Tag Archives | 37signals

Summit: A Beautiful Way to Use Basecamp on the Go

By Matthew Guay on November 10, 2010 in iOS Apps

Would you like to be able to manage your projects and team from your iOS device? We’ve previously looked at Satchel, an iOS app that lets you keep your 37signals Backpack account synced on your iPhone or iPod Touch, so today we’ll look at the latest mobile Basecamp app that lets you manage projects on the go.

37signals Basecamp is one of the most popular project management webapps, and as such there are a multitude of apps and services that work with it. Unfortunately, even though 37signals products are usually very streamlined and simple to use, most of the Basecamp apps for iPhone feel confusing and scattered. If you’ve been frustrated with older Basecamp apps, there’s now a new app for you to try: Summit. Summit is a beautifully designed app for Basecamp that is simple, uncluttered, and works great. Let’s dig in and see how it works.

Preparing Your Basecamp Account

Before you get started, though, you need to prepare your Basecamp account to work with 3rd party apps. Login to your dashboard, select the Settings tab, then select SSL, API, Export. Scroll down, and review the Basecamp terms of service for API usage, then check the box and click Yes, please enable the Basecamp API for this account.

Once the API is enabled, you’ll see a message like the one below. Now you’re ready to use any 3rd party app with Basecamp, including Summit.

Using Summit with Basecamp

Now that your account’s ready, let’s dig into Summit and see what it offers. I was first impressed with the classy style of the app; it’s both elegant and functional, and feels great on iOS. When you first run the app, you’ll need to enter your Basecamp URL, username, and password, or enter your Open ID info for your account. Press Save when you’re done to add your account.

You can add as many accounts as you need, or just tap your account’s name to access your Basecamp.

You may have to wait a few moments as it accesses your account. One unfortunate thing we found is that Summit doesn’t work offline, so you’ll need to always be connected to the internet to access your info. We hope they add offline support in the near future, as that would be very useful for iPod Touch owners especially since they won’t have always-on internet.

Once your data’s loaded, though, Summit lets you quickly access your data. The main tab shows your dashboard. Here you’ll see all the info from your projects on the main tab, including messages and Writeboards, just like you would in Basecamp. You can’t view or edit Writeboards, unfortunately, but you can quickly access all the other data.

Todo lists can be accessed by tapping a to-do list in the Dashboard or from the to-do list tab on the bottom. It’s easy to know how many to-do items are left with the indicator; the blue indicator shows how many tasks are left, while the grey right side shows the total number of items in the list.

Need an easy way to message your team? The messages tab makes Basecamp messages as easy to manage as emails. Tap the button on the top right to compose a new message, or reply in-line to existing messages.

Milestones are easy to review and mark as finished, though we didn’t find an option to add new milestones to a project. In all, though, the app is quick and easy to use, and while it is missing some features, the ones it includes are implemented very nicely.

Conclusion

Summit makes it easy to keep up with your projects on the go, and with its streamlined interface, you may even find it easier to manage Basecamp from your iOS device than from the web interface. I was disappointed it didn’t cache your content for offline use, and this makes it less useful to me on an iPod Touch. Still, it’s a beautifully designed app that overall works very good, and we’re hoping that it’ll be quickly updated to iron out the quirks and perhaps bring extra features we’d like! Even as is, I still would recommend Summit, and will be watching for updates and perhaps more apps from the developer in the future.

Do you already use a Basecamp app on your mobile device? Let us know in the comments what your favorite Basecamp app is.

Purchase and Download Summit for Basecamp from the App Store [$3.99]

Signup for a Basecamp Account

Get more info about Summit from its official website

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Keep 37signals Backpack With You Everywhere With Satchel

By Matthew Guay on October 27, 2010 in iOS Apps

Would you like to keep up with your Backpack notes, to-do lists, and more, no matter where you are? Let’s take a look at Satchel, a great iOS app that lets you keep your Backpack with you, even if you’re offline.

