From: paigen@tfs.com (David Paigen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.laptops
Subject: Lotus Agenda 2.0 (LONG)
Summary: really a wonderful program
Keywords: Lotus, Agenda, Personal Information Manager, laptor, compaq LTE
Date: 8 Apr 92 22:50:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: tfs.1992Apr8.225043.17720
Organization: TRW Financial Systems


    This document is all about Agenda 2.0, a Personal Information
Manager for MS-DOS, published by Lotus.

    Please note that I am not in any way connected with Lotus, nor
do I have any financial interest in the sale of Agenda.

    This document is a summary of my knowledge and experiences with the
Agenda program.  I am not familiar with every aspect of the program, but
I have used it heavily (i.e. >5 hours per day) for about 6 months.  Any
errors in this posting are my responsibility.  All opinions are biased.

And with all that out of the way...

    Agenda requires MS-DOS 2.1 or better, 640K, and 2.5 - 3.8 Megs on a
hard disk, depending on how many printer definitions you install.  I run
Agenda on a 286 with 1 Meg of EMS and have no complaints.  The Agenda
application that I used 5 hours a day took up 350K of disk space.  I do
not recommend running Agenda with an 8086, nor do I recommend using less
than 1 Meg of EMS.  Agenda uses a lot of overlays, both for code and
for data, trust me, you would rather these overlays be in RAM, not swapped
from the disk.

    Agenda, a PC style product, is very flashy.  Speaking as a part
time nerd, I would rather that Lotus had spent more time on functionality,
and less on pretty screen colors.  However, this is a minor point.  The
interface to Agenda is also very PC.  Lots of function keys, key-chords,
and 123-style menus.

    The Agenda philosophy, in its own way, is similar to unix.  A few
simple concepts are defined, basic functionality is provided to operate
on these concepts, and a system is provided to build things together into
complex applications.  Agenda also comes with 4 sample applications to get
a new user started.

    It is also possible to start from a blank state and build an application
entirely configured to your own uses and ideas.  I spent about 2 months
with the bundled application "PLANNER" before I created my own planner.
Mine takes less space on disk and is not cluttered with stuff I don't use.

    COMMAND INTERFACE:  The most common functions are all tied to function
keys.  Arrows, Esc, Space, and Return are also heavily used.  All functions
can be accessed via 123-style menus, brought up with the F10 key.  Most
commands and configuration options (but not data input) involves well
laid out dialog boxes.  In fact, I have no complaints over the interface
at all.  I believe it would be very difficult to improve on.


    There are three concepts that Agenda provides:

    ITEMS:  An item is the basic unit of information in Agenda.  An item
has item text (max 300 something chars), an optional item note (max 10K
chars or an external file of unlimited size), and a list of associated
categories.  A quick-and-dirty editor is provided for modifing an item
note.
    An item may have both implicit and explicit assignments to
categories.  An explicit assignment is one assigned by virtue of the
view and section filters operating where you typed in the item.  Also,
any time you assign an item to a category, that assignment is explicit.
When you type in an item, Agenda compares the item text to all categories
for matches.  Any match will become an implicit assignment.  If the item
text changes, that assignment may or may not be broken, depending on the
new text.  Looking back over that sentence, I think an example is in 
order: Suppose you enter an item, "Call Dad about the conference."  This item
will be implicitly assigned to three categories: "Ken Paigen" (defined to
match 'ken' and 'dad), "Phone calls," and "Mouse Genetics Conference."

    Got that part?

    CATEGORIES:  A category is way of grouping items or associating values
with items.  I think that there are four types of categories, but I can only
remember three right now: standard, date, and numeric.  Numeric categories
are good for stuff like expense reports, you can have a category "cost,"
and then give each item a cost.  Views can be set up to total the costs
for every item in the view.  Date categories include both date and time,
although time is optional.  Three date categories are standard: "Entry,"
which Agenda assigns when an item is first typed in, "When," which you
can use to schedule items and make to-do lists, and "Done," which Agenda
assigns when you hit the 'done' key.  I filter most of my views to not
show "done" items.  Standard categories are for assignment only.  They do
not have values associated with them.

    Categories are hierarchal.  A category such as "Projects," may have
children categories such as "computer," "house," "yard," "electronics," etc.
A category may be protected so that new children cannot be created.  A
category may have the "exclusive children" option set so that an item may
be assigned to only one of its children at a time.  I have "exclusive
children" set on my 'projects' category, so that if I tell a 'yard' item
that it is assigned to 'house,' the assignment to 'yard' is broken.

