I realise with that headline I’m just inviting trouble (!), but GTDInbox has hit a significant milestone. I did not reveal it in the early blog post (about the beta of 2.0.9), but it has actually switched to 2.1’s new core; which has been heavily rewritten to take advantage of some great new techniques. What does this mean? It is noticeably faster, it uses significantly less resources, it should work well with other addons (like RTM), and it is at the height of its (current) functionality, matching anything the original version of GTDInbox could do and much more besides.
Of significant note, we have,
The Return of Hipster Print
Hipster Print is there to help you print out your task lists (and anything else) so you can carry them around. It is easy to use, all you need to do is load your inbox, or do a search (e.g. all Next Actions), and then click the Hipster Print button. It will open a new window with the most recent 100 threads, in a format that is easily printed (using Firefox’s print button).
Multi-Message Preview
The old preview only used to show the latest message on the thread; but you can do cycle up & down through all messages with the Preview box.
Pre-Labelling is Back
Pre-labelling – applying labels to messages as you compose them – is back and totally rewritten. It should now work everytime, and avoid the earlier problems (like re-labelling messages you didn’t want labelled!). The only caveat is that it is set on a timer, so it will not invoke the pre-labelling until ~20 seconds after you’ve sent the message.
Gauge the Magnitude of Tasks in your Inbox
The ‘Review’ drop down will now tell you, at a glance, how many Next Actions, Actions, Waiting On’s, etc. you have in your inbox; saving you the expense of needing to click them to find out.
Plenty of Bug Fixing
All of which have been reported by people in our community, so thank you al! (In particular, Paul Thompson, Frank Schneider, Jack Nelson and Jon Hind – cheers guys). I have to also say a huge thanks to the Gmail team, who have gone out of their way to make Gmail more accessible (and understandable!) for GTDInbox.
So what next?
Well, there will be a minor update to add a Pro version for those who have donated (which will store your settings across machines, and grant you earlier access to updates); followed by 2.1 sometime in August. 2.1 will bring really significant new functionality, to the point that once it is released, I will consider GTDInbox ‘done’, at least for its purpose of managing tasks within your inbox. (Of course, there is still plenty of stuff we can do later, around integrating other services).
And any problems?
The GTDInbox website is a little out of date, as it was written for 2.0. I’ll do a major overhaul for 2.1. There are still threads where the Preview will not work, I’m making a passionate plea to the Gmail team to resolve this; but until then I’m afraid we’ll just have to live with it. Of course, Gmail can still change; but the code is now pretty quick to update (and I can push it out via Mozilla almost instantly), so I hope that while irritating, it is under control.
You can download 2.0.9 from GTDInbox.com!
This was written by Andy Mitchell