Tim Flight

Yesterday I wrote about my struggles finding a mac based project planning application that suited my needs. Since then I have found a few other apps and will comment on those.

I picked up a newer, pre-release version of GanttProject.org. Version 1.11 pre-3 does include the ability to schedule weekends off, making it even closer to being a strong contender. Only two features seem missing now. The ability to set durations of less than one day and resource leveling. I could almost live without resource leveling, but falling short on both features knocks it out of contention for me.

One more application I found was Intellisys Project Desktop. The truth is that it might have been a good application. However the demo version I downloaded was soooo stripped of features that there was no way for me to evaluate it properly. Almost every button was disabled. They should really follow some of the other application developers out there who provide 30 day trial software or at least just limit the ability to save or print documents.

SimplyProjects came up in a search so I downloaded that software. Simple is correct. Too simple. OmniOutliner provides more features for project management out of the box than SimplyProjects does. The project’s website should have been a sign of what the app would be like.

Finally, I came across Merlin. I downloaded the trial application, installed it, and ran the app. My first impressions of the interface were not good. It looked cumbersome and too complicated for my needs. However a quick trip to the View menu and Preference settings and I was beginning to feel more at home. I’d prefer a 30 day trial over Merlin’s 20 task limit in the demo software to get a true feeling for the software, but I’ll make due.

Merlin does include priorities, hierarchal tasks, exports to iCal, and durations less than one day. As a huge bonus, Merlin tracks task start/end dates with “as soon as possible” which I used extensively in Microsoft Project. That feature alone might make it the winner.

The downside, however is the price. At over $200 it seems hard to justify even though there are not any other applications that seem to meet my needs. With other applications coming so close to my needs that are either free or well under $100, spending over $200 is a stretch. Merlin also includes lots of additional functionality that I would never use such as project budgeting.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 18th, 2005 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Computer Technology. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.