I have to thank you @Vincent_Tang for the introduction to Airtable here, it is a very interesting program which keeps popping up in my mind and seems to have many possible applications.
One nice integration I can see for it with Dynalist is for a single table which depicts all your Dynalist projects. The nice thing about this would be that it would provide a better ābig pictureā view of the state of your projects than Dynalist allows alone.
Each project would be a row of course and, for example you could have columns for: Due date; Overall urgency; Importance; Project Size (e.g. in estimated amount of hours); Project Type; Project Difficulty; Current completion percentage (and a further column combining this with project size to show current amount of hours remaining (and another column combining THIS with time until project due time to show how you are doing)) ā¦ and more Iām sure ā¦ all of this is feasible with tags in dynalist (except the last two), but is more tricky / cumbersome ā¦
In this case each project would have a link to Dynalist (and in fact if you had other projects outside dynalist, airtable would also provide a nice way of bringing them all together) (and a macro to copy the link, open your dynalist tab and paste the link - having to wait to āloadā the projects would be too annoying in my opinion!)
I am not saying I will do this, as I think it would mean giving up my Dynalist calendar which I love more than life itself, but itās a very interesting option, possibly just for work projects in the future, so thanks!
I suggest learning about basic database design / existing diagrams if your going to use airtable. Since airtable is a hybrid relational database program. It already has a ton of awesome templates, but I suggest looking into older-data models found here:
CTRL+F the keyword your looking for. Say your looking for āProject managementā just type āProjectā and click through those links to see a diagram
Airtable has an API as well, when dynalist has its API open, you can have each program talk to each other down the road. As well as integrate any other 3rd party program
More programs I find useful
BLACK SCREEN
This is a currently addition to programs I am finding really useful:
Recently I got a 3rd monitor for work. My monitor configuration looks like this: (1 left vertical, 2 horizontal right)
I donāt always use my newest 3rd vertical monitor constantly, but I need it on all the time. I leave that monitor on F11 fullscreen all the timei with 2 dynalist tabs (one for sprints, one for wikis) and then this link https://www.yofla.com/black-screen/
This black screen is really awesome. Thatās all it is, a website with a togglable black screen. So if I donāt need to add / see notes at the time, I keep this website on and its as if my monitor is turned off
Slant + Advanced windows explorer
I heavily rely on alternativeto.net for sourcing out software, but slant.co has some really awesome niche item recommendations for things like VPN, file explorers, etc. Thereās a really good community here of windows / mac / linux / power-users who vote on their recommendations of best software. I used it to source out this program: Consequently most of them voted dynalist.io as best program
XYplorer. Its one of those softwares where you just learn to appreciate over time like phraseexpress. You start customizing it and learn more and more about that software everyday.
Its been a huge time saver whenever I saved random documents to my desktop and needed to open it quickly. Or downloaded things to my PC, etc
Another great contender is directory OPUS, the 2nd most recommended file explorer on slant
Other programs Iām looking into
A right-click context menu editor
Text manipulation / REGEX / grep tools for data processing
More macros
Bulk image downloaders (ExtremePictureFinder is awesome) with EXIF metadata remover / Excel-Image-Assistant plugins - AdvancedRenamer for renaming images with excel files
I agree that Airtable works beautifully. Your method may provide a good temporary fix before Dynalist develops a dashboard function (hopefully!). But the ongoing problem with AirTable is the lack of offline capacity. Travel is usually the time when I do most of my project thinking.
Ah yes no offline mode is a death knell for me too. After playing with these ideas in Airtable, I have brought them back to Dynalist - they can be implemented with I think only a little loss in function ā¦
Free version has 1000 free entries per base. $24/ month isnāt too expensive for 50,000 entries /base in my opinion, for what I get out of it it pays for itself in no time
Airtable is going to have an offline mode soon, I read it was already being made / planned already
Also, I cannot live without Imagus chrome extension + Stylish so offline Dynalist wouldnāt work for me anyhow.
Mass image processing in airtable
Iām in the middle of writing a guide on how to use airtable to stage image assets (created in house or copied) + excelVBA / functions + EXIF data remover +AdvancedRenamer + ExtremePictureFinder + Xnview ā to create locally managed digital assets pushed from airtable as a source
Super useful for massively scaling image assets
Professional photography / Product photography ā and post processing
Ecommerce development (Magento, prestashop, woopress, etc) for staging image assets
My own 7000 + image and gif library made purely from ShareX (bulk renaming files)
Just RE offline dynalist, I take dynalist offline (with Stylish extensions) all the time by just keeping it open in the web browser. This has an element of risk to if your computer suddenly broke but the web browser doesnāt allow me to accidentally close the page (it brings up a dialogue) and Dynalist loads your whole account so you can even go to e.g. other files completely offline and it all syncs back up perfectly when you get back into wifi. If I do a lot of work Iām worried about losing I tend to just flick my phone wifi hotspot on and sync that way - if I knew I was going to be offline for days I would of course just switch over to the desktop app.
