Configuring Options

The ResultsManager Options dialogue lets you manage your master lists of Contexts, Owners, Categories and Areas, and gives you access to the Dashboard Options.

Options are stored in the Registry on your system. If you move ResultsManager to a new system, you will have to recreate your options again. The Master Lists can be exported and imported to aid this process.

To view the ResultsManager Options dialogue, click the ResultsManager tab | Options group | Options | ResultsManager Options in MindManager.

Clicking this button will launch ResultsMerlin (the ResultsManager Wizard), starting at the Power User setup Wizard. This will configure the principal settings for this dialogue and establish defaults for the others. The Wizard gives you more explanation of the settings and takes you through them one at a time. Changes made by the Wizard are reflected in this dialogue the next time you open it, and changes made in this dialogue become the default settings for the Wizard.

The Master Lists can be imported from an open MindManager map, for example from either a Dashboard map or from a map that has been created using the Export function below. This allows you to archive, transfer and restore Master lists, and also create them in a Map for import into ResultsManager. When importing, ResultsManager looks for Topics labelled "Contexts", "Owners", "Categories" and "Areas", then imports items from the subtopics below these. The easiest way to see how this works is to first export the Master lists, then re-import them again. The import only reads the map below the selected Topic, so select the Central Topic first if you want to import the whole map.

Clicking this button exports the current Master Lists to a new MindManager map. This allows them to be archived and re-imported later, or transferred to another user or system by sending the MindManager map. You should periodically export and save the Master Lists in case your system Registry gets restored to an earlier status, which would cause the Master lists to be lost. The export includes:

The Master Contexts list
The Master Owners list
The Master Areas list
The Master Categories list
The Master Dashboard Filters list (Pro version only)
The Dashboard Templates
All other settings in this dialogue and the Dashboard Options dialogue

Clicking this button will reset all your Master lists to their default settings. This operation cannot be undone, so use it carefully. You have the choice of making an archive of all Master lists before resetting them. Tip: if you lose your Master lists, you can recreate most of them by creating Dashboards from your maps. Any Contexts, Owners, Categories or Areas that are not already on a Master list can be added automatically when the Dashboard is generated - see below.

When a new Activity is edited, or a Dashboard map is generated, ResultsManager checks to see if any new Contexts, Owners, Categories or Areas have been used that are not on the existing Master Lists. If it finds any new entries, you have the choice of adding them to the Master Lists for use next time. You can configure the default behaviour for this:

Never add to master list does not check for new entries
Prompt me for permission checks for new entries and asks if you want to add them to the appropriate Master list. You are prompted for each new entry in turn.
Always add to master list checks for new entries, but does not prompt you for permission to add them to the Master Lists - they are added automatically.

This mechanism means that if you receive a MindManager map from another user that contains ResultsManager Activities in it, you can automatically acquire the Contexts, Owners, Categories and Areas for use in your own maps, where they differ from your existing lists.

The ResultsManager Activity Edit dialogue automatically creates "local" lists of Contexts, Areas, Owners and Categories used in the current map when it is launched. This allows quick selection of a previously-used item in the map that may not be included in the related Master List. However, very large maps with many hundreds of topics can slow down access to the Edit Activity dialogue, because ResultsManager reads all the topics in the map each time the edit dialogue is opened. This can make the edit dialogue slow to respond. Checking this option disables the building of these local lists. This speeds up access to the edit dialogue for large maps, but does require that any frequently-used items are maintained in the Master Lists. Normally, you would leave this option unchecked unless you frequently experience slow response to the Edit dialogue.

(ResultsManager Professional Edition only) Enter the drive letters or folder paths of shared storage locations, where you keep maps that other people have simultaneous access to. ResultsManager will check whether a map or template is in a shared location before opening it automatically, either during the generation of a Dashboard or when updating or inserting Activities in original project maps. You can specify more than one shared location, separated with a semi-colon. Drive letters should have the colon appended (e.g. "W:\") otherwise any path beginning with "W" would be treated as a shared storage location.

Private lock files

In normal use, when ResultsManager accesses maps in shared locations, it looks for the lock file written when MindManager edits a map, and will not open the map if the lock file is present. This is usually a hidden file of the form "~$mapname.mmap.~$lock". However, there are some sharing environments that work by replicating folder contents in the background, and some do not replicate lock files or hidden files, which prevents the MindManager-generated lock file from being used to protect against multiple simultaneous access. In these cases, define the shared folder location after an empty list item, and ResultsManager will generate a non-hidden text lock file that will be synchronised and replicated. For example, if "C:\GrooveSpace\" was a shared folder that worked with synchronisation that excluded hidden files or normal lock files, specify it as ";C:\GrooveSpace\" in the shared drive and folder list. Note that this requires you to manually close this file with the command File | Close and unlock shared map (MindManager X5 and 6 only) in order for ResultsManager to delete its own lock file. This mechanism is private to ResultsManager and is not honoured by other systems.

If a lock file is encountered when ResultsManager attempts to open a map in a shared location, and you do not already have the map open in MindManager, ResultsManager will display a warning message and will show the contents of the lock file. You should manually delete the lock file or ask the other user to close the map and remove the lock file.

ResultsManager does not require a "lock" when scanning maps for dashboards, as no write permission is needed for this operation. If a map is already open for edit in the same session of MindManager, the current state of the map is used without re-opening it. If a map is already open for edit by another user, then the last saved state of the map is used for the dashboard.

(ResultsManager Professional Edition only) Enabling this option forces ResultsManager to automatically close any shared maps that it opens while sending updates from edited Dashboard maps. Note that this only applies to maps that ResultsManager opens itself. If you already have a shared map open in MindManager when ResultsManager needs it, ResultsManager will not try to close it when it has finished. Disabling this option means that ResultsManager leaves any shared maps open, so that you can close them manually later. This is helpful if you need to make a number of changes and you want to keep a shared map locked for further updates.

(ResultsManager Professional Edition only) Selects how and when ResultsManager sends changes from Dashboard maps back to Project maps.

"No Editing from Dashboards" will not permit you to launch the Edit dialogue from within a Dashboard map that ResultsManager has generated. This is the default setting for ResultsManager Standard Edition. You can only make updates in your original project maps, by clicking on the Hyperlink Icons in the Dashboard to access the original activity.
"Edit in Dashboards, defer updates" gives you the most flexibility. You can make changes in a Dashboard map using either the ResultsManager Edit command or MindManager's regular features (e.g. changing Topic Icons). All changes are replicated within the Dashboard map and posted to the original Project maps when the Send Dashboard changes command is used. See also When would I used deferred updating?.
"Edit in Dashboards, immediate update" lets you edit items in Dashboard maps, using the Edit dialogue. As soon as the Edit dialogue is closed, ResultsManager updates all copies of the edited activity in the Dashboard map, and posts the changes back to the original Project map, so that everything stays updated.

This option configures the automatic logging of Activities when their status is changed. The choices are:

Do not log anything: completion logging is turned off
Log when finishing (100% complete): when an Activity is changed to 100% compete by editing in the ResultsManager Activity dialogue, using the Send Dashboard Changes command or by using the Set Activity Complete command, ResultsManager will append the details of this event in the Notes of the parent Project or Result (Subproject) topic. The notes in the parent Project or Result will become a completion log for the project or subproject.
Log any change in percent complete: logging to the Notes of the parent Project or Result will occur when any change in the percent complete setting is implemented, either through the ResultsManager Edit dialogue or by sending Dashboard changes back to project maps.