TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
For those who are interested, I'm currently playing with OpenProj.
Its big advantages are:
- It's free.
- It imports mpp files.
Its big disadvantage (to me... might be simple ignorance or operator
error) is that everybody's tasks and timelines appear blue on the GANTT
chart. I need a way to quickly pick my own and a couple of related ones
out of the clutter, multiple times on the big sheet, so I can see where
the overlaps (me doing double and triple duty) and
contentions/collisions occur.
ASIDE: It's foreign to me that some people can just scroll down several
hundred lines of task summaries in a text-only column and not only pick
out, but retain in memory the six, eight, ten date ranges of interest.
If I don't have a visual representation, I'm reduced to writing down a
note of the start-and-end dates for the first one, then scanning the
whole mess to see if any overlap with that first one. Then note the
second, and scan the remainder for new overlaps. Then note the third...
By the time I'm more than halfway through a dozen or so sub-projects, I
pretty much remember if the remaining ones overlap among themselves...
But I'm not totally sure, so I still have to go all the way to the end.
Contrast that with a couple of quick scrolls up and down the GANTT...
FAR better if the GANTT chart lets me highlight my own, then I can just
zoom out and see it all at a single glance. "Let's see how all the
green 'kevin' bars line up... A-hah! Gotcha! They've moved one project
a week and now I've got a one-week overlap on a tight two-week task and
a tight three-week task (that already overlapped with the constant
little untracked things the relentlessly pop up)."
Still, this program and its price are much better than a poke in the eye
with a sharp stick, so thanks to the several people who suggested it.
My original objection (about it not supporting multiple projects) was
unfounded, because the Program Manager gathers them into a single big
proj before publishing.
- Kevin
The information contained in this electronic mail transmission
may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected
from disclosure. If you have received this communication in
error, please notify us immediately by replying to this
message and deleting it from your computer without copying
or disclosing it.
ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 2009 is your all-in-one authoring and publishing
solution. Author in Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor, Microsoft Word or
HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. http://www.doctohelp.com
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
