InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by Armando on 2010/04/27 11:13

I posted a DB that I created to organize meeting info. There are a few little scripts, auto-assign, equations and conditional formatting doing stuff in the background.

If you have suggestions, comments, please don't hesitate.

(Some of the structure might change as Pierre is going to change the way filters interact, etc. in IQ)

P.S. : And if you have some ideas of what kind of DB we could work on in the next few months, please suggest. Mark Gregory suggested a GTD implementation a while ago. Other suggestions : CRM DB, Reference/Research DB... These could all be good projects.

=================

EDIT 2010 05 17 -- 14 38 : The DB is now attached to this post.

V0.61 changes -- 2010 05 17 -- 19:51

Item color can now be manually modified and it will remain unless some other automatic coloring is active (for some specific items like action items when affected by urgency, or contacts, agenda items, etc.

V0.6 changes -- 2010 05 17 -- 16:35

New "Reports" grid with help notes (recommended to use WYSIWYG to export as some colors won't be exported with HTML export. Still missing indications has how to create a more complex/granular HTML template for more sexy data exportation)
New "Private" field (with icon etc.) to mark certain items as private for easier filtering in the report printing process

Comments

I took a quick look, and it is impressive. Thank you! I'll definitely be giving feedback.

By the way, how massive was the effort--was it from scratch, or a derivative of something you already use?

On the DB idea, I'll look in the old forum database, I believe there were some others.

[quote=KeithB]

I took a quick look, and it is impressive. Thank you! I'll definitely be giving feedback.

By the way, how massive was the effort--was it from scratch, or a derivative of something you already use?

On the DB idea, I'll look in the old forum database, I believe there were some others.

[/quote]

Thanks Keith. The newer version is better (go to the same link I provided and scroll down to V4) I completely forgot to change the tutorial part etc. in V3, and I also made a few adjustments here and there...

Basically.. It took many hours of fiddling with colours etc. scripts, and trying to find solutions to a few bugs (date inheritance, readonly copying, dropdown menus with SQL requests...) which Pierre will soon correct correct, hopefully. I took my inspiration from MeetingSense (a dedicated software for taking minutes), and took a bunch of stuff from my own DB. When I'm satisfied with this standalone DB, I'll merge it with my own.

What's missing is 1- easy report creating, and 2- automated e-mail and notice sending to all meeting participants... I'm waiting for Pierre's availability to work on that... The few HTML tags for HTML export is not enough for what I have in mind.

With all that, it's going to be even more powerful than dedicated solutions, I'm sure...

=========

All in all, yes, it did take some time. But after a few like this one, it's going to be quicker and quicker. :)

After seeing the icons in this, I'll be converting some of my database over to this way. That's a clever way to be able to have a lot of fields showing in the grid.

I'd propose adding your custom icons to the default distribution set. That would make a 114 total or so. That would avoid some setup for a prospective user.

[quote=KeithB]

After seeing the icons in this, I'll be converting some of my database over to this way. That's a clever way to be able to have a lot of fields showing in the grid.

I'd propose adding your custom icons to the default distribution set. That would make a 114 total or so. That would avoid some setup for a prospective user.

[/quote]

Hey KeithB

Funny, I haven't heard "Now You're Cooking" mentioned in years. I had my wife's recipes on there for a while

I'm also interested in icons. Where are they distributed & how are they integrated?

Thanks.

[quote=jan_rifkinson]

I'm also interested in icons. Where are they distributed & how are they integrated?

[/quote]

Armando made an excellent IQ manual page on icons -- link to nonexistent node ID 738 --

He has some custom icons in his sample file mentioned as presently housed in the donationcoder forum.

His sample file presently has a zip file of his icons that you have to install, in the default location.

[quote=KeithB]

On the DB idea, I'll look in the old forum database, I believe there were some others.

[/quote]

http://www.sqlnotes.net/Forums/tabid/54/forumid/16/threadid/4277/scope/…

school coursework

http://www.sqlnotes.net/Forums/tabid/54/forumid/16/threadid/4119/scope/…

link to zotero

The managing your finances discussion--I'd like to see an enhanced version, with an odc to excel, etc.

Many years ago I used a cooking database called Now You're Cooking. I downloaded it again, and will see if that could be possible to emulate some of it's concepts.

[quote=KeithB]
http://www.sqlnotes.net/Forums/tabid/54/forumid/16/threadid/4277/scope/…
school coursework

http://www.sqlnotes.net/Forums/tabid/54/forumid/16/threadid/4119/scope/…
link to zotero

The managing your finances discussion--I'd like to see an enhanced version, with an odc to excel, etc.

Many years ago I used a cooking database called Now You're Cooking. I downloaded it again, and will see if that could be possible to emulate some of it's concepts.
[/quote]

I've been playing with the idea of creating 2 (ambitious) DB :

- A CRM solution
- An full accounting solutions...

These would probably take 2 and 3+ weeks of work (respectively). I eventually would like to do it, but not now. :) Maybe if that was linked to a contract of some sort...

And I should wait for V1 to be out anyways. Some bugs should be fixed and a few important features are missing at this point :
- Search an replace is one of the big ones.
- Another one would be task recurrence.

