OutLinker Contexts
I thought it was done, but one last someday/maybe feature creeped into OutLinker last evening. OutLinker now has buttons to allow you to set the context for the task associated with the message quickly.
Note that the contexts assigned with the buttons (or by just putting the @context in the next action) are now automatically set as the category if you choose to send the task to your Microsoft Outlook task list. This is particularly useful for OutLinker Lite users who are not yet working with MindManager or ResultsManager. OutLinker also recognizes some common “context verbs” and sets an associated context.
The text associated with the “context” buttons can be fully customized under the Options menu and can be re-purposed if desired to set different mindreader keywords (e.g. destination map keyword, alias).
Entries 
ActivityOwner said,
March 31, 2009 @ 6:19 am
There is a new version uploaded that adds a set of configurable “labels” that can be customized to fit your needs as areas, destination keywords, aliases, etc. This should provide sufficient customization to avoid need for typing (will be calling this MouseReader soon:-).
If you are waiting for someone, this is mapped into the OutLook Task “company” field for easier sorting of task responsibility.
Also, there is a new download for version 7 users that has the v7 type library selected so the user doesn’t need to do it. Please test and let me know if it works for you.
Ron said,
March 31, 2009 @ 3:24 pm
I tried the V7 installer. The good news is that it did not select the V8 type library so Outlinker did not crash when I tried it. The bad news is that it also did not select the V7 type library so it did nothing until I manually selected the library.
ActivityOwner said,
March 31, 2009 @ 5:58 pm
Thanks Ron — I actually didn’t have v7 installed on my machine but it had the type library from an earlier install in the drop down, so I was hoping that was enough to work on a machine with it actually installed. I just installed v7 and linked it to a live library. Can you give it another try with new version uploaded?
Also — what do you think about removing the old “non-form” interface just to clean up the code a bit? Is form keeping focus sufficiently?
Ron said,
April 1, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
That seems to have worked, but now I have a bigger problem – GyroQ will not process the queue items created by Outlinker. I get an error:
“GyroQ failed to send the queue file. This may be caused by an error in one of the tags. To empty out the queue file, use the Discard Queue command in the options.”
I am using GyroQ 1.9.4.7 with MM7.
The samething happens to queue items created with the FQ tag or seemingly any other tag so it might not be related.
Ron said,
April 1, 2009 @ 5:53 pm
Well, everything started working again – no idea what or why. The V7 install worked perfectly this time.
Also, removing the non-form interface would seem to be the way to go at this point. The form is retaining focus nearly all the time and the few times it does not are not really problematic.
Ron
ActivityOwner said,
April 1, 2009 @ 9:14 pm
Hi Ron — Thanks for the v7 test. Having that install available should help make it seemless for a much larger group of people.
Glad the queue issue worked out. Did the error happen immediately when you hit the button or after gyroQ chewed on the queue for a few seconds? I remember seeing an immediate problem once and like you it went away. If it is a problem with something in the queue, as you probably know, you have to empty the queue to get rid of it or it will just return. If you have anything important in there, you can edit with notepad and look for task it seems to be stopping on.
In general OutLinker plays well with the queue now that it limits the max size of message body to include and both OutLinker and GyroQ have gotten better at screening out escape characters.
I’ll look at taking the old non-form interface out in future revisions. For now I’m happy to be going on 24hr with no need to fix it and no urge to change it!
Ron said,
April 2, 2009 @ 8:53 pm
The error occurred immediately – absolutely no delay. I did backup and edit the queue using notepad but nothing worked, and then suddenly it did – very weird. I have run into problems in the past with individual items in the queue and I was always able to edit those specific items to resolve the issue. This was something different entirely. My thinking is that it is a GyroQ issue and has nothing directly to do with Outlinker. Interestingly I was able to process the items that were in my queue after the problem fixed itself – I had backed them up to a different file and just copied them back and away we went.
ActivityOwner said,
April 2, 2009 @ 10:54 pm
Thanks for update. Perhaps OutLinker had the GyroQ.ini file locked in write mode and GyroQ couldn’t take control of it?
I uploaded new versions of the v7, v8, and outlinkerlite install with a few changes. This one will unzoom a thread zoom once you process it down to 1 message.
The other new feature is that if you check of the “contact about” and place in task list it will put the person’s name in the “billing information” field for grouping (only place left). The owner of the task goes in the “company” field and context goes in “category”.
I’m experimenting with sending more short term tasks to task list rather than into MindManager abyss. Sometimes a “waiting for” gets done quickly or is replaced with a more recent message in a thread.
This version also automatically brings up the message associated with a task rather than prompting. It also eliminates the prompt to delete/complete the task. This will result in some tasks getting marked done or deleted if you reply to them, etc. Need to experiment with ideal flow here.
ActivityOwner said,
April 4, 2009 @ 9:27 am
There is a new MindReader version (20090402) that fixes issue of resource keywords not being recognized if they are not in the 1st bracketed addition. The code was trying to avoid false positives. Working better now. Should download, particularly if you are using OutLinker with MindReader.
http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=Setup