We’ve covered many ways you can use 37signals Backpack to make your life simpler. It’s a great way to work together with a team or throw together a quick free website. It’s also one of the best to-do list apps, since you can create lists, move them between pages, rearrange them, and add notes to notes. I use Backpack to keep up with my college class info, coordinate team projects, and keep track of article ideas for my blogs, and more.

The only problem is, Backpack is only available when you’re online. Even if you’re online on a mobile device, the webapp doesn’t scale well to small screens. That’s where Satchel comes in. This app lets you keep your full Backpack account with you at all times on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. You can view and edit your pages, to-do lists, calendar, and journal, and even create new pages. If you don’t have an internet connection, Satchel will save your edits and new content and then sync the next time you’re online. In fact, it just might be one of the best iOS to-do list apps available since it’s so full featured.

Getting Started

When you first run Satchel, you’ll need to enter your Backpack account info or create a new account. Satchel works great with free or paid Backpack accounts, and for most personal uses, the free account will be plenty.

Enter your username, password, and the name of your Backpack account (yourname.backpackit.com), or enter your OpenID to sign in if you’ve added one to your account. Satchel may take a few moments to login as it’s downloading the content from your Backpack pages.

As soon as it’s finished, you’ll see your pages listed in alphabetical order. You can also browse pages by tag, or search the contents of the pages from the search bar. Press Edit to delete pages if you wish. From the bottom toolbar, you can access your Backpack alerts, calendar, and journal, or add a new page via the plus button.

Journal seems infinitely more useful on a mobile device, since you can quickly update what you’re working on within seconds without opening your browser.

The Accounts button on the top left takes you to your accounts list. Here you can add or remove your Backpack accounts so you can keep up with everything all together. This page also lets you access your Satchel settings, where you can choose how much data is saved on your device and more.

Putting Satchel to Use

Satchel makes it quick to get to what’s most important in your Backpack pages. Press a page name to see everything included on the page. Notes and to-do list sections on a page will be identified with different icons, so you can quickly jump to that section. The only thing that’s missing is Writeboards; unfortunately, you can’t view or edit Writeboards from Satchel.

Alternately, press one of the buttons on the bottom to view all lists, notes, or images together. Here in the Notes tab you see all of the notes from the page together; press the title of a section to edit the note section, or press the blue arrow to access any links in the section.

Editing a note works just like you’d expect, and you can even include Textile markup to format text like you would in Backpack online.

To-do lists are where Satchel truly shines. You can quickly browse through all of your to-dos on the Lists page, or simply browse to one to-do section from the first page. Press the blue arrow to browse to links in the to-do item. Once you’ve done a task, just press the circle to check it off, and it’ll fall to the completed section of your list. Adding new lists and tasks is quick and simple, and you may find yourself storing more data on one Backpack page than you ever imagined since it’s so easy to organize in Satchel. The only thing that’s missing is to-do item notes; you can’t view or edit any notes attached to a to-do item.

Backpack makes it easier than most service to organize your tasks and notes like you want by dragging and dropping them around on a page. Satchel supports this, too. Just press Edit on the top of a page, and then you can remove sections or drag and drop items to the order you want. Most to-do list apps only let you keep items in the order you added them, but I find it very helpful to rearrange items to their current priority, and this works great in Satchel.

Satchel worked great in our tests on iPod touch running iOS 4, and didn’t lag even when syncing online. We weren’t able to test it on an iPad, but if you’ve got one you can use Satchel to keep up with your Backpack, tasks, and notes on it, too.

Conclusion

Satchel is a great app that makes one of the best webapps feel at home on your iOS device, both online and off. If you’re already a heavy Backpack user, Satchel is an app you’re sure to want. If you’ve already been using Backpack but not too seriously, you may find yourself using it more than ever with the great notes and lists support on your iOS device. It’s still missing a few features, such as notes attached to to-do list items, sharing pages, and Writeboards. All in all, though, it works great and is fast and fluid.

