I’ve been able to emulate the Timematters (TM) powerview using a modified version of Andy Warwick’s FTP Login widget described in Screencast No. 1. I’ve been able come up with a simple document management system that is less cumbersome, though less comprehensive, than the TM system. And I can also show the content of all notes in a single window in the Heads Up Display (HUD) in a project. In short, I can duplicate a lot of what I like best about TM by using widgets and some simple coding.

So now it’s on to the subject of merging. I’m a big fan of integration. Being able to get data out of DL and into a word processor is very important to me via the use of merge templates. I just crossed into that new frontier this past weekend, and I was pleased to discover that the merge capability in Daylite, at least for internal merges with the built-in editor, is much better than I expected. And it is very fast.

Merging with Daylite’s Built-in Editor
Thanks to two folks I’ve never met, Scott McCulloch and George Qualley, I’ve tweaked some of the code they’ve shared on the Marketcircle forum to create a sample merge letter in Daylite that pulls data from many sources during a single merge: the project, the contacts linked to that project, and the data in any custom form linked to the project. This is a Big Deal. It means, at the very least, that I can create a merge document using any data that is either (1) in a project or (2) connected to a project with just a few keystrokes.

The downside is that the built-in editor’s lack of page numbering, headers and footers, and other basic word processing capabilities make multi-page merges problematic, but even here, the built-in editor can generate a rough draft without the formatting which can then be copied and pasted into Word or Pages to complete the final draft. It could even be copied into Wordperfect running in Fusion or Parallels if your federal court requires Wordperfect format.

Merging with Word 2008
Merging with Word 2008 also works, but there’s also a significant downside. The merge keys available for external merges are much more limited than those for merges with the built-in editor. That means that for most merging, the built-in editor will have to suffice.

Merging Data into Government Forms
We use lots of Social Security forms and Industrial Commission forms in my practice. I have these forms in Wordperfect merge templates. The merges are fairly simple to run. To do the same thing with Daylite, you have to turn to Word 2008. The built-in editor doesn’t have the feature set necessary to do this.

So I recently tested a theory, and after several trials, it worked. Here’s what I did. I made an image of the form, inserted the image as a watermark in Word 2008, then used tables (one cell tables!) to precisely place the merge keys over the different boxes to receive merged data. I also used these table cells to type in data that doesn’t change (my name, address, phone number, etc.). Saved it as a .doc file. Then, when running the merge from within Daylite, I selected Word and the .doc file and completed the merge. It worked and it was reasonably quick about it. It would be better if you could add mergekeys to a PDF document and merge directly into that document, but I don’t think that’s possible. So, for now, this might be an acceptable workaround.

All this to say that I’m beginning to think that Daylite will work as an effective case management alternative to Timematters. I hadn’t felt this way for quite a while.

I’ll probably do a screencast on merging with the built-in editor and one on the widget I’ve customized to display a scrolling list of notes within a few weeks. The first two screencasts were plenty long (probably too long) so I’ll try to bring the next one in under 15-20 minutes.

Then it’s on to consider using Daylite to do some interoffice communication. Ben Stevens gave a very helpful presentation at the Macs in Trial seminar at the end of February. He packed a lot of good ideas into 10 minutes. (I didn’t make the seminar but got a copy of the DVD yesterday.) I want to try out some of what he’s doing with Daylite.

Finally, I’ve been keeping an eye on time and billing programs. I’m more willing to ditch the integration principle when it comes to these programs, if only because they are such complicated animals. Frankly, there’s not much out there that combines the great Mac interface with the tools needed to handle time and billing. But this isn’t a deal breaker in terms of moving to Macs. VMWare Fusion runs my Windows programs quite nicely, and if we have to use some legacy software until Mac developers catch up with their Windows brethren, I can wait.