OutLink to your OutLook Task List and other new options
Several new options have trickled into the OutLinker GUI interface as it has gotten some use. These are available in the latest Beta download from the OutLinker Installation page.
If you review the screen shot above most are self explanatory, but here is some background:
There are four ways you can “send” the item you are processing:
- TaskList: Lets be honest. You’ve got 300 items in your ResultsManager daily action list and you are afraid to send urgent/important items into the abyss. The “TaskList” button will let you move the selected email message to the archive and create a new task list item with an OutLook hyperlink to it. This allows you to use the OutLook task list as a near term action list. If you later run OutLinker on a task created in this way, it and send it to MindManager, it will create a link to the message (rather than the task).
The ability to create OutLook tasks with links to messages has general use as well. In particular this opens up the opportunity for people to use OutLinker even if they don’t have MindManager. Note that OutLinker already had the ability to function without ResultsManager or GyroQ as well. A version will need to be created that doesn’t complain about lack of MindManager Type Library references. As time goes on, more “MindReader” like parsing can be added that mark up the OutLook task. Note that the Input box keyword for using this feature is s2tl.
This is a new feature so tread carefully. - MindRead: Send to MindManager immediately with destination determined by MindReader
- Send to Actve Map: Sends immediately to the subtopic of the currently selected topic. T
his button won’t be shown if MindManager is not open.. Outlinker will open MindManager and send to a new map if it is not currently open. - Queue: Add to GyroQ queue to be sent to MindManager later. This will be shown as “Send” if you don’t have usegyroq option set.
New Features on Interface
- Average Processing Time: Are you moving along at “2 minute action” pace? The form now keeps a running average time on task. It resets when you “Exit” from the form. This will need some tweaking to figure out when it should be running and reset.
- Delegate: You can now delegate to addressee or sender. The “addressee” check box automatically get set if you are processing a message you have sent rather than received. The other persons name is now shown in the form rather than cryptic olwf, olio, etc keywords.
- Done: If a task is complete but you want to log it in MindManager, you can check the “done” box.
Misc. Notes
Below is a summary of some items from discussion of previous release as well as a few lurking “Mention this on the blog” items I wanted to check off:
- Note that OutLinker assumes you have MindManager 8. If you are using 6 or 7, you will have to go into the OutLook macro editor and check off the appropriate type library when it complains.
- If you use other custom OutLook macros, manually install the macro and forms from the wiki rather than using the setup program.
- If you prefer the old “Input Box” interface, which retains focus and is better for keyboard processing, you can toggle back and forth using the “oltf” command (entered by itself).
- Note that if you put in the keyword “aey” in MindReader or OutLinker, it will pop up the ResultsManager edit dialog after MindReader finishes so you can add additional mark up.
- OutLinker will transfer OutLook Categories into MindManager
- You might want to turn off the “putmsginnote” option if you frequently process messages with a large body of text as this will sometimes cause GyroQ to fail during the transfer. It will also bulk up the size of your frequently used maps.
- If GyroQ does ever fail during transfer, edit the “My Maps\GyroQ\GyroActivator-Queue.txt file with a text editor and edit out the offending “{Queue:…” block in order to resend the queue and get at the items that went into queue after it.
Anyone care to volunteer to take the action item of editing all the above into the wiki documentation?
Entries 
Peter said,
February 28, 2009 @ 11:07 pm
This has been a good month, another great update! This will be next on my list to try. I switched back to outlook for task handling a couple of months ago (was using Gmail but am now syncing outlook and gmail). Just wish I wasn’t drowning in projects at the moment.
ActivityOwner said,
March 1, 2009 @ 8:26 am
New version uploaded. The code around hiding the sendtoactivemap button when MindManager wasn’t open was actually just opening it hidden at startup.
Ron said,
March 4, 2009 @ 10:22 am
I have been offline for a few days and am looking forward to using the new toys to get through my inbox. I just installed the latest version of Outlinker (02Mar09 -2) and am getting the following error:
“Compile error: Method or data object not found”
The debugger highlights “.actionButton” in line 800 “OutLinkerForm.actionButton.value = True”
Ron
Ron said,
March 4, 2009 @ 10:35 am
I commented that line out – it seems to have been added in the latest version – and all seems to be working well – not sure what the intent was or if I am missing something.
Ron
ActivityOwner said,
March 4, 2009 @ 6:57 pm
Thanks Ron — Did you install using outlinker.exe or individually from the wiki? That corresponds to a new set of buttons on the interface that sets whether a item is an action, project, info, or done. I may have gotten out of date with the form upload. I can try to upload the corresponding form later tonight.
Ron said,
March 4, 2009 @ 11:19 pm
I installed the latest version of the form and the macro manually. Everything works with that one line commented out.
Ron
ActivityOwner said,
March 5, 2009 @ 7:46 am
OK — It sounds like I had missed an upload of the latest form with the referenced button for manual installers.
The new beta version uploaded this morning adds a new feature. If you check the “attach msg file” button in the bottom right corner of the form, OutLinker will embed a copy of the message in the map as an .msg file attachment. to the topic.
It has very limited testing but appears to be working with “send to active map”, “mindread”, and “queue”. If you queue a message, you need to unqueue before your temp folder is cleared as the messages are stored there. You also need to download the latest version of mindreader so the code on that end can handle it. The syntax used is [attach:fullfilename].
This feature will be helpful for collaborative maps where a hyperlink to a personal pst file is meaningless for others. It also reduces risk that the outlook hyperlink will someday get disconnected from its associated pst file.
ActivityOwner said,
March 5, 2009 @ 11:28 am
Note that the attachment isn’t working in queue mode.
ActivityOwner said,
March 5, 2009 @ 10:23 pm
MindReader has been updated to fix the issue with queue and attachments. The problem was a last minute movement of the point in the code it did the attachment. MindReader saw the “.” in the filename as a substitute for spaces and removed it. The new setup.exe and wiki macro is corrected.
Peter said,
March 6, 2009 @ 1:28 am
got round to installing it (using outlook 2007 on xp), took a while to get it working…now I can queue and process my gmail messages from outlook…love it!
ActivityOwner said,
March 6, 2009 @ 5:40 am
Thanks Peter — What in particular gave you issues in setup? Gmail is a bit more complicated to get its IMAP setup if you haven’t already done so as well as the regular designation of the message archive store and folder. Note that the gdelete functionality now has “archive”=”leave on gmail” rather than “copy to pst file”.
Peter said,
March 6, 2009 @ 9:05 pm
The reason it took a little longer was I have my outlook in dutch language and in a different folder location. I had to adjust my macro-settings before having the macro’s visible from the customize menu, which had me flummoxed for a moment, I thought I was good on the macro part b/c my OL has no ‘medium’ setting and I had other add-ons working for which I had lowered my security settings in the past. Also had to adjust the folder in the reg file. Then once I had that I didn’t have the email folder correctly configured so I was pressing the outlinker button without anything happening. Basically it forced me to actually read the wiki pages in detail!
Now I’m getting used to how it works, I’m curious to know how your gmail setup works? What are your imap settings specifically- do you import your labels, inbox and ‘all mail’ folders?
I have two separate gmail accounts inside outlook – which might be a bit of an issue to start with. (I might bring that down to one). I want to be able to queue an item to gyroq/mm and archive or delete it with one click. Is that possible? When I try it now – it’s two separate actions. When I click queue, the window disappears and when I click archive/delete it does the same. Haven’t had a long look at the settings yet…
ActivityOwner said,
December 31, 2009 @ 12:19 pm
This comment/question slipped by me earlier in the year. Now that I have my rss map working again I see it. Let me know if you still have questions.