Some notes for improvement after using Collanos a couple of days

[Matias]

Hi, and thanks for this software. I need something like this, and tried Microsoft's Groove, but as almost everything from Microsoft it had a lot of annoying things about it, and it didn't completely satisfy my needs.  After using Collanos a couple of days I have some notes for improvements that I hope you take into consideration. I like that it has a clean user interface, seems responsive, and I see a lot of potential in it.

1. Being able to subgroup spaces
It would make it a lot more well arranged than the way it is now. Suppose your a student that uses Collanos first and second year of college, and has the following courses:

Code:

First year of College: Second year of college
Histology                         Pharmacology
Chemistry                         Microbiology
Embryology                         Patology
Genetics                         Statistics
Biochemistry                         Epidemiology
                                    Anatomy
                                    Biochemistry
                                    Physiology
                                    Histology

The way it is now this becomes very messy, if you were to use the all tasks tab:

If you were to make all the courses a separate space, it would be even more messy in the Workspaces tab:

A way to get it more clean is to be able to subgroup spaces, and then edit tasks tab accordingly:

Of course you can also could just change the Tasks Overview tab and add some kind of filter to do this, without making subgroups. I don't know if subgrouping is a better way though, for other reasons also.

2. Being able to share folders
A way to share plain window folders is something you must add. It's one of the main things I wanted this program for. It works sharing my school folder in a Workplace manner, since it's not so big, but I also want to share big folders between my computers. Tried sharing a 20 gb workspace, and it didn't work very well. Also maybe make user being able to create a shortcut in context menu:


3. Being able to choose wheter to (encrypt) saved data or not
I do not care how safe the Spaces files are stored on my computer. As far as I understand they are encrypted in the Collanos data folder. I would like the choose how to save my files. If I open big files, it seems that Collanos must first decrypt or "make the data" come to getter before opening the files. This takes to much time for having big files in a Space. I would prefer being able to just store the files in a normal folder structure, and also being able to choose where the folder structure will be on my HD. This way users don't have to "extract" the contents from Collanos to their HD either.


4: Plugin system
Letting other developers make their own plugins would be benefitial for this project.

6: Transfer bar
The synchronize feature shows a very simple overview of the transfer. Maybe it would be better (with a bar) showing current file and total transfer. Maybe not possible as of now.

7: Log system
A log viewer that can be turned on or off (if it takes much resources)that  tells among other things information about when and what are being syncronized.

8: New invited workspace and files not showing up before the whole syncronizing is done
I would prefer a system where the workspace instantly shows up, and the files shows up when they are finished. (Maybe just put the whole file list in and a notice what files are finished or not). This would be better when sharing large workspaces. Maybe there should also be better control of the synch process.

9: Workspace folder list not remembering settings
The folder list starts with "expand all" as default. I don't like this, and would prefer it remembering that I for example don't want any folders expanded. You could also add "expand all" and "collapse all" shortcut on right click.

10: Multiple users required for sharing a workspace
I'm not using Collanos with anyone. I'm using it between to computers. Requiring to make two users for this should maybe not be necessary.

11:


Let me know if you like any of the ideas.

[Franco Dal Molin]

Hello Matias,

many thanks for your excellent and very well presented feedback. You took a lot of time to describe your ideas, produce screen shots with annotations and even new mock-up views. We certainly appreciate your contributions! Let me comment each of your points:

1. Being able to subgroup spaces
This is an important and relevant issue, we agree, and we are going to address this soon. It won't make it into the imminent November release, but you can expect some features in the Q1 2009 time frame. We are currently discussing and experimenting with "Tags", so that you could use arbitrary keywords such as "First Year", "Epidemiology", "Important" etc. to annotate workspaces. We might even use system flags like "active" or "closed" for spaces, but not sure yet. The advantage of tagging is that you can have multiple tags for spaces, which allows to create overlapping taxonomies and groupings. The "All My Workspaces" perspective would also evolve to sort/group/search/filter by different tags as well as criteria (creator, alphabetically, changed content, etc.)

2. Being able to share folders
This is also a new capability planned for around Q1 2009. The way it would work is by using a new kind of "OS Folder" that you can create within a workspace, and then map it to a real directory of your local file system. Each member of the workspace would be able to create his own local mapping. So basically it would look like this (example):

Code:

C:\myfolder <--mapping--> OS Folder (WS of User A) <---> P2P SYNC <---> OS Folder (WS of User B) <--mapping--> D:\data\mystuff

3. Being able to choose wheter to (encrypt) saved data or not
We will look into this eventually, but it isn't planned for the near term. We are anyway trying to optimize the solution all the time, especially with regards to performance gains. We might change the internal database technology soon, which would result in a boost in performance. Making the local encryption optional must be researched. The internal formats are anyway proprietary, which means you should not fiddle around with anything outside of the system, to not compromise the whole system consistency. The one good point that you make is about being able to "export" the data more easily. We added the "Copy To..." function recently, which you can apply on the root folder of a workspace. Also, you can put your Collanos data directory where you want, but not on a per workspace basis.

4: Plugin system
As soon as the platform architecture is stable enough, we plan to open it up to publish the API and give access to plug-in developers. We hope to be able to do that within 9-12 months.

6: Transfer bar
We'll gradually improve this over time as well. As of now, there are still some limitations which we must overcome first. In any case, better transparency about the content sync processes is one of our key goals.

7: Log system
The forthcoming November release will contain the first version of a "change history log" feature. Initially you will be able to see all the changes that happen on Task objects over time. In the subsequent releases we will make this capability for all objects and other system events as well.

8: New invited workspace and files not showing up before the whole syncronizing is done
We know and agree that this should be improved. Please see point 6, the limitations are partly the same and can not be changed easily. Nevertheless, it is on our short list of very important improvements.

9: Workspace folder list not remembering settings
Solved, exactly as you are suggesting. This capability will be rolled out in the November release. :-)

10: Multiple users required for sharing a workspace
We know and agree. The "Multiple devices under one user identity" feature is in our road map and will be rolled out in one of the forthcoming releases. No commitments, but we hope to target it for late Q1 2009 or soon thereafter.

11: GUI customizations / View improvements
As we evolve, we will very naturally continue to improve our GUI. We will add more flexible customizations, consolidate and streamline concepts, polish the icons, tool tips, notifications, etc. Generally you can expect in each release a few small improvements, and some polishing to the GUI.

Thanks again, and we look forward to hear what you think of our November release. You should get it in about 3-4 weeks.