Limit on Number of Categories on a Palm?

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eileen

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Hello!

I've been using the gtd system for a few months now and am loving it. I've presently been using an old Palm m100 but have a Treo 600 on its way to me.

I'm wondering if there will still be a 15 category limit on the To Do list on my Treo 600? It runs OS 5.01 I believe (I know it's at least 5, not sure on the .01 part).

Anyone know?

Also, is it a different limit of 15 categories *each* for the To Do list, the contacts, and the notes? Or is it 15 categories total for use in all of those? Or is that even an issue in palm's older than m100, hehe.

Thanks in advance!
Eileen
 
Thanks for the link! I've also found Beyond Contacts , it looks like a similar program for half the price of KeySuite. Have you used that by chance to compare?
 
Yes, the 15 category limit is still present in modern palm devices (unfortunately). The limit is 15 categories per application, so you can have 15 categories for datebook and 15 for to-do, etc.

I haven't used KeySuite, but I did trial Beyond Contacts for a bit. To be honest, it didn't do enough for me to justify the high cost. If you need more categories, but not really anything else of those two applications, then there are better options. If you just want more categories for your to-do list, then you could look into an outlining application such as Shadowplan. http://www.codejedi.com/ Shadowplan's categories are implemented as Tags, and each item can have any number of associated tags, so you can get lots of multi-dimensional categorization going on if you want to.

So I guess the real question is what would you want a program like Beyond Contacts or KeySuite for? What would they do that the built-in applications would not that you would find useful? Essentially, the biggest gun those programs have is the extra fields that they sync with Outlook, but if you don't need those, then there are surely cheaper, better options out there.
 
Thanks for the reply Matt. I had a suspicion the category cap was still going to exist. Oh well.

Another draw to me besides more categories for something like Beyond Contacts is the larger file size for the task note field space (and for regular notes). I've been cut off before with the present size limit. The email inbox feature (even if I don't use the wireless option) might also come in handy.

In the end though, I'm trying to keep things simple by not using too many applications. I've got Outlook on my laptop and I want to use that as my "base of operations" so syncing straight to it is appealing.

I've heard good things about Shadowplan though so I may check it out sometime and I do, in theory, like the idea of being able to assign multiple categories to a task. For now, I'm going to see if I can get away with just the default apps on the Treo (can reorganize my categories) before I commit to spending money.
 
Instead of Categories

For Todo's, I use key words up front noting context, etc... and using the palm application "CanDo", set up filtered views. CanDo can sort on the description as well as three other attributes of the, and can filter on keywords, multiple date combinations, etc... CanDo also allows "umbrella" categories which some people find useful.

For Memo's try MemoLeaf, which has some useful ideas about how to get around having to use categories on memo's.

The problem with becoming dependent on categories is that when you end up having to switch to a different application (because, for example, DOS programs are no longer supported) it becomes a huge task to move on. With keywords, your data is pretty much portable accross any platform and application.

Dwight...
 
Update: Note limitation expanded

Well I was reading up on the improved PIM for palm (I was currently working on an m100 which is not even sold anymore) and it seems they expanded the note/memo field. So that gets rid of one reason I was looking at something like Beyond Contacts.

I also discovered I wasn't using all 15 categories so I was able to set up my categories the way I wanted to afterall, even on the old palm model I currently have (m100).

The only thing I need now is for my Treo to arrive (I picked the free 3-8 business days shipping and I guess it's a long way to California from Treo ;) ).

Dwight said:
"The problem with becoming dependent on categories is that when you end up having to switch to a different application (because, for example, DOS programs are no longer supported) it becomes a huge task to move on. With keywords, your data is pretty much portable accross any platform and application."

That's a good point and application dependency is something I'm trying to limit. I'm trying to just use Outlook and the built in Palm apps -- as I should think both will be around for awhile and both should have support.

I am currently using a sort of PigPog method to my GTD madness (basically I'm tagging things with a project code) but so far I don't have an overly complex system. I don't see why I would have to move on since I would still own my own apps on my own hardware. I don't sync with a corporate network so I'm in charge of my own upgrade and obsolescence destiny.
 
Lightbulbs and Windows

When I had everything rolling in DOS, I would have never imagined that anything could have convinced me to change. Even when almost everyone I knew was using Windows 95, I was still using DOS. Then came work computers which limited users ability to use the system by implementing "admin rights" and etc... For the most part, other than click a GUI icon, there is little that I can do now that I wasn't able to do just as fast with DOS, Framework, Dbase III and Agenda.

Then, through a myriad of PIM applications that are now obsolete and which lost more and more functionality with each sucession of hardware and software (esp. windows) "improvements".

Now, a major consideration prior to putting any data in any software is whether I can export to a text or csv format without the losing functionality of the data/system.

I have come to the conclusion that like lightbulbs, windows has a built in required replacement trigger.

Anyway, hope all works out well with your system.
Dwight...
 
I hate software upgrades enforcing.

Dwight,

I'm the old DOS fan too. The reason that I am using Windows is the lack of new hardware support in DOS (new USB printers, drives, memory cards etc.) The requirement to constantly upgrade the software drives me crazy. In the non-english language country (Poland) it is even more annoying because there are still internationalization incompatibilities. For example now I am facing the problems with buggy Palm T5 internationalization and ugly Nokia 9300 Communicator internationalization (to enter one of the Polish characters you must navigate through multi-tabbed "Special Characters Table" :-( ).

TesTeq
 
15 Category limit

The 15 category limit for Palm is removed in PalmOS 6 / Cobalt.

This probably won't be in a device until late 2006 though.

T
 
An alternative to categories might be using titles in e.g. memos that start with the category; Memos in Palm OS have their first line's contents shown as title in the list of all memos.

E.g. for a memo that would contain the rules for playing tennis, the memo could start: Sports - Tennis - Rules

For another note that had a score keeping card, the title could be: Sports - Tennis - Scorecard

Now, you could put those two into a category of 'Sports' and have their titles be Tennis - Rules and Tennis - Scorecard respectively. That way you can sometimes 'save' on categories if you group together bits more broadly than you used to.
 
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