MindReader 7
The recent ActivityOwner.Com review of MindManager 7 mentioned that a big downside of the new release was a bug that prevented the file operations in MindReader macros from working correctly when called by GyroQ. After some experimenting we’ve found that if file closure commands are moved to the end of the macros, then everything works!
New versions of the MindReaderOpen.mmbas and MindReaderNLP.mmbas that implement these changes have been uploaded to the macro library and the MindReader zip file. I also found a missing semi-colon in the “mri” installation script (code, packed text) that caused a problem in latest 1.9.3 release of GyroQ and fixed that.
New Features
MindReader has been pretty stable since the last upload on March 26th. A few changes have been made to the development versions on the wiki over that time and uploaded to the main site today:
- Map keywords can now use topic links to a particular portion of a map [edit: Version 7 only]. This enables new tasks to be sent to one or more particular locations or projects in a map rather than its in-tray. To use this feature you need to add the topic hyperlinks[edit] by clicking right on the destination topic, choosing “copy as hyperlink”, and then going to mindreader.mmap and pasting it as a hyperlink.
- Unless you disable it, new tasks now have their start date set to today. This allows you to know how long a particular action item has been sitting around.
- Better error trapping and commenting has been added to MindReaderOpen.mmbas.
- The macros have been modified so they can be called by a new MindReaderCall macro that you can assign to the File/Application menu. This lets MindReader run without GyroQ. Initially I was using this approach to get some MindReader functionality in v7 until the bug was fixed but now that is not necessary. Going forward it can be used to enable you to use MindReader in whichever version of of MindManager you do not have GyroQ pointed at. It also enables you to try MindReader even if you don’t have a copy of GyroQ. You just need to download the sample version of the mindreader.mmap configuration file rather than have it built by the mri script.
- The full MindReader revision history is available on the wiki.
Leave comments here if you experience problems or have questions.
Ribbon Interface Revisited
The other drawback mentioned in the MindReader v7 review as the learning-curve associated with the Ribbon interface. It has grown on me quite a bit in the last few weeks and I now prefer it over V6. I think the key for existing users is to go in expecting the big learning curve and prepared to dig around for your favorite commands for a few days.
New ResultsManager Release Coming
Gyronix is beta testing their planned free upgrade to ResultsManager for V7. The new interface is outstanding. It really leverages the Ribbon interface and results in a much more effective environment. More on that later.
Entries 
Ken Florian said,
May 28, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
Do you have a simple sample of the structure of the new ‘keyword’ topic functionality for the mindreader.mmap file?
ActivityOwner said,
May 28, 2007 @ 5:27 pm
Sorry — should have explained this further. I added an entry to the top of the FAQ for it. Let me know if it works for you.
http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=MindReader_FAQ
Ken Florian said,
May 29, 2007 @ 9:09 am
Thank you.
This is a fine piece of work and has made ResultsManager even more valuable to me. This is as close as I can get to old Lotus Notes Agenda capability on Windows platform.
Ken
ActivityOwner said,
May 29, 2007 @ 8:45 pm
Thanks Ken — I enjoy the program quite a bit as well. Its good to know it is finding some use out there.
BillS said,
May 30, 2007 @ 11:24 am
FYI:
A key to the new ribbon format in Office 2007 is the ability to maneuver the ribbon using the ALT key with some letter combination. In my test of beta MM7 about a month ago this was missing. I hope they have included this in the final
Jim said,
May 30, 2007 @ 8:31 pm
Do we know how soon the latest version of ResultsManager will be available?
ActivityOwner said,
May 30, 2007 @ 11:50 pm
I’m not sure when the official release will occur, but the beta is available now. More info on the new features is available here:
http://www.activityowner.com/2007/05/30/resultsmanager-7-preview/
Ken Florian said,
May 31, 2007 @ 2:10 pm
I am using MindReader constantly and still settling into a rythm with it. Eventually I hope to be able to make some contributions to ongoing development.
