Fwd: Using uncertain date information in Chandler

I am forwarding an email exchange with Rick Gruber-Reimer that is a  
different take on the "soft-deadlines" discussion we've been having  
for the past month: http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/design/ 
2007-October/007757.html

The functionality Rick describes below is something he built for a  
planning tool years ago and he has promised to try and get some  
screenshots together. Looking forward to seeing them!

Mimi

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Mimi Yin <[email protected]>
> Date: November 13, 2007 9:43:07 AM PST
> To: [email protected]
> Cc: Heikki Toivonen <[email protected]>, Jeffrey Harris  
> <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: Using uncertain date information in Chandler
>
> Hi Rick,
>
> The short answer is Yes! This kind of flexibility around dates is  
> very much in keeping with our notion of 'fuzzy time-management' in  
> Chandler.
>
> We currently have a way of specifying events that span date-ranges,  
> but are distinct from all-day / multi-day events. We call them  
> 'anytime events'. The idea is that you can schedule things for 'Any  
> time Today' or 'Any time during some time span.'
>
> However, we'd like to expand fuzzy-date functionality to include  
> things like: End of Week, End of Nov 2007, some time this month.  
> See discussion re 'Soft deadlines' on the design list: http:// 
> lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/design/2007-October/007757.html
>
> See more in-line...
>
> On Nov 12, 2007, at 5:06 AM, Rick Gruber-Riemer wrote:
>
>> Hi Mimi
>>
>> As you can see in the forwarded email below Heikki thinks that I  
>> should discuss an idea about using uncertain date information in  
>> Chandler (desktop) with you. Let me describe shortly my thoughts:
>>
>> Basically I would like to be able to be precise about not being  
>> precise regarding dates ("uncertainty). E.g. if I mean "End of  
>> November 2007" I have to choose a precise date in the calendar in  
>> all tools I know and would potentially pick the 25th of November  
>> 2007. But that is wrong, because my best guess is "End of November  
>> 2007", which typically means somewhere between the 20th and 30th  
>> of November. The same applies to "middle of 2008", "beginning week  
>> 24", "first quarter of 2009". When you then know more about the  
>> probable date you can always get more precice -- e.g. from "first  
>> quarter of 2009" to "beginning of February 2009" to "2nd of  
>> February 2009".
>> So depending on how certain you are about a date (precice => day/ 
>> month/year; else week level, month level, quarter level, year  
>> level) you first pick the uncertainty type and then you are  
>> presented with a different set of drop-down menues. E.g. week- 
>> number, quarters or months, year is always displayed. If the date  
>> is uncertain you additionally get to choose one out of four  
>> values: "", "beginning", "middle", "end". In the UI the date is  
>> represented as a natural language string. Behind the scenes the  
>> info is NOT stored as a date, but for graphical representation in  
>> e.g. a calendar or GANTT several virtual dates are calculated on- 
>> the-fly: earliest, best-guess and latest date and then this  
>> uncertainty is shown (in a calendar view probably only the best- 
>> guess with some icon indicator for uncertainty and an extra text  
>> representation; in a GANTT you can show the whole uncertainty range.)
>> I programmed this as a planning tool years ago with GANTT-chart  
>> and chronogramm representation -- and am still missing it in my  
>> daily tools. There are a lot of display, data storage (e.g.  
>> VCALENDAR is not enough) etc. challenges and it would probably not  
>> do well as a plugin in Chandler - but evt. ok to start with. To  
>> begin with dates/milestones are enough, my dream is naturally to  
>> have date-ranges, too.
>>
>> => Is this something you have been discusing before? If yes:  
>> thumbs up or down?
> Thumbs up.
>>
>> => Would it be stretching the idea of Chandler too much?
> Nope. It's dead-on and very much in keeping with where we'd like to  
> go.
>
> Thanks Rick. Best,
>
> Mimi
>
>

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