Shelf

The Curio shelf is a popup area located on the right side of the Curio window. Curio includes several shelf modules that run within that area to help you while you’re working on your project such as the Search shelf to find information.

Inspector

Accessing the Inspector Shelf

You can access the inspector shelf by clicking on the Inspector toolbar button. Go ahead and do it now so you can look at it while we go over some things.

Context Sensitive

The inspector shelf shows properties of the selected figure or idea space. The inspector panels that appear within the shelf are context sensitive so, based on what’s selected, the available panels and tabs may change.

For instance, select a text figure and you will see certain tabs at the top of the inspector shelf. Click on a list and a tab titled “List” will appear with more options. Click on the background of the idea space so no figures are selected and the inspector content will change to show properties of the idea space, such as background color and dimensions.

Inspector Popovers

As mentioned earlier in this document, you can access many of the same panels via buttons on the inspector bar. In many cases, those buttons will reveal popovers that appear so you can make property changes, then dismiss the popover when you’re done. Sometimes popovers are more convenient than the inspector shelf, especially for small laptop screens, because they only take up room temporarily.

Detachable Popovers

Inspector popovers can also be detached by clicking and dragging on their background to “tear” them off the inspector bar and turn them into free floating windows. You can drag these small windows anywhere on the screen, or even to a separate screen attached to your Mac.

Relaunching Curio will automatically restore those same detached popovers.

You can access the search shelf by clicking on the Search toolbar button or press ⌘F. Go ahead and do it now so you can look at it while we go over some things.

On a related note, if you want to filter the display of Organizer items based on various criteria then check out the Organizer Filter.

Search Criteria

You can choose a saved search from the popup located at the bottom of the search shelf, or perform a new search by filling out one or more of the search criteria. Checking on the criteria checkbox will expand that panel to show its options.

Text

Text specified will be used to perform a case-insensitive search. When searching Curio will look at all text associated with a figure including text figure content, figure notes, asset figure file name, figure tag names, etc. Curio will also search idea space asset and other Organizer item assets by searching their titles.

File Content

You can optionally include the file content of your asset figures in the text search. Note that Apple’s SearchKit cannot search within every type of asset, but appears to work very well with plain text, RTF, RTFD, HTML, and PDF files.

For Pro users that have external asset libraries enabled via the Project inspector, those file assets will be searched using Spotlight instead of SearchKit so any Spotlight plugins you have installed will help Curio look into 3rd party application documents, as well.

Boolean Expressions

You may use simple boolean expressions to search such as zengobi or curio, which will find any figure with the word zengobi or curio associated with it (as whole words), while zengobi and curio will return those figures that have both words somewhere in the figure’s text. Note that currently you can’t mix or and and expressions.

Special Prefixes

You can also use special prefixes, described below, so a search for zengobi and #work will find items with the text zengobi and the tag of work. Another example, #work or #home find figures with either of those tags. And #zengobi or @george or curio will return all figures with the zengobi tag, the george resource, or the word curio.

Tasks

You can choose to search for only unchecked or checked items.

Tags

All available tags are displayed, organized by tags local to this project or by global tag set name. Select one or more tags that must be associated with each returned result.

You can also use text search field to search for tags if you preface it with a #. For example, searching for #legal will do a search for a tag named legal.

On a related note, the Curio Spotlight importer has been updated to include any assigned tags within the project’s scanned metadata with and without the # prefix. This means you can use Spotlight to search for legal or #legal.

Custom Data

You can choose a custom tag key, an operator, and enter a value.

For example, you can search for where Price > 10 or Completed < 50.

Note that for percentage values you can search for the percentage (like 50), not the decimal value (0.50).

References

You can search for figures which has references to a specific reference type, or to any reference type. See below for a note on how to export a CSV report of all cross references.

Resources

Select one or more resources that must be associated with each returned result.

