A simple off-line project management application?

April 10, 2006 12:37 PM

I'm looking for a simple off-line project management application.

I'm looking for a simple means of keeping track of a list of projects. I want to list the projects, how long I think they will take and at what date they will all be finished. Some way of tracking dependencies would be useful also but not vital.

At the moment I'm doing this in a simple spreadsheet. It works OK but it's very easy to mess things up especially when I delete a project in the middle of the list. Ideally, I'd like to find a Mac OS application that can do this.

I've looked for project management applications online. They generally cost much more money than I can afford. I tried ganntproject and although it's nifty it has too many rough edges to be usable, at least for me. (Moving an item around is a very messy process.)

I've also found some spreadsheet templates online but they are generally much more complicated than what I need. I just want something simple and robust.

I've found some past threads about this on MeFi: here, here, here, and here, but they all deal with either software that's outside my budget or with web-based stuff. I don't always have Internet access so although some of the web-based stuff looks good it's not suitable for me.

posted by Grinder to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Microsoft Project will do all that for you. Dunno how much it costs, though.
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:21 PM on April 10, 2006

Yes, Project handles this sort of thing nicely, but (as far as I remember) it's pretty expensive. Also, I'd prefer a Mac-based solution.
posted by Grinder at 1:30 PM on April 10, 2006

Try GanttProject 2.0 it's a open source project management software that even exports to MS Project (haven't tested that). The code is written in Java, so I'd assume it should work in Mac OS X.
posted by Yavsy at 1:54 PM on April 10, 2006

SharedPlan is something to look at. I tried the trial and thought it was great.
posted by JohnR at 2:40 PM on April 10, 2006

If your into mind maps you can try Free Mind. The site is a little slow but the app is definitely fast .
posted by furtive at 5:13 PM on April 10, 2006

GantttProject will be nice when it's finished - for the moment, I find it too annoying to use on a regular basis.
posted by Grinder at 1:15 AM on April 11, 2006