Chandler desktop PIM

[adlai]

http://chandler.osafoundation.org/

do you think it can be made to sync with the Clie?

[pgenie]

Gain adoption in the market
Target the specific requirements of individuals, groups, small-to-medium enterprises, and members of multiple groups
Provide simple migration paths from existing products for individuals and organizations
Support access via the Web, PDA's and other portable devices, in addition to PC's
Implement “killer features” and order-of-magnitude improvements in key capabilities
Make source and object code publicly available at no charge

You could give it a try and let us know!

[adlai]

as soon as I get it the PDA in the mail, I'll let you know :)

in the meantime...

[TJ37]

Okay, I was interested and tested it out.

pgenie: I believe that is their "philosophy" or in other words that is what their goals are.

Chandler 0.6 for Windows Mini-Review
At first glance, I found the program to be a bit large for what it's worth. The download is a 14.4MB compressed executable file which becomes a whopping 71.85MB after installation without any entries. Not only is it gigantic, but its a system resource hogger as well wasting an incredible 70MB of RAM.

After installing the program and evaluating it for several minutes, I found the graphics and graphical user interface to be quite clean. Simple can be good, but when something becomes too simple you begin to wonder how it would preform with more. The functionality of the datebook and tasks list is weaker than Palm desktop and I would say it's basic at best.The main focus of Chandler as of 0.6 is the ability to share calendars, notes, appointments, etc. through it's "Cosmo" server (which is another project itself) which I have not tested. There are some odd features included which are quite interesting, but I don't really understand the relevancy of these features in a desktop PIM. Features include Amazon product lookup and Flickr tag lookup. Some niceties include RSS feeds, Mail (SMTP, POP, IMAP) integration, and a Trash feature. There are no right click menus which I find extremely inconvenient and uncustomizable list columns that only consist of WHO, ABOUT, and DATE. There is only the ability to Import/Export iCalendar data (and images, for what reason I don't know). There is also no ability to import .dat files which is what Palm Desktop uses and no PDA support in this version.

Bottom Line
Chandler is still an early release. Of course, you should test it if your interested or curious -- it may fit your needs. It seems to possess great potential, but as of this early version it's not what I'd let stay on my hard drive after evaluating it.

[pgenie]

@TJ37

Thanks for your mini-review, apprecaited.

[madmaxmedia]

One main differentiating feature of Chandler (in addition to what TJ37 says) is there is no absolute 'boundaries' between items, whether they be contacts, tasks, to do's, email, etc If you get an email, you can assign a due date to it, and it will show up in your list of items with due dates. Obviously, you can imagine different combinations.

I think this is a very interesting approach, as instead of creating new to do's or calendar items, you can just add the necessary fields to existing records.

In practical usage, the change may or may not be that noticeable. but I think it is a worthwile avenue to pursue. In general, it's nice to to have forced 'borders' around your different bits of PIM information.