You can also use the text search field to search for resources if you preface it with a @. For example, @george will find figures associated with the resource named George Browning. Note that the @ prefix can search based on partial matches.

Rating

Select a star rating, plus choose whether an item must have rating equal to, less than or equal to, or greater than or equal to the specified rating.

Priority

Select a priority, plus choose whether an item must have priority equal to, less than or equal to, or greater than or equal to the specified priority.

Kind

Narrow your search down to a specific kind of asset. This can be general, like movies, or specific like Excel Spreadsheets.

Added Date

Select a date range for when matching items were added to the idea space as specified by their added date meta data.

Last Modified Date

Select a date range for when matching items were last modified. You can also create and select project milestones so you can see all figures changes since a particular milestone. For instance, create a milestone for the first time you demonstrated your product during a client visit. Then you can use the Search shelf to easily find all figures modified since that visit.

Start Date

Select a date range for when matching items will need to start as specified by their start date meta data.

Due Date

Select a date range for when matching items will be due as specified by their due date meta data.

Done Date

Select a date range for when matching items were actually completed as specified by their done date meta data.

Search Scope

Choose a search scope to indicate whether you want to search the entire project, the current section, the current section tree (meaning this section and any child sections), the current idea space, the current idea space tree (meaning any child items as well), the project Archive, or the project Trash.

Note that the Archive and Trash are only searched if that scope item is selected.

Once you have set all of the options you wish to search for, click the Begin Search button. A list of the matching figures within the current Project will be displayed. You can group the matching figures by a number of options by choosing the appropriate option from the Group By popup menu. You can even group the results by a specified tag set.

To jump to a specific result, simply click on the item in the result list. The figure will be momentarily highlighted within its idea space. Non-matching figures are automatically faded into the background so that the matching figures stand out better.

Saving Search Criteria

Use the actions button at the very bottom of the search shelf to save search criteria to use so you can easily reuse it again.

Click the “Cancel Search” button in the search shelf, or press ⌘F again, or press the Search toolbar button again which will also close the Search shelf.

Exporting Search Results

Between the “Refine Search” and “Cancel Search” buttons you’ll find an export icon. Click that to copy your result as rich text, or export your search results in rich text, markdown , or CSV format. You can also export a CSV report of all figure cross references in those results, see References for more details.

Regular Expressions

For Curio Professional users, the Search shelf text field supports regular expressions (RegEx).

Internally Curio uses the Mac’s built-in NSRegularExpressions class for searching so it uses that syntax. For more information see this tutorial and Apple’s guide.

Here are some examples:

Search Description
curio A normal search; matches figures with curio anywhere even if within another word, like zengobicurio or curiosity.
^curio Matches figures only if curio is the first word.
\bcurio Matches figures only if curio begins a word thus matches curiosity but not zengobicurio.
zengobi|curio Matches figures with either zengobi or curio anywhere, even if within another word.
\bzengobi\b|\bcurio\b Matches figures with either zengobi or curio as whole words.
zengobi.*curio|curio.*zengobi Matches figures with both zengobi and curio anywhere, even if within another word.
\bzengobi\b.*\bcurio\b|\bcurio\b.*\bzengobi\b Matches figures with both zengobi and curio as whole words.

Library

You can access the search shelf by clicking on the Library toolbar button. Go ahead and do it now so you can look at it while we go over some things.

Library Modules

Based on the edition of Curio you own, you will find several installed library modules listed with tabs at the top of the library shelf.

Let’s begin our tour of the available library modules…

Project

Every project has an internal asset library which manages all aliased and embedded files dragged into Curio.

Generally you use the project library to see what assets are in your library and re-use existing assets. When you use the same asset more than once in your project it is actually only stored as a single underlying file in the asset library.

To use an asset simply drag-and-drop it out of the library and drop it onto the idea space. This will create an appropriate asset figure to be associated with the dragged asset. Again, you can use this technique to create numerous asset figures of the same asset and Curio will efficiently use the same single underlying asset file.

