kevin1's dashboard

Check out "Devo". It's like Quicksilver for Firefox. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fire... and http://abcdefu.wordpress.com/devo/

Devo is a command launcher that runs inside FireFox. It can be customized to do just about anything you want on the web. It runs Javascript internally so it's pretty easy to add things.

I added a new command that does the same thing as the "Sandy bookmark" described above. I can now hit "Shift-X" to get a pop up window, type "sandy" followed by whatever I want her to remember and hit enter. (I'm considering changing the key combination to be Ctr-;)

I named my new command "sandy" and gave it the following code:
var msg = devo_param; if(msg!=null){var win=window.open('http://iwantsandy.com/email/create?message[subject]=From Devo&message[body]=Remember '+msg, '_iwantsandy');}

Here's the problems with using names:

1) items would have to be changed to add a proper "name".
2) should all items have names? if so, should the user be forced to assign a specific name, or should Sandy come up with one automatically?
3) what happens if two items have the same name?
4) Even if items did have names, then a syntax must be developed for identifying an item by name in an email.

1) Items currently have a "name" field, but this title is really not correct. In most cases it's more of a description than a name. (i.e. Notes and Appointments) The current "name" is too long, and contains too many words. It's too verbose to use as an identifier.

Note the Lists and Contacts have a proper name. They separate the data into a "name" and a "details" section. This separation would need to be done for Notes, Bookmarks and Appointments. My idea is that the current data in the "name" field be moved to a "details" field. Then the "name" field can be used to store a proper name. (a short name) This would allow Sandy to do name recognition.

See http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy... and http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...

2) How to make sure every item has a name? And that all the names are unique?
Should Sandy search every new remembered item for a "keyword" and make a name from one or two keywords?

3) What should happen if the user tries to update something by name, but there are multiple items that have the same name? Or, should Sandy restrict two items from having the same name? (and how to do this?)

If the user tries to create another item named "appointment with bob" what should happen? If the user tries to rename an item, does Sandy have to check every other item to be sure the name isn't already used?

> update #appointment with bob. Wednesday 3 pm

4) How do we get Sandy to recognize items by name?
Should the name be in quotes? Augmented by a special symbol? Something else? Some ideas are:

> update #trader joe's, add case of 2 buck chuck for the party

So the name could start with a pound sign (#) and end with a comma or a period. Now, how do you add a period through Jott?

There is currently no way to update items by name. It's a great idea though.

There needs to be some identifier in order to tell Sandy which item you want to update.

A) identify the item by its ID number. (aka http://iwantsandy.com/1234567 )
B) identify the item by a relative ID number.
(i.e. be in a "conversation" with Sandy about an item and then update it.
When you say "update #1" the #1 is relative to the conversation.)
C) identify the item by name.

A) and B) work now. There are a lot of problems with C).

I tried documenting the search options in a "Search FAQ".

http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...

This question has been asked in a couple of other places.

http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...

http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...

Suggestion to use "every". Like "remember XX every Tuesday"
http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...

Some suggestions:

1) ideas on how a new tag should be:

Sandy can already do this:
> remember to buy bread @daily (repeats every day)
> remember to buy bread on Tuesday @daily (delays until Tuesday, then every day)
> remember to buy bread on Tuesday @weekly (repeats every Tuesday)
> remember to buy bread on Tuesday @biweekly (repeats every other Tues)
> remember to buy bread on Tuesday @monthly (repeats on the same day every month.)

> remember to buy bread Tuesday @monthly_dayOfWeek (repeats on the same dayOfWeek every month.)

My idea is that there only be one or two new tags. It would be a different kind of "monthly" tag. It would repeat every month on the same day of the week. The "2nd Tuesday" or "3rd Sunday" of the month don't need to be specified in the tag. The dayOfWeek and the "2nd" or "3rd" in the month are automatically determined by Sandy depending on when the start date is.

(Although the name @monthly_dayOfWeek is terrible, we should come up with a better one. Maybe @monthly_weekly?)

2) also need to count down from the LAST day of the month.

To do it properly, the FIRST Tuesday of the month is only half of the problem. There's also the LAST Tuesday of the month, and the second to last, and the third to last.

We need to be able to specify if Sandy should consider the repeating event starting on Tuesday to repeat on the THIRD Tuesday of the month, or the SECOND TO LAST Tuesday of the month.

> remember to buy bread Tuesday @monthly_dayOfWeek_reverse

konstak,

That's very interesting. Do I understand you correctly, that you're attempting to create a tag using Cyrillic characters? And Sandy's not interpreting the tags correctly?

Are you trying to create/modify tags through email or on the website?
> remember to buy milk @todo @somestringofcyrilliccharacters

Do we need a thread for non-ascii characters? (Like Cyrillic and Russian, etc.) Maybe something like this thread? http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...

Sandy's changed a little in the past several months. Here's how I understand how she works now.