I like Airtable too, and am seeking to move more and more stuff there. I want something in the cloud rather than eg. Access. So that I can link to info posts via urls from other apps etcā¦ And so that I can integrate via IFTTT and Zapier.
However, one big thing that I miss is the ability to make some proper forms - as in a traditional database tool - that can trigger certain changes or transactions.
For example, I am trying to make an inventory management system. Main entities being spaces, containers and objects. Containers being able to go in other containers as well. And spaces having subspaces.
When I then move some objects or containers I would like to easily point then out and do a mass change. Or at least easily change from one attribute to another.
Anyway, I keep an eager eye on their development. Having good access via Android app is also crucial for stuff like inventory changes.
I understand where your coming from, airtable doesnāt have advanced data manipulation
this is why I pair it up with excel and do all my data manipulation there instead.
In the end, airtable is this:
Itās a staging environment for my data (Airtable). Great for cross-collaboration of data too. Iāll populate this data here manually, or through an existing excel spreadsheet, and with webscrapers (import.io), python scripts . think of it like a git-pull
It gets pushed to excel (think of it like a git-push)
Excel does magic (PowerQuery, PowerPivot, ASAP utilities, Excel Image Assistant plugins, ExcelVBA, python scripts, Phrase-express has some excel functions too)
Intermediate software is used if needed (AdvancedRenamer, ExtremePictureFinder, EXIF data remover for image assets)
Excel integrates into an ODBC connection into a SQL (MySQL, MS-SQL) environment with ETL functions (Panheto) if needed
Or excel integrates with other software (Magento, Adobe Indesign, Quickbooks, Point of Sales, Tableau, Python data visualization graphwiz, Matlab, Filemaker, Inventory management, ERP systems, blah blah blah, etc)
In the end, Airtable is just a lazy way for me to use a relational database system (also to collaborate too) ā excel does all the hard lifting. Excel does all the integrations. Because what doesnāt integrate with an excel spreadsheet?
Consequently, if something doesnāt integrate with an excel spreadsheet, thatās what Autohotkey + phraseexpress + StrokePlus + MouseRecorder macros are for
Letās not forget Airtable has an open API integration with Zappier and IFTTT, and dynalist will have an API as well. Now you can automate even more things , like your phoneās GPS coordinates etc
I suggest reading into this guys post, about Minimal Viable airtables
Here, I made an outline that works in 100% of all cases out there for cross integrating anything in nature. I forgot to include a lot of software examples but you get the gist of it
I use this to manage my monthly bills every month and also when I post things on reddit / stackoverflow / other forums and am anticipiating a response to a question
In case anyones looking for a better replacement for windows file explorer
I did a lot of testing on all file explorers out there over the last few months, and this is the one that is by far the best of all the ones out there (on the alternativeto.net page) for windows users.
Directory Opus
Its been a HUGE time saver for the following reasons
I can navigate to a folder, and open up a command prompt to that folder path. Superuseful if you do any type of development. No need to cd folderpath anymore. Example:
I use this site a lot as well. However, my favourite site for freeware recommendations has been http://www.techsupportalert.com for many years. Great community, trusted and informed opinions.
Lynda.com ā browse tutorials for well establised software. I keep a running list of 100 courses I previewed / skimmed at random to get big picture of what software/programming language capabilities are
Search official youtube channel tutorials ā add to inoreader so I can skimp on every video that content creator made in a couple of minutes, to see big picture quick. And get latest updates.
Search official website / forums to gauge how active community and therefore development ā put this URL somewhere in dynalist on the project Iām working on
If its specific code ā save on dynalsit + code syntax, github, or gistboxapp
Interesting open source / custom made software ā githubā star it ā look at it later maybe.
Youtube specific
I organize all my favorite youtubers based on 1. Content frequency then by 2. Category, some are in hardware, DIY, software, etc
Other - hardware
Some hardware solutions are better than software, so I have a running list of 3000+ items here that I slowly add over time, when it gets mentioned on reddit, this forum , elsewhere.
Reverse image search ā pinterest if I canāt find out what somethings called, or reverse image searches in general (tinyeye, or googleimage + shareX screenshot search)
Thatās very interesting Vincent. Thanks for the detailed response.
As an old head, my priorities these days for new software, besides functionality, are longevity, active development, and offline options. Iāve had my fingers burnt by too many SAAS products which have evaporated. As a result, I have my arsenal of software in which Iāve invested a lot of time and development over a number of years and itās served me well. So, for discovering new options, I put a lot of emphasis on trusted curation as well. Iāve been too easily seduced by the bright shiny objects of the software world in the past and these days Iāve less interest in, and time for, experimentation. Like I said, Iām old
I donāt blame you here this is why I have a system of backups as well, and let others do the hard work researching / curating for me .
The most time consuming thing is finding / documenting which curators have more āweightā than others. E.G. which curators really know what theyāre talking about?
Also I always test out every software I use and do a basic selection matrix criteria.
I almost always choose older, more established software, many times unless the features / pros of newer software outweighs this
.