If you select and delete an asset using the Delete key the file will be removed and any asset figure instances of it on any idea spaces will be removed from your project. You have to confirm the removal of an asset since this cannot be undone.

Context Menu

Right-click on an asset to perform one of these actions:

  • Open
    Launch the asset file using the Finder.
  • Open With
    Choose a specific application to open the asset file.
  • Open URL in Browser
    If a URL is associated with the asset then it will be opened in the default browser such as Safari.
  • Reveal in Finder
    Reveal the asset file within a Finder window.
  • Reveal in Idea Space
    Show where the asset is instantiated in one or more idea spaces.
  • Embed within Project
    Replace an alias to a file into an embedded copy of that file.
  • Copy to Curiota
    Copy the asset file to the Curiota companion app.
  • Copy to Desktop
    Copy the asset file to the Desktop.
  • Mail as Attachment
    Create a new mail message with the selected file as an attachment. If more than one asset is selected then a zip of all the selected assets will be added as a single attachment.
  • Duplicate
    Create a copy of the asset and store it in the project library.

Show the Project Library

  1. Click the Library shelf toolbar button, then click the Project tab at the top of the shelf.
  2. You can also right-click on an asset figure on an idea space and choose Reveal in Library to see the associated asset in the project library.

Add New Files to the Project Library

  • Drag-and-drop one or more files from the Finder to the Project Library view. By default a copy of each file will be embedded in your project asset library. If Command is held during the drag then the files will be moved to the library. If Option is held then an alias to each file will be added to the library.

Search the Project Library

  • Enter a search phrase in the Search field and press Return.

Filter the Results by Scope

  1. Click the Scope popup to change the search scope: the entire project, the current section, the current section tree (meaning this section and any child sections), the current idea space, the current idea space tree (meaning any child items as well), the project Archive, the project Trash, only unused (orphaned) assets that aren’t in use in any idea space.
  2. Note that the Archive and Trash are only searched if that scope item is selected.

Filter the Results by File Type

  • Click the Kind popup to see only certain types of files. These can include general types such as document, images, or movies, or specific types such as PDF or Adobe Photoshop files.

Filter the Results by Last Modified Date

  • Click the Modified popup to filter the results based on when they were last modified.

Change the Sort Order

  • Click the Sort By popup to change the sort: title, last modified, date added to Curio, file size.

Duplicate an Asset

  • Select the asset and choose Edit > Duplicate. The new asset will be selected and the word “copy” will be appended to the end of its name.

Local

The Local library uses the power of Spotlight to quickly find files on your hard disk using a number of criteria including text, tags, modification date, and kind of file. When searching for text Curio can search just file titles or also include the actual content of the files. The results can be sorted by file title, last modified date, creation date, or file size.

For example, use Local to find all images modified in the past 2 weeks. Or all files with a tag “School” created in the past month.

Important

Since the Local shelf uses Spotlight to conduct the searches only files and folders indexed by Spotlight can be found. If you restrict or disable Spotlight in System Preferences then certain locations may not be searchable.

You can direct Local to search your entire Mac, or restrict the scope to your Home folder and any folders it contains. Even better, you can extend this with additional custom scope folders. For example, you might add your Dropbox folder, your Google Drive folder, and a special project folder that you use a personal “inbox” for files and snippets to peruse later.

Assuming you have installed Curiota, the Local scope popup will also list your Curiota Inbox and any Curiota collections, including your pre-Curio 10 Scrapbook repository which was automatically converted into a Curiota “Scrapbook” collection. More information regarding Curiota can be found at www.zengobi.com/curiota.

To use a file simply drag-and-drop it out of the Local library and drop it onto the idea space. Doing this will embed a copy of the file into your project. Hold Option while dragging the file to create an alias to the original file, or hold Command to move the file into your project (therefore removing it from its original location).

