I invest too much time perfecting this and then discovering we can think of a better solution

For example:

• The tabs have no colour
• There should be a result count on the ‘Active Results’ tab
• Loading a conversation from the ‘Active Results’ tab view does not quite work properly. It loads, but Older/Newer are broken.
• There is no colour coding on the labels in the ‘Active Results’ tab view
• ‘Active Results’ will fail for regular text searches (e.g. a search for ‘bob’ will not find active items).

Big Questions For You For The Comments!

Please don’t email me with your thoughts – instead let’s discuss all in the comments so they’re all in one place

Question 1 – Do The New Sidebar Choices Suit Your Workflow?

Do the new sidebar choices of ‘Today’, ‘To Do’, ‘Overdue’ etc. fit your mental model – and work flow – better than just a list of statuses?

Question 2 – Does the ‘Active Results’ Tab Show What You Need?

How well does the ‘Active Results’ tab work for you? If it feels strange, do you think it’s because it’s not quite visually right (needs more polish), or it’s because there is a much better approach to be found?

My initial thoughts on this:

• The ‘Active Results’ tab should be consistently there, whether you’ve done a search or just clicked ‘To Do’ in the sidebar. It should become ‘normal’.
• But, we can do things to make it clearer what you’re looking at.
• E.g. if you click ‘To Do’, the search box changes colour and reads ‘To Do’ rather than a random search string.
• We can also mimic Gmail Results, by putting ‘Search Results for XYZ’ within the ‘Active Results’ tab view.
• On the other hand, it is possible that only regular search results should have both the ‘Gmail Results’ and ‘Active Results’ tabs; and that a click on ‘To Do’ just gives a simple, tab-less view of active results.

Question 3 – Changing Conversation Status Within Active Results

Do we definitely need a way to change the status of an email when in the ‘Active Results’ tab view? Is it not just better to go into each conversation? Your work flows here would be really interesting (hint: it’s going to get visually uglier to be able to change the status of emails from the tab view!).

How To Download ActiveInbox 4 Alpha 3

Please note, this is very important:
* It is only for Plus users. If you don’t have Plus, and you upgrade, you will not be able to use ActiveInbox 4 Alpha (and will have to uninstall & downgrade).
* It is only for Google Chrome (for now!)

1) Click Install ActiveInbox 4.0 Alpha 3 for Chrome and install as usual

2) Close the Gmail tab and open a new tab, and load Gmail in it (otherwise you will get visual glitches)

Just a quick note to say I fixed ActiveInbox following a recent change in Gmail.

Things like clicking a Status button would not work, and do now!

Getting the Update

Plus Users Trying Out The 4.0 Alpha

Chrome will auto update to 4.0.0.3 or greater to fix the issue.

Chrome Users

If you’re using the Chrome version of ActiveInbox, and you’ve not chosen to download the 4.0 Alpha (which you would remember!), it should auto-update to the latest fixed version (3.1.6.3).

Firefox Users

If you use Firefox it won’t auto update, this is because we’re having an adminstrative debacle with the Mozilla team, that we’re trying to resolve. So, you will want to update from www.activeinboxhq.com/install.html by clicking the link.

Never, ever believe a developer when they give you a deadline Especially an optimistic/ill one! But, here’s the good news… WE ARE UNDER WAY!!

It’s just for Chrome today. Firefox has some design glitches that we’ll get fixed over the weekend, after which all new releases will be for both browsers.

So what’s new?

A Glossy New HAB

The new design’s major goal is to be cleaner and more solid. There are quite a few visual glitches remaining, but I really just wanted to get this version out to you and start getting your feedback. They will be fixed in the coming days!

That Is At The Top & Bottom

Following Gmail’s cue, and your requests, the HAB now also appears at the bottom, so if you scroll through a long conversation you no longer need to scroll to the top.

With Deadlines Inline – And A Calendar!

A big change! When you click the textbox for the date, a calendar pops out so you can make a very quick visual selection for when the email is due. After my chats with Chris Barber, there is more yet to discuss about this, but that will come in the next few weeks – it’s exciting stuff though

A Much More Intuitive ‘Send & File’

I love ‘Send & File’, it nudges you to check how the email is categorized just at the point the status/project is most likely to change. It’s very timely.

But, it was never quite right in terms of usability. It had the weird ‘Archive’ button, everything was buried in dropdowns, and the actual ‘Send’ button just spawned a menu.

So, to be consistent and fix those problems, there is now a true ‘Send & Archive’ button (the ‘& Archive’ bit is a preference), with a ‘move nexter’ arrow, so you can send and go the next conversation.
When you mouseover this button, the floating HAB appears, so that you can update the Status/Project if you need.

A Quick Word on the ‘Move Next’ Arrow

In ActiveInbox 3, each button has 3 sections: the main (do & go back), left arrow (do and move newer) & right arrow (do and move older). This has too much cognitive decision time, so now the arrow only goes one way, to help you flow through your emails.

However, you can still change it, using the inline prefs (click the cog icon). So, if you’re a person who moves from older to newer, you can just switch to the left-facing arrow instead.

What Next?

I’m really excited about your feedback. Be as harsh, critical or suggestive as you please — it’s all VERY welcome in the comments! (Please, no emails – I hope we can gather as many thoughts as we can in one place).

What I is really useful to know is:
1) Does it make you feel more in control?
2) Does it make you feel like you can glide through your emails more quickly?

And what you think should be done if the answer is no or “not quite”. We can discuss

For features, tomorrow I’m going to start tackling the new Reviews, with ‘To Do’, ‘Overdue’ and ‘Low Priority’. I’m aiming for a release early next week; and then I’ll do another rapid release to factor in your feedback from this version.

How To Download ActiveInbox 4 Alpha 1

Please note, this is very important:
* It is only for Plus users. If you don’t have Plus, and you upgrade, you will not be able to use ActiveInbox 4 Alpha (and will have to uninstall & downgrade).
* It is only for Google Chrome

1) Uninstall the last version of ActiveInbox from Chrome (click ‘Window’, then ‘Extensions’, find ActiveInbox in the list and uninstall)

2) Click Install ActiveInbox 4.0 Alpha 2 for Chrome and install as usual

14:48 Friday 7th [Update]

I’ve just uploaded Alpha 2 (Chrome should auto-update for everyone who’s already installed, but you can install again if you wish), that fixes at least one Preference issue… I hope it’s the right one!