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Previewing Chandler, the PIM for the People
Posted by Gina Trapani at 11:25 AM on December 21, 2007
Windows, Mac and Linux: A preview release of the highly-anticipated, cross-platform, open source personal information manager Chandler is now available for download, and while it's still got kinks to work out, it looks as promising as its vision. Called the PIM "for people who use their Inbox as their task list, Chandler picks up where your Inbox leaves off." Chandler's essentially a combination calendar, email inbox and task list for the individual, as well as a collaboration tool for small groups. The Chandler developers say:
Our goal is to serve the way people actually work, independently and together, particularly in small groups, a market segment we believe is underserved. Our belief is that personal and collaborative information work is by nature iterative and that the existing binary Done/Not-Done, Read/Unread, Flagged/Unflagged paradigm in productivity software poorly accommodates the reality of how people work.
Ever since I read Scott Rosenberg's book, Dreaming in Code, I've been dying to see Chandler get released. Dreaming In Code is a chronicle of Chandler's early stages, documenting its development from inception through much of its often-painful evolution, which will be familiar to anyone who's ever tried to build software. (Programmers and software designers, read this book). I love the open source ethos behind the software and the vision for its use, which is tightly tied to Getting Things Done.
As for the preview release, well, it has some ways to go. I was unable to get my Gmail account to sync with it via IMAP, for instance, which kept me from doing any real-world testing. So while it's not stable software ready for primetime, the Chandler preview IS an exciting tease at a unified inbox/calendar/task list that keeps all your stuff in one place while offering decentralized sharing capabilities. If Chandler's final release delivers on its promises, it will also deliver users from the evil of Microsoft Outlook and Exchange server. Until then, you can tinker with the preview and hope. The Chandler Preview is a free download for Mac, Windows and Linux.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Jim
Posted 5:47 PM 20/12/07
Cross platform is good. Too bad I already have this in Gmail/Calendar/RTM (esp. with the new RTM extension).
Jim
War-N
Posted 5:44 PM 20/12/07
Nice. I look forward to trying this out. I too loved Dreaming in Code and looked forward to a release of the app. Off to download ...
War-N
echodawg
Posted 5:39 PM 20/12/07
I looked it over and I still swear by Airset.
www.airset.com
All of theses features and many more work flawlessly for me and I use it multiple times a day.
echodawg
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
Posted 5:19 PM 20/12/07
Whoops, all fixed. Rough day today with the links and the [c]lipboard!
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
truggl
Posted 5:05 PM 20/12/07
The link has an extra "lipboard" on the end and doesn't work...
Usable link: [chandlerproject.org]
truggl
Jim
Posted 6:11 PM 20/12/07
Ah - what this post leaves out is there is also a companion server/hub available - so you could set this up on your own server. That is cool.
Jim
AndyMan1
Posted 8:04 PM 20/12/07
I've always heard good about Chandler, should be interesting to see what they finally roll out.
Any chance we might get a Lifehacker head-to-head of Chandler/Thunderbird+Calendar/Outlook/Google?
Pwetty Pwease?
AndyMan1
Brian
Posted 7:18 PM 20/12/07
I read the book about this called "Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software (Hardcover)" :
It is a very interesting story about how Chandler came to be. It is actually based on Python and wxWidgets. It uses the WebDAV protocol to synchronize with a Chandler server.
Brian
Scobleizer
Posted 12:23 AM 21/12/07
Gina: I have a video with the Chandler team here: [www.podtech.net] where they demo the project and give some insights behind it.
Scobleizer
edmicman
Posted 7:52 AM 21/12/07
I've tried Chandler many times throughout it's development and each time I'm am disappointed. They have a lofty promise and goals, but I think they are still far far away from really achieving that. As much as I would like to try and find a worthy open source / free alternative, I just don't believe there is (or will be soon) anything that comes close to the Outlook/Exchange environment.
Here's what my problems have been. I want a PIM that I can organize my life and work in. I do use my email client as my "home base", too, but I have yet to find the perfect solution. We don't use Exchange at work, we have an inhouse IMAP server. Outlook, on top of the costs of licenses that we don't have, sucks at IMAP. Plus there's a million other little quirks I hate about Outlook's email handling. But it's the only PIM I've seen that handles tasks, email, and appointments seamlessly.