- more complex/refined HTML exports (If not already available)

Other interresting DB would be :

- Full fledged project management
- Full fledged GTD/Covey system which integrates values, goals etc. into the mix (à la Achieve Planer)

(this one is almost all set up in my own DB, but it's not necessarily super user friendly as I don't mind user unfriendliness for my own usage... :) )

These too will necessitate a few more features, like :
- task recurrence (again)
- ability to show events created in the grid... in the calendar.
- Ideally the gantt would be able to show more than actual start and finished dates but also Planned Start and Finish dates
- more complex/refined HTML exports (again... If not already available)

Also what I think would be nice:

- Bibliographical/research/article writing DB (à la IdeaMason)

- A mood and health diary, with graphs etc.

[quote=KeithB]

... I'll definitely be giving feedback.

[/quote]

I like how you have the grids titled 2-Meetings, etc, with the "2" corresponding to the alt-2 shortcut (which doesn't seem to be working on my machine now unfortunately)

[quote=KeithB]

... I'll definitely be giving feedback.

[/quote]

I like how you have the grids titled 2-Meetings, etc, with the "2" corresponding to the alt-2 shortcut (which doesn't seem to be working on my machine now unfortunately)

[/quote]

You know what, in the latest version (the DC link, first post in this thread) I had to remove the numbers (which effectively matched the alt-# shortcuts even if these don't work anymore, as you said) as I noticed that hyperlinks to grids didn't work when the name included numbers or special characters. (Note : I admit that I haven't tested all characters and the problem might be either the number or the hyphens.)

I've added the 2 things mentioned above in my list of things to fix -- not here or in Mantis... The list is getting longer and I'm waiting for some space to be cleared to expose new bugs or suggestions... My list is starting to be a bit long.... Pierre ? :)

Anyhow... As far as the IQMinutes go, the latest version is probably much better than the one you're playing with. If some people show a real interest, I might polish it and work on other aspects (like the reports).

Armando,

I'm assuming the "latest version" is the one labelled V6? Even if the .zip file had a different label.

In any event I would certainly appreciate some reporting, if only from the selfish viewpoint of saving myself some cutting and pasting!

Thanks again for your work.

John

[quote=jdonlan]

Armando,

I'm assuming the "latest version" is the one labelled V6? Even if the .zip file had a different label.

In any event I would certainly appreciate some reporting, if only from the selfish viewpoint of saving myself some cutting and pasting!

Thanks again for your work.

John

[/quote]

Yes sorry about that. The zip is v0.51. The file is V6, I should change it.

Reporting : you mean that you'd like to be able to produce a report from the data, right? I'll see what I can do for next week.

Armando,

It's OK - I deciphered the version codes :)

The reporting would be great whenever you can find the time.

Thanks,

John

Just posted the newest version... http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=22501.msg203422#…

[quote]

I changed the "versioning" system. I added a "0." in front of the numbers. It's alpha...

In any case, here's version 0.51 :
- Changes to the tutorial, mainly
- Added hyperlinks to grids and templates.
- Maybe a few other little things here and there... Not much.

Haven't looked at my color script limitations yet... That's next, with the HTML export reports.

[/quote]

Armando,

The 0.51 .zip file holds a "IQMinutesV6.SNBKA" file, not an .SNDB file

That said, I must congratulate you on this work. As a long time , but very shallow, user of IQ (back to SQLNotes days) this has really opened my eyes to the capabilities that Pierre has been building into IQ. This project has managed, for me at least, to bring together a lot of the ideas I sort of knew were in there but I've never had the time or the knowledge to make them work. Thank you (and Pierre of course) for all the hard work!

And I second the request from KeithB to have the icons added to the default set!

Thanks,

John

[quote=jdonlan]

Armando,

The 0.51 .zip file holds a "IQMinutesV6.SNBKA" file, not an .SNDB file

And I second the request from KeithB to have the icons added to the default set!

Thanks,

John

[/quote]

Thanks for your message, John.

Several users here -- Mark Gregory especially -- mentioned how important it would be to create DBs to do specific things... Partly to show what IQ can do and how it can be useful. It's a start.

This sample DB is just a fraction of what IQ can actually achieve -- there were many things I wanted to include but which I didn't to not complicate things too much.

Ideally, these sample DBs could be somewhat integrated to a/the "master sample DB" so that users wouldn't need to cumulate several non-communicating info "repositories" . Of course it would be a bit of work to ensure that all these play well together.

New version uploaded in my first post. I won't put it on DC as from today.

Details (changes in this version, etc.) in the first post of this thread.

Thanks!

Edit :

Some more features that could be added (eventually... but only if some user asks for it as I don't use it myself! ) ?

1- "action items" recurrence (as I've already added it to my own DB).
2- Sending e-mail alerts or reports to meeting participants (automatically or not -- this could be done... At least manually as IQ can send emails to lists of addresses etc.)

3- having meetings automatically appear in the calendar when they're created (this will probably happen "automatically when Pierre will add that feature)

V0.61 changes -- 2010 05 17 -- 19:51

Item color can now be manually modified and it will remain unless some other automatic coloring is active (for some specific items like action items when affected by urgency, or contacts, agenda items, etc.

Small change... I did it in my own DB and so thought it would be good to transpose it in this one too... An annoying little problem with a quick fix in the calccolor function.

When I unzip the icon.zip file in the InfoQube icon folder it creates a sub-folder called icons. Should I leave the icons in the sub-folder or copy them into the main InfoQube icon folder?

Thanks

[quote=Al]

When I unzip the icon.zip file in the InfoQube icon folder it creates a sub-folder called icons. Should I leave the icons in the sub-folder or copy them into the main InfoQube icon folder?

Thanks

[/quote]

Hi Al,

You should copy them in the InfoQube icon folder, which will overwrite a bunch of them -- and it's okay.