Jim said,
May 31, 2007 @ 7:11 pm
OK – I’ve got the new Mind Manager 7 Pro (and love the new look and ribbon – everything seems faster as well) and I downloaded and installed the latest ResultsManager beta.
To update MindManager all I have to do is overwrite MindreaderNLP and MindReaderOpen with the latest?
It seems I should wait on using the “Put it all at the front door” script until later? Just use the “Send Queue” button from GyroQ? And all my old tags on gyro q – q, c, o – those all work the same?
Thanks again for everything
ActivityOwner said,
May 31, 2007 @ 8:11 pm
Yes — You just need to overwrite the MindReaderOpen.mmbas and MindReaderNLP.mmbas files with the new versions. Nothing else has changed and s, q,c, and o work as before. s, q, and o can now jump to particular topics instead of in-trays.
The script I currently use (rfd-dev.txt) is listed on this new wiki page:
http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=Put_it_in_front_of_the_door
It currently skips the send-changes and rss portions and focuses on GyroQ queue, dashboard regeneration, and next-action email.
Ken Florian said,
June 1, 2007 @ 2:25 pm
I’m having trouble with the “jump to topic” functionality…it only works once…ie immediately after setting a topic hyperlink in the config file, then creating a new topic in gyroq and doing a “send”. Multiple topics in the queue or ubsequent attempts to create additonal topics generate the message “The label is not valid. Please verify the format of the label.”
Ken Florian said,
June 1, 2007 @ 2:26 pm
Simple addition to the ‘dates’ functionality of the Config file is to create a topic such as “end of next week” with this as the topic text
iif(weekday(date)
ActivityOwner said,
June 1, 2007 @ 4:01 pm
Did you have additional code that got cut off from the last comment? I’ll check on the bug you are describing with topic links.
ActivityOwner said,
June 2, 2007 @ 12:13 am
re: “jump to topic” functionality
Opps — this is embarassing. It turns out this “feature” wasn’t actually working. I hadn’t made much use of it myself but, as Ken pointed out, it seemed to work fine (if you used it only once). Having tested it out a bit now, it looks like it will take some further programming to get it working with v6 topic links as intended.
The good news is that I was able to get it working under version 7. You need to use “topic” links created by pasting in the result of the new v7 “copy as hyperlink” command. This type of link reliably gets MindManager to the destination topic.
Revised code for MindReaderOpen.mmbas is now at :
http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=Mindreaderopen-dev.mmbas
and at the download links for the main site.
Ken Florian said,
June 4, 2007 @ 11:58 am
Here is the complete code….seems like it might have gotten truncated by the blog software? Here it is, embedded in quotes. Remove quotes in step #2 to use.
1. Create a sub topic in “dates” called “end of next week”
2. Paste this into the Topic Notes
“iif(weekday(date)
Ken Florian said,
June 4, 2007 @ 12:01 pm
Hmm.. I don’t know how to post my litte “end of next week” content since the blog software is definitely truncating it at the “less than” symbol. Replace the words “lessthansymbol” below with the appropriate symbol.
iif(weekday(date)lessthansymbol7,date+6- weekday(date),date+6)+7
ActivityOwner said,
June 6, 2007 @ 10:06 pm
Thanks Ken — That’s a useful addition. I think it was truncated again. I’m assuming it should look like this:
ActivityOwner said,
June 6, 2007 @ 10:10 pm
The trick to incorporating that line is to include a “less-than” blockquote greaterthan” followed by “greater-than” /blockquote “greaterthan” around it.
Jose Miguel Bolivar said,
August 21, 2007 @ 3:08 pm
Hi!