Satchel is available in the App store for iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads running iOS 3.0 or newer, and costs $9.99. If you’re not sure you’re ready to spend that much on an app, you can try out Satchel View for free, which works the exact same as Satchel but doesn’t let you edit any items, check off to-dos, or add pages, but is still a great way to keep your Backpack data with your all the time. If you want fully editing, though, and want to use it as an advanced to-do list and note manager, Satchel is the way to go. Along with the official Campfire and Highrise apps, it’ll be easy to keep your all of your 37signals apps on your iOS device!

Download Satchel from the App Store

Get more info about Satchel from its publisher’s site

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Create a Quick and Simple Webpage with Backpack

By Matthew Guay on January 20, 2010 in Techinch

Have you ever wanted to make a quick webpage? Not a full site, but simply a page with information, some pictures and perhaps a map or video? Backpack from 37signals is a great tool for keeping track of your personal and business information, but it can also be used to quickly make a public or private site. In fact, the “Unofficial List of Backpack Tips and Tricks” is simply a public Backpack page!

To get started, first sign into your Backpack account. If you don’t have an account yet, signup at backpackit.com. They offer a variety of accounts ranging to a free account with 5 pages to monthly accounts with more pages and features starting at $7/month.

Now, you simply have to:

Continue Reading →

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Writeboard: Class projects reinvented

By Matthew Guay on January 11, 2010 in Techinch

Communication and teamwork are crucial for the success of any projects. Whether in building something for a contest, organizing a sports team, or writing a class paper together, education is filled with ways that group coordination is crucial. And it ought to be that way, as students must learn these skills to be successful in the workplace. What better way to do that than to use real-life professional collaboration tools, right?

Last spring semester, I was assigned team project in my TeleCampus class from the University of Texas. Excited to put technology to the test, I quickly set my team up with a wiki from PBworks. It seemed simple enough to use. But it turned out to not be so easy. Classmates felt overwhelmed and resorted to emails and merging Word documents, and even I had trouble figuring out some of the system. Eventually, our wiki was abandoned, and the class project hobbled along as every other end-of-20th-century class project had.

In the fall semester, I once again had a group class project at my new college, Florida Tech. This time, I had heard of Writeboard. Writeboard is an amazing product from the people at 37signals, and best of, it’s free! It is an incredibly simple online text editor. That’s it. What, you say? Does it have feature x? Probably not. But that was the problem with PBworks. It had every feature and then some, but everyone was confused by it. Do I click here or there, or both? With Writeboard, we simply were able to focus on writing.

Writeboard does support simple text formatting, e.g. asterisk around a word make it bold (*example*). I actually discovered the formatting by accident, because it is just natural to give emphasis to text like that. It also saves every version of our file, so we could easily see what we’d done before or what someone else changed. We all signed in with a simple password; no new accounts for every student to setup. Everyone in my class found it equally easy to use, and we had a vibrant community helping each other with class notes and the group project. Altogether we had over 4,000 words in one Writeboard; not necessarily recommended, but it shows the power of Writeboard! The tech is so easy to use, everyone enjoyed it. And the important thing is that it actually helped us achieve our goals in ways no other tool had ever done. Even though we techies love new features and tools, the truth is that when something needs to be done, just getting it done is sometimes better!

One other tool that helped our team out was my Backpack account. This great tool, which I hope to write about more in the near future, lets you store lists, notes, links (including Writeboards), and more on easy-to-edit pages. For our class, I made a public page where I put a link to our team’s Writeboard, notes with important deadlines and information about the project, and lists of assignments and participants. It just tied everything in the class together easily and quickly. No starting a new website, designing HTML/CSS, or anything, just getting the job done.

I can’t wait to try this out in my next class group project again. If technology can make group projects both fun and productive, that’s really something! So next time you’re in a group project, give Writeboard and Backpack a try; your team might get more done (and a better grade) too!

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