General

“Please add a link to the brainmurmurs / Mentat blog in the quicklinks at the top of each mentat page.”

Certainly (this has since been added to the site).

Agenda Checkboxes

“Open tasks have a checked box? Odd. I really hate the checked box on tasks in the Agenda. As far as I am concerned, a checked box means the item is completed. If it’s completed, what is it doing in my agenda??

The check boxes are TERRIBLE and they are going to change. This is totally my own fault: we were initially looking for a quick way to add items into the Agenda view from Project folders and at that moment the checkbox seemed like a good idea. The fact that the checkbox is the universal sign for “this task is finished” was something I was aware of, but I thought I’d get to a better way of dealing with this before we went live (wups).The Checkbox is going to become a quick way to dismiss a task, and, depending on the preferences of the project it belongs to it will be closed or deleted when you click it.

We will switch to a new icon convention for moving tasks in and out of the Agenda. If you have any suggestions for icons for this, please let us know! So far the best thing I can think of is an arrow pointing to the project folders (right) for tasks that are in the Agenda list and an icon pointing left toward the Agenda list for tasks that are in your project folders. This seems vague and weak to me, so we’re still noodling on it for a better way.

[Update: 10/8/2007] These issues have been addressed and are now fixed as described above on the Mentat website.

Drag and Drop

“Can you make the entire line for a task grab and draggable?”

It actually used to be that way, but it played merry hell with the inline editing feature of most of the task bar elements. We opted for a drag handle instead as a compromise and, by large, the user experience has been a lot better. It took me a little while to get into the habit of dropping the drag handle itself *inside* the task list, but it works fine.

Comment/Note icon visibility

“Even when I hover, there is no obvious difference between a task that HAS a note and one that doesn’t.

Actually, any tasks with comments or notes have bright blue icons instead of light grey. Unfortunately, you have to reload the page in order to see them. I’ll fix that myself this week.

[Update: 10/8/2007] This is fixed.

“I can see your point in only showing icons when the mouse is hovering, but this can cause unfortunate problems. For example, if I have added a note to a task, I cannot tell. I would like to SEE the note icon front and center iff there is a note on the task. If no note, don’t show me the icon unless I hover.”

Two points here: we’re working on an event framework that will provide notification of new tasks and comments. This will make the tasks appear at the top of the Agenda list so that you can do it, delegate it, or defer it immediately via the Agenda UI. The event framework will also signal when new comments have been added to tasks and make the tasks’ comment icon visible even without mouseover, until you have actually cleared the event by viewing the tasks comments.

On the other hand, notes are items left by *you* regarding the tasks (each user can leave their own set of private notes on a task). Since you know you left the note, you don’t necessarily need to be notified of it. See below for more.

“There needs to be some compromise between keeping the interface clean (no unnecessary icons) and keeping it relevant (give me all the information I need).”

Different people have different notions of how much information is necessary. I am personally more interested in event information as opposed to state information. If an event has occured (new task, or comment) I want that brought to my attention, I don’t want to have to go hunting for it. On the other hand, if I’m curious about a task, I can mouse over it and see that it has previously made comments and note, but nothing new as the icons were hidden until mouse over.

This sounds like a user preference in the making. We can make a checkbox that says “make the tasks’s comment icon always visible when the task has comments” and another one that says “make the task’s note icon always visible when the tasks has notes”

Submitting new tasks

“1) I would really like to see a wider text box. It’s annoying that you seem to expect my tasks to have fewer than 19 characters! (I know I can type more but I can’t SEE more and the apparent expectation is annoying)
2) when I submit a task, the entry box should clear”

Agreed, totally. We’ll add that to this week’s list of new features.

Priority Highlighting/Coloring

“Open tasks are also light grey. Again odd. And light grey is difficult to read. You say ‘lower priority tasks fade off into the distance, readable but not clamoring for the user’s attention.’ I say the grey you’ve chosen for a Priority 1 task is so faint as to be almost unreadable. I’d use that shade for ‘closed’.

Priority highlighting is going to be something you can customize, we just haven’t had the bandwidth to get to it yet. You will be able to customize the highlighting within the next month, however.

Camino Support

“Lots of problems with Camino (Mozilla Mac-only variant). For example, the menu of choices for priority levels overruns and obscures the task name field.
This is the first request we’ve gotten for Camino support (we all use Firefox and Safari). I’ll have our guys take a look at it.

