Ecco like features for future SheetPlanner

Posted by Ken
Feb 13, 2018 at 04:54 PM

A big thank you to rogbar for copying that article. It was a nice read, and a story that many of us loyal Ecco users found ourselves as minor characters. I also started using it in 1993 and finally had to abandon it a number of years ago when my office migrated to Win7 and would not allow me to keep the software on my machine.

While I would love a reincarnation of the original program since I was familiar with its workings and would need no learning curve, I realize that is not really an option in my life. While I am sure if I thought about it, I could probably come up with numerous things I loved about Ecco, I will try to highlight a few that come immediately to mind. First, I loved the easy integration between the calendar and any tabbed pages that were created. Most good programs offer some form of this today, but I really liked that Ecco had a calendar section and a task section with tasks that could carry forward. Again, not complex, but well laid out.

Another thing that I loved was the ability to add columns to tabs. This allowed me to look at data in a number of ways that worked for me. I know that Airtable (and probably many others) seems to do this somewhat well, but setting it up always required my brain to go into “database” mode and think how I can get the view to look the way I would like. My Life Organized also offers views and layout that work for me, but again, Ecco made it somewhat simple once you learned their “logic”.

While Ecco did not really have tags in the current sense, I do appreciate a program that offers good control and use of tags. I think the biggest failure in using tags is Asana. They took a very powerful feature and totally screwed it up by not allowing a tags section on the left hand column where folders/projects normally reside to allow quick filtering. big mistake in my book. If I cannot see my tags, how am I supposed to be able to use them?

I know that PPL has poured his heart and soul into creating the modern version of Ecco with IQ, and I am not sure that a second Ecco “clone” would be all that helpful. What I might encourage is finding a copy of Ecco and using it for a bit to try and understand first hand why it was loved by many. Programs like Airtable, IQ, Hyperplan and MLO, to name just a few, give me hope more than programs like Asana. There seem to be a group of developers who understand what programs like Ecco offered, and then their are program and companies, like Asana and Trello, that are somewhat creative in their efforts, but seem to have a different focus (or lack of appreciation for past efforts). New may be good, but old is not always bad or obsolete, and the wheel does not always need to be reinvented.

I wish you luck,

—Ken