    Category assignments are also hierarchal.  If an item is assigned to
'house,' it will also test positive for being assigned to 'projects.'

    VIEWS:  A view is a way of looking at items.  A view has one or more
sections.  Each section has one or more columns.  One item is fit on
each row.  Sections in a view may be sorted.  Items in the view may be
sorted on two fields.  Items in a section may be sorted independently
of the view sorting.  Both views and sections may have positive and
negative filters.  Filters are always based on categories, and may have
ranges for date and numeric categories.  Sort may be done on item text,
category value, or category order (i.e. the order of categories in the
category hierarchy, which you can mess with to your hearts content).

    Columns may be specific to a given section, or they may be linked
across sections.  Linked columns will always have the same width, position,
and display attributes.  One column is always for item text.  Other
columns can show category, parent category, category value, or note lines.
A note line column displays the n-th line of the item or category note.  For
example, I keep phone numbers on the first line of the note attached to
my people categories.



    There are also conditions and actions.  Both are attached to categories.
A conditions says, "any item in category A also belongs in category B."
Conditions make implicit assignments.  An action says either, "write any
item assigned to category A to the structured file F," or "explicitly
assign any item assigned to category A to category B."

    Agenda provides what I, as a unix person, would term an extension
language.  They call it a macro language.  Like most extension languages
developed for the MS-DOS world, this one is worse than BASIC.  There were
a few things I thought I would try to write, my success rate so far has
been 50%.  I suppose that if I really studied and practiced with it, I
could write the others, but so far the time required has outwayed the
potential benefits.

    Agenda does include some non-trivial input/output facilities.  Any
application or view can be output as a "Structured File," an ascii file
that you can write a program to interrupt.  A word of warning, full
parsing of a "Structured File" will be non-trivial.  Agenda can also
read a structured file into the current application.  There is a provision
to automatically read one in on startup.  Finally, Agenda has something
called a "Definition File," which describes the format of information in
an ascii file.  You can then use the definition file to translate the
ascii file into a structured file.  Structured files can be imported.
Email or News articles would be trivial to import.

    I cannot convey to you how Agenda has changed my life and how I look
at information.  It is sort of a cross between MH, News, and Emacs.  The
application I wrote for my self includes the functions of a Day-Timer,
a Black Book, To-Do list, reminder system, billing log, and work log.
I also used it as a contact-management system for awhile.  Agenda does
allow for the use of alarms, but I never used them.

    Ok, this is the part where I talk about what I DONT like (were you
beginning to think that there was nothing I didn't like about this?)
Agenda does not have very sophisticated math functions.  In fact, you
are limited to Min, Max, Total, Count, and Average.  And only in columns.
Next, the macro language and the definition files are too obtuse.  Work
needs to be done in these areas.  Third, while the macro language begins
to address this, very little is done with using Agenda in a non-interactive
mode.  I would like Agenda do execute some action every day, or every hour, or
every minute.  Also, an item such as "Work on the financial report" should have
a program and data file associated with it so that you could hit a key and
bring up a spreadsheet application that has the financial report in it.

    Finally, it was a poor idea to write Agenda for MS-DOS :-).  Its
functionality and philosophy are much better suited to unix people :-).
I have an X-terminal on my desk, and I miss Agenda very much.  I do not
find it useful to bring up just on occasion, I need it up all the time
I am working.

    Laptop Notes:  I used Agenda on a Compaq LTE for 31 days.  The LTE
weighed in at 7 pounds, which, when combined with the contents of a brief-
case, was too heavy.  I began to drool when I head about 4.5 pound laptops.
Also, the LTE has a 3.5 hour battery.  This was a good thing.  Once or
twice during those 31 days I saw a 'battery-low' indicator.  I am certain
that a 2 hour battery would have been annoying.  The two major problems
I encountered with Agenda on a laptop (remember, this is an 8086) were
boot time (even with Agenda in AUTOEXEC.BAT, it was greater than 10 seconds
from power on to Agenda) and hard disk shutdown.  While I appreciate the
power savings in revving down the HD, many times I hit a key, Agenda made
some disk access, and I sat there for 5 seconds wondering if the machine
had frozen.

    Purchase Notes:  Good thing it took me the extra day to write this.
I just got a promo in the mail from MicroWarehouse (1-800-367-7080) which
is selling Agenda 1.01 for $39 plus a 2.0 upgrade for $75, total $114.
I think Lotus lists Agenda 2.0 for $495 or $395, MicroWarehouse claims
that it sells Agenda 2.0 for $288 under normal circumstances.  I am not,
of course, connected with MicroWarehouse, nor have I ever done any business
with them.