Standalone server

“Could you include info about hosting and standalone in the FAQ please? Stand alone installations for customers preferring to store their data on their own corporate IT infrastructure will be available later this fall.
(p.s. I am sincerely hoping that you will offer a very-low-priced version of the standalone system. Some of us don’t have a ‘corporate IT infrastructure’. We just like to control our data. (My home server is used by my spouse, myself, and a very small number of friends).”

Well, this is something we’re still trying to work out. I have sworn on the house of my forefathers that we’ll have a standalone version of the server available for customers to install themselves. We’re still working out logistics and pricing on this and will try and come up with some answers shortly. The price plan is tentatively $120/user license for the stand alone server (no charge for the software, just for user licenses).

Doing a ‘home’ version is an interesting idea. We’re already planning on rolling out a Mentat Household plan as a hosted offering, but haven’t discussed any similar option for the standalone server. Yet.

Product Comparisons (Long!)

“It looks like Mentat is a decent to-do list, but there are many of those already on the net. What features does mentat have that make it more fitted for handling my projects than other apps such as Vitalist or an advanced group project management app like Wrike?”

Wrike does seem to share many of the same core features as Mentat, but it only makes it halfway. We both address the need to keeping your projects visible for members you want to share with, and letting you choose who sees what. Both Mentat and Wrike also allow for due dates and priority - an important and oft overlooked feature in other planning apps, and assigning tasks with email notification

Mentat, however, features a far more advanced, smart interface. When you set a due date on Wrike you need to enter it exactly in the dd/mm/yyyy format or your task will not save at all, whereas Mentat’s smarter due date allows for ‘now’, ‘mon’, or 10/1 for example. Wrike requires that you select a task, then click edit task to be taken to a new page view where you can change specific features of that task, then click save to go back. All of these extra steps are eliminated in Mentat’s streamlined interface, allowing you to edit any portion of a task on the fly with a quick click and drop down, and autosaving whatever aspect you changed. So Mentat provides a much simpler, smoother experience in creating, editing, assigning, and prioritizing tasks from the same view, without jumping all around. Additionally, Mentat’s automatic comment options help keep your team in the know for any updates (or perhaps why you have suddenly assigned them work), a feature Wrike appears to lack. This all saves you time so you can focus on the tasks themselves.

Mentat also critically surpasses Wrike in mobile support, and task aggregation.
Mentat’s mobile support, allows voice dictation of new tasks using a cell phone (Jott) and full mobile support for iPhones (and soon other mobiles) instead of just email. With Mentat you can be in your car and make a hands free task entry with your cell phone, creating a task in the project view that you and any team members can view within minutes.

Mentat’s todo list also lets you drag & drop any tasks you want from multiple projects into your day’s agenda. Along with its smooth & easy interface, this allows you to mix and match your private personal tasks with tasks from several different groups you belong to (ie. school tasks, work tasks, etc) into one central view, creating an eye in the task storm and cutting down on visual noise. As Mentat Team members you can, for example, join in to handle tasks with your company group, share distinct projects with your grad school groups, and share home tasks with your household all from the same account giving you more freedom to choose your own memberships (rather than requiring a single account owner to provide member slots for your independent work or your household).

From an ethical standpoint, Mentat also does not share your information with any “trusted associates” (as in Wrike’s privacy agreement) or groups that will market to you. I was uncomfortable even signing up for Wrike because they appear to share personal and company info. We’re here to provide a service to help you manage projects and tasks, not to farm you out. Your information stays private. Any paid version of Mentat is even ad free.

Vital!st appears to be a handy personal GTD tool, similar to a pre-templated version of Notebook- an app that we find useful for here at the office. For creating checklists of what to do, both of these products should be fine. As far as project management however, Vital!st lacks the ability to add a task description or comments, or to reassign or prioritize by severity (aside from folder heirarchies) or set task status to anything other than checked or unchecked. The preset folder categories were a bit annoying for me too, as I had to change everything to suit my needs, and there were preset tasks showing up that I did not even create. I can definitely see a the niche for Vital!st, and I bet it’s great for that, but its not really even on the same level as Mentat.

We like our task management to be as streamlined as possible and save you time and confusion, rather than cost additional time or make you work to figure out how or why things are happening with your projects. Mentat is designed as a complete holistic task and project manager but maintains that clean & simple view, so it covers a few gaps these other products do not. While we don’t provide Gantt charts and calendar integration at this time, those features are on the way.

I hope this addresses your questions and we look forward to your honest review and appreciate any ideas or suggestions you may have.

Filed under: mentat by Daniel