Thunderbird is my desktop email client of choice, and I think it's IMAP and email handling is perfect. I've been using Thunderbird with Lightning for almost a year now, and frankly I don't use the calendaring part at all. It's not integrated very well, I can't create appointments or tasks based on emails, there's not much in the way of scheduling or anything. It's very rough.
I've used Chandler before, and while it's a good concept, it's worked for me. My main complaint is that it was a separate application. I don't want to have two things running just to do email and PIM stuff. It looks like they're starting to get the email component there, but it's still a far cry from Thunderbird. I doubt that Chandler will be replacing Thunderbird as an email client any time soon.
What I don't understand is, they're both open source projects - why doesn't somebody either incorporate Chandler's PIM abilities into Thunderbird, or Thunderbird's emial components into Chandler?
edmicman
dnheller
Posted 7:38 AM 21/12/07
Looks good BUT... needs hotsync to PDAs like Palm devices, blackberry, etc.
dnheller
darkknight56
Posted 5:57 AM 21/12/07
Any chance this could become a portable app and for use on a thumbdrive?
darkknight56
shatteredmindofbob
Posted 12:13 AM 21/12/07
But will it sync with my Blackberry? 'cause if it doesn't, it's hardly going to free anyone from the horrors of Outlook/Exchange
shatteredmindofbob
Crashproof
Posted 9:42 AM 21/12/07
Come to think of it... I prefer "handyman" to "hacker" for this particular metaphor. :)
Crashproof
Crashproof
Posted 9:37 AM 21/12/07
(Programmers and software designers, read this book.)
The main thing I took away from the book is that my project really isn't so bad.
One thing I've observed about programmers is that in the real world, there are two kinds:
- hackers who can quickly put stuff together that works, though it may be ugly code and may need to be optimized later
- craftsmen who slowly write code that doesn't necessarily work, or is slow, but is "elegant" or "correct" according to their own standards
They frustrate the hell out of each other. Especially when the craftsmen, confident in their own genius, don't test... or mess with code they don't even know how to test.
But both types are necessary, I think. Sometimes, as a hacker with many years' experience, I run across some unintuitive quirky detail of C++ that baffles me, but a craftsman is all too happy to explain it because they read about it in a book.
Crashproof
Jonathan Harford
Posted 9:19 AM 21/12/07
Huh. Not do derail, but this AirSet thingy intrigues me. Any chance of a Lifehacker review of that service?
Jonathan Harford
clbrooks97
Posted 5:00 AM 22/12/07
For those looking for an open-source alternative PIM: let me recommend Evolution. AFAIK, it works with Exchange, and it provides the "email/calendar/task list" combination that Chandler (imperfectly, IMHO) provides.
Interesting note: the latest release of Chandler explicitly states that its /not/ meant to be a general-purpose email client.
clbrooks97
ladlestein
Posted 5:39 PM 21/12/07
I interviewed at the OSAF a few years ago. It looks beautiful inside, and everybody seemed pretty smart and reasonable. Mitch Kapor is an industry pioneer and hero.
But this project has been going since 2002. Their big implementation choice, Python, was quixotic; I don't think anyone has tried to build a user-interface-intensive application with Python before. The concept for the app is based on Lotus Agenda, which was groundbreaking at the time, but that was almost six years ago.
Still, while I think it's unlikely, there's no reason it can't be a really good product. I guess I should give it a try.
ladlestein
IAmMarchHare
Posted 11:58 AM 27/12/07
@ECHODAWG: I was intrigued by your post, so I went out and had a look at AirSet. I haven't checked out Chandler, but the description makes it sound like Chandler and AirSet may be approaching collaboration from different directions.
However, only certain SmartPhones will work directly with AirSet's mobile client, and some won't sync except through ActiveSync on a PC/laptop. It will send changes and daily schedules through SMS instead, though, if you wish. Does Chandler sync with a mobile? It sound like it does not. If not, can Chandler use SMS instead like AirSet?
@JONATHAN HARFORD: Let me add my vote to that.
IAmMarchHare
Jayson J. Phillips
Posted 2:02 PM 29/12/07
Mail/iCal in Leopard has improved greatly, especially with its addition of a full task list and further integration between the two (being able to automatically set appointments or to-do tasks from emails).
Its not the most complete solution, but thus far is serving me better than any Outlook or Thunderbird/Lighting combo I've used in the past.
If only there was better Mac support for WM phones (yeah, I know about missing sync, but its had some issues on Leopard for me).
Jayson J. Phillips