From: Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>
To: Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com>,
Org-mode mailing list <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 23:36:41 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20130409233641.511089ea@aga-netbook> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CABSYn2ghr0VUdzCBX3OXxDKVskKYRC1JRsQvMZ93fHw_RkBn_A@mail.gmail.com>
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
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2013-04-09 21:36 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 35+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2013-03-24 1:52 Marcin Borkowski
2013-03-24 2:04 ` John Hendy
2013-04-07 13:13 ` Marcin Borkowski
2013-04-07 21:16 ` David Rogers
2013-04-07 21:41 ` Marcin Borkowski
2013-04-08 4:33 ` David Rogers
2013-04-08 6:24 ` Marcin Borkowski
2013-04-08 1:20 ` James Harkins
2013-04-08 9:26 ` Marcin Borkowski
2013-04-09 10:19 ` Gareth Smith
2013-04-08 6:52 ` James Harkins
2013-04-08 9:28 ` Marcin Borkowski
2013-04-09 18:24 ` Matthew Jones
2013-04-09 20:27 ` Marcin Borkowski
2013-04-09 20:51 ` Matthew Jones
2013-04-09 21:36 ` Marcin Borkowski [this message]
2013-04-09 22:06 ` John Hendy
2013-04-23 10:50 ` Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE (was: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android) Karl Voit
2013-04-24 4:41 ` Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE Rémi Vanicat
2013-04-24 7:38 ` Eric S Fraga
2013-04-24 14:46 ` Rémi Vanicat
2013-04-24 17:21 ` Henning Weiss
2013-04-24 17:33 ` MobileOrg and repeating events (was: Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE) Karl Voit
2013-04-24 17:15 ` Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE (was: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android) Henning Weiss
2013-04-24 17:30 ` Karl Voit
2013-04-25 8:55 ` Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE Eric S Fraga
2013-04-15 12:45 ` Agenda in MobileOrg for Android Andreas Leha
2013-04-15 15:24 ` Bastien
2013-04-15 18:36 ` Andreas Leha
2013-05-12 1:55 ` mobileorg-android
2013-05-13 3:00 ` [mobileorg-android] " James Harkins
2013-05-13 13:28 ` Marcin Borkowski
2013-04-07 17:54 Itai kloog
2013-04-09 18:09 Jorge A. Alfaro Murillo
2013-04-09 18:18 ` David Rogers
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