Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>]

Dnia 2013-04-09, o godz. 16:51:47
Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Marcin Borkowski
> <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
> 
> > I see.  OTOH, one argument *against* a database (as opposed to
> > parsing text files) might be exactly preserving the formatting etc.
> > of files (of course, with all the syncing stuff this is not
> > important anyway).
> >
> 
> Certainly at the beginning it was easier to rely on our file parser
> and we tried to stick with that for as long as we could because in
> some ways it is just easier!  We ran into some really nasty problems
> as we went along, though, and the further we got into our desired
> feature list the worse it became simply relying on that file parser.
> I was initially very skeptical about going the database route but it
> is easily one of the best decisions we have made with regard to
> refactoring of the project and it has enabled some of the great
> features we have today.

I believe, though can't see it myself.  (Just wondering though: now
that the official Org-mode syntax exists, does it change anything in
this department?)

> > That's interesting.  I would be very glad to learn what might the
> > pitfalls of "just overwriting files" be; it may be the case that
> > "just overwriting" would work well with *my personal* use pattern of
> > Org-mode, and that would be why I don't understand MobileOrg's
> > approach.
> 
> 
> So imagine this... in the morning you synchronize you org files to
> your mobile device but then make a change in one of those files and
> forget to push it up to your mobile.  Later in the day you make a
> change to the same node, or even somewhere else in the file while on
> your mobile device and then push that file up.   In the evening you
> get back to your computer running emacs and pull your remote changes
> in.   What do you want to happen?  Should the one still on your
> computer that you last changed this morning take precedence?  or the
> one on the mobile device?   The answer is probably that you want to
> merge those changes... that is something that emacs can do, but as is
> the case with most patch-work it can't always do that in automated
> fashion.   That's why the org-mobile-* functions exist. Now it can be
> argued that there is a better way and I'd probably agree with that
> statement but it's not an easy problem to solve.
> 
> Here's another case... if you are editing a file in emacs and the file
> changes outside of emacs what happens?  emacs doesn't like it at
> all... so you need some sort of built in emacs mechanism for being
> able to merge changes in a safe way, and it needs to not surprise the
> user when that's happening.
> 
> These are the kinds of issues we are all struggling to solve in one
> way or another but the general consensus is that "just overwriting"
> is the worst of the possible options, even if it is technically the
> easiest.

I see now.  Since I'm using Dropbox to synchronize, and it works more
or less transparently and instantaneously, that seems to be a no-issue
for me. But I agree that not all people are in this situation, and maybe
even I'm in a minority.

> > * Yes, I did uninstall, but I've reinstalled MobileOrg again after
> >   reading this thread.  I'll try to set it up again.  I installed
> > from the Google Play; is it better to use the github repo?  It says
> >   "0.9.7" in the release notes on the wiki, Google Play says it's
> >   0.9.8, and maybe it would be better to use master or even 0.9.10
> >   (looking at the branches on github)?  Where do I find the info
> > about installing the bleeding edge version from github on my phone
> > (I'm quite new to Android, as I mentioned.)
> 
> Google Play is always up to date... usually we'll only post an updated
> changeset on github if something major has changed, if it's just a
> bug fix then you probably won't see it mentioned.   If you can't
> access Google play, as mentioned in the wiki, you can always find the
> latest and past release here:
> 
> http://matburt.net/files/MobileOrg/

OK, so I'll stick with Google Play version, at least for now.

> > * I did not leave a one-star review; I guess I'm too lazy for that,
> > but also it would be a bit unfair without further investigation of
> > my problems.
> 
> I didn't mean to suggest that you personally did... but it happens a

Of course, but I wanted to stress that anyway;).

> lot more than I wish it did.  We also get faulted a lot for the
> perception of complexity of the way the we have to handle
> synchronization but as I've mentioned above... it's a little more
> complex than just pushing the files to the device or pulling them off
> the device.

That's a very general problem.  People want software (and in fact,
everything) to Just Work™ without any effort.  I guess many of us have
tons of sad stories confirming this...

> > * I am very busy these days, but I'll try hard to start using
> > MobileOrg and (if the problems I had persist), I'll try to report
> > them on MobileOrg's mailing list.  In fact, my problems were
> > twofold: firstly, syncing didn't "Just Work™" (sometimes I got
> > errors on MobileOrg, sometimes in Emacs), and some of the UI
> > choices *did* suck.  As soon as I find some time, I'll try to
> > describe exactly what I mean by this, so that either it could get
> > improved or I could get convinced that it's my usage that sucks
> > (which is obviously possible, especially given my lack of
> > experience).
> 
> Yep... the only way we know that it "sucks" is if people tell us what
> sucks about it.  UI/UX has been an iterative process where we have to
> take feedback from our users.  It's a real challenge to build a UI
> that works for the most people and we want to make the most people
> happy.

Of course.  As I said earlier, I can't remember now, but I'll do my
best to come back in some time with a detailed report.  I'll treat this
as a way to pay back the community for the great tool;).  (Though I'll
still consider buying the "donate" version - but for that, I'll have to
configure the payment options on my phone, and I won't do it very soon.)

Best regards,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Adam Mickiewicz University