1) Anything entered into Sandy is an "item" (use whatever word you want.)
2) Any item with a date is an "event". Items without dates are not events, they're something else. (Bookmarks, Contacts, Lists, or a Note without a date)
3) An item with a date (an event) is usually the same thing as an "appointment". Except there are bugs with this. (see further below)
4) a "reminder" is an alarm attached to an item. You can set the alarm to go off at a certain time, etc. You can set the action you want Sandy to do when the alarm goes off. (send you an email, an sms, or a Tweet) If the item has a date, then the reminder can be set to go off a certain number of minutes or hours before the date. (i.e. the reminder date can be made relative to the event date.)

In my opinion, any item should be capable of having multiple reminders attached to it. Sandy doesn't allow this now, but she should. (Google Calendar does) This is also the easiest way to understand the difference between an event date and a reminder date. Realize that any single item can have multiple reminders, but it only happens once.

The "big meeting" happens on Friday at 4pm, but I may want a reminder to start preparing for the meeting 5 days before, and 2 days before, and also 30 minutes before. This last one is sent as an sms, so I can get to the meeting on time.

5) types have been odd in the past. It was possible to create an item without a date (a Note) and then add a date later. But the item type stayed as "Note", it wasn't changed to "Appointment." This also worked in reverse. It was possible to create an item with a date (an Appointment) and then later remove the date. So you could have an Appointment without a date.
6) It seems they've done some fixing recently. An Item's type seems to correctly switch back and forth between a Note and an Appointment when you add or remove a date. Adding a date to a Note turns it into an Appointment and vice versa. (It is still possible to have a List with a date. Adding a date to a LIst doesn't change the List into an Appointment.)
7) a todo is not a fundamental type. At least, not anymore. Anything can be tagged as a todo. A List, A Bookmark, even a Contact can be a todo.

Oh, and it's now possible to create both an appointment and a reminder for the appointment in the same email. Use the @reminder tag.

> remember to go to the store Friday at 3 pm. @todo @reminder 1 hour before

Currently, Sandy's iCalendar feed (http://iwantsandy.com/xxx/list.ics) filters out all todo items that don't have a date. So, because the feed doesn't contain any todo items, it currently isn't possible to use the iCalendar feed to sync your todo list.

As far as I understand it, there are two types of iCalendar todo items, those that occur on a specific date and those that don't have a specific date. These later ones are filtered out because Microsoft Outlook 2003 can't handle them. Sandy only has one iCalendar feed (so far), and that feed has to work for all the calendar applications. (Outlook 2003, Windows Calendar 2007, Apple iCal, Google Calendar, 30boxes, etc.)

There are a couple future options that have been discussed. 1) Sandy could add an option setting that would allow a user to add todo items to their iCalendar feed (but the downside is the user wouldn't be able to subscribe to the feed with Outlook 2003), or 2) Sandy could have multiple iCalendar feeds. People would have to be careful to subscribe to the right feed with the right application. or 3) Maybe it is possible to get todo events to play nice with Outlook 2003 and they just haven't figured it out yet.

This is still not working. I've tried several examples and all the tags consisting of only numbers behaved as described.

remember to post furniture on Craigslist @todo @1
remember to post furniture on Craigslist @1 @todo
remember to post furniture on Craigslist today @todo @1
remember to post furniture on Craigslist @todo @12
etc..

In the meantime, I guess you have to use tags that consist of both letters and numbers. Try using @p1, it works great. (I tried using @priority1, but when I use Jott it keeps being interpreted as "@priority @one". @p1 works fine.)

I'm guessing that you're trying to delete a recurring event.

In order to delete all future instances of a recurring event, you have to use a special syntax. Add the appropriate recurring tag to the end of the forget command. If the event is tagged with @daily, then use "@daily". If you don't add the appropriate tag, Sandy will only delete that particular instance of the recurring event that you're replying to.

forget #1 @daily

I don't know how to stop it. Try emailing help@iwantsandy.com

Can we get the Daily Digest in an RSS feed? Not that I know of.

I've tried:
http://iwantsandy.com/digest (Works)
http://iwantsandy.com/digest.rss (This would be great, but it doesn't work)
http://iwantsandy.com/list.rss?date=t... (doesn't work well)

Adding "type=appointment" causes all non-appointments to be removed.
(i.e. it will limit the items to only events that are *scheduled* for today
http://iwantsandy.com/list.rss?date=t...

Adding "tags=todo" causes all non-todo items to be removed
http://iwantsandy.com/list.rss?date=t...

Note: The "date=today" includes all those items either *scheduled* for today, or that were *created* today, or that were *updated/modified* today. So it will include all Appointments, Bookmarks, Contacts, Lists and Notes that have a date of today.
(For some reason, the RSS feed doesn't limit the results to only items that have a date of "today". The RSS feed continues with stuff from yesterday, etc.)

Also, it seems that all RSS feeds at the moment are limited to one "page" of data. About 25 items.

Currently, it seems like your best option is to subscribe to multiple RSS feeds, One for appointments scheduled for today, and one for any other tags you want to be reminded about. (There might be multiple feeds for the different tags. too. Depending on if you want to use "date=today" for all the tags.)

http://iwantsandy.com/list.rss?date=t...
http://iwantsandy.com/list.rss?date=t...