I am using the latest version of MindReaderOpen.mmbas but I cannot manage to have the ‘jump to topic’ functionality working. The error message I am getting is “Error trying to follow hyperlink in mindreader.mmap:Object ‘CmjDocumentCollectionComObject’ reports and error: ‘unable to create document'”. I am following to the letter the intructions to copy as hyperlink and paste as hyperlink under “links” topic. In fact if I click on the pasted code it goes to the right topic on the destination map but none of the GyroQ tags work :-(
BTW. I am using the latest versions of MM and GyroQ.
Any help is appreciated.
Regards.
Jose Miguel
ActivityOwner said,
August 21, 2007 @ 9:37 pm
Sorry about that Jose — I don’t actively use that feature and must have broken it when making some other fixes to that area of the code.
Download this version of MindReaderOpen.mmbas into your “My Maps” directory and give it another try:
http://wiki.activityowner.com/images/5/53/MindReaderOpen.mmbas
Note that you need to create the hyperlink in mindmanager.mmap using the v7 “copy as hyperlink” command.
Let me know how it goes.
Jose Miguel Bolivar said,
August 22, 2007 @ 4:10 am
Now it works perfect. Thanks much!
Jose Miguel
ActivityOwner said,
August 22, 2007 @ 10:05 pm
Thanks for catching and reporting the glitch.
Jose Miguel Bolivar said,
August 29, 2007 @ 3:42 am
Hi again,
I sorted the “links” in mindreader.mmap alphabetically and it resulted in the MindReaderOpen macro not dealing properly with error trapping for “o” and “s” tags anymore.
After some testing I found out that the topmost item in the links branch, whatever it is, is automatically used as destination map in case of error, e.g. the entered text does not match with any item in the links branch.
I had expected the defaultmap to be the only one used in those cases, regardless of its position within the links branch. Should it not be the case?
The workaround I am using so far is moving the “mapmap” topic to be the topmost link but I would like to be able to move it elsewhere in the branch.
Thanks again for such a great tool!
Jose Miguel
ActivityOwner said,
August 31, 2007 @ 11:35 pm
Sorry about the confusion. MindReader began its life as a “1-line” macro in a GyroQ tag so its code had to be as concise as possible. It searches for keywords from the bottom up and defaults to the 1st link (defaultmap) if it doesn’t find a match. “mapmap” is the link that brings up the configuration map and can be anywhere in the list.
The defaultmap isn’t really an “error trap” as many things you enter into GyroQ are not meant to be directed to a particular map. Sometimes you just want to enter text quickly without thinking about a destination keyword. I probably have about half of the items I enter go there initially. The error trapping code actually sends items to a new map if something goes wrong (e.g. missing destination file).
I could change the code to look for the “defaultmap” keyword text rather than the 1st item, but that would make it english-language dependent. Another alternative would be to mark the default map with an icon or bookmark to denote it. The third option would be to somehow query GyroQ for what it considers to be the default map. I’d need some help from Gyronix on that.
Any suggestions or preferences?
Jose Miguel Bolivar said,
September 1, 2007 @ 8:13 am
Thanks much, ActivityOwner.
I didn’t explain myself properly as I actually meant “defaultmap” and not “mapmap”. It is therefore “defaultmap” the one I have moved back to the 1st link as workaround.
I have many “links” already an it is not easy anymore to see whether the new item I may want to add is already there or not, that is why I sorted the links out.
Also, although the defaultmap isn’t an “error trap” in itself I use it as such, since when I forget to enter a destination map I know where to find the “lost” items afterwards.
It would be great if the code was able to either look for the “defaultmap” keyword text or an icon. I have no particular preference so I would go for the easiest one. Personally I have no issue with the first option since all my maps are in English and MM and RM are in English too.
Thanks again.
ActivityOwner said,
September 1, 2007 @ 9:08 am
I changed the code in mindreaderopen.mmbas so that you can place the defaultmap link branch anywhere in the list. Just download the new version to your “My Maps” directory:
http://wiki.activityowner.com/images/5/53/MindReaderOpen.mmbas
Jose Miguel Bolivar said,
September 1, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
It works great! (as usual)
Thanks Much.