If you select and delete a file from Local using the Delete key the file will be moved to the Trash.

You can double-click a file in Local results to open it, right-click to open it with a selected app or reveal it in the Finder, or press Spacebar to get a Quick Look preview.

Context Menu

Right-click on an asset to perform one of these actions:

  • Open — will launch the asset file using the Finder.
  • Open With — where you can choose a specific application to open the asset file.
  • Reveal in Finder — will reveal the asset file within a Finder window.

Show the Local Library

  • Click the Library shelf toolbar button, then click the Local tab at the top of the shelf.

Search the Local Library

  • Enter a search phrase in the Search field, or change some of the other search criteria such as scoping, file kind, and modification date.

Filter the Results by Scope

  • Click the Scope popup to change where Local will search for files. You can use the actions button next to this popup to add custom search folders, such as Dropbox. Note that the scoping is normally recursive meaning that folders within the specified folder will also be searched, although you can disable this if you wish using the checkbox located below the Scope popup.

Filter the Results by File Type

  • Click the Kind popup to see only certain types of files. These can include general types such as document, images, or movies, or specific types such as PDF or Adobe Photoshop files.

Filter the Results by Last Modified Date

  • Click the Modified popup to filter the results based on when they were last modified.

Change the Sort Order

  • Click the Sort By popup to change the sort: title, last modified, file size.

DEVONthink

Many Curio customers also use the very popular DEVONthink application to manage vast collections of notes and links.

You can now search your DEVONthink data using Curio’s Local Library shelf which uses Spotlight to scan for results. Curio keeps an eye out for DEVONthink data specifically in the returned results to better display those result entries to you.

DEVONthink replicates their database meta information into uniquely-named files (ex: E6BF05E4-82E9-4824-AE0B-6E38A01BDF6F.dtp2) in a special app support folder, which Spotlight indexes, and therefore Curio’s Local shelf can use.

Curio can parse those gobbledygook file names returned by Spotlight and show user-friendly entries in the Local results list.

By default Curio’s Local search looks for all files which match the entered criteria, so you may end up with a mix of normal files and DEVONthink data files. However, if you really want to narrow down your search specifically to DEVONthink, you can choose “DEVONthink” from the Kind popup.

Double-clicking one of those results will launch the uniquely-named file which, in turn, launches DEVONthink, and opens the appropriate entry in its database. Then, from within DEVONthink, you can copy or drag the results into your Curio idea space.

If you drag the result from Local into your idea space, a special DEVONthink hyperlink will be created as a weblink figure. Double-clicking that weblink figure will launch DEVONthink and open that entry in its database.

Stencils

Of course, you can use the Insert toolbar button to bring up the Figure Styles and Stencils gallery and click to insert a stencil. However, if you use a lot of stencils, having a shelf where you can very easily drag-and-drop stencils from the shelf to your idea space is invaluable.

Note that, like the Insert popover’s stencil gallery, the stencil library shelf will display both simple and complex stencils, for single figure and multiple figure stencils, respectively. The title of the complex stencil will show the number of contained figures within in parentheses. You can either drag the entire complex stencil into your idea space or double-click to drill into the complex stencil and drag figures within the complex stencil out.

Context Menu

Right-click on an asset to perform one of these actions:

  • tag name
    Choose a checked or unchecked tag name to toggle the tags associated with this stencil.
  • Edit Stencil
    To edit the stencil.
  • Send to Friend
    To email the stencil to a friend.
  • Send to Zengobi
    To email the stencil to Zengobi if you’d like us to be able to share it with others.

Show the Stencils Library

  • Click the Library shelf toolbar button, then click the Stencils tab at the top of the shelf.

Filter the Results by Repository

  • Click the Repository popup to change where to find Stencils. By default Curio will look at bundled figure stencils but you can choose personal stencils or a stencils in an external repository specified in Curio’s preferences. Curio Professional users can choose to see Master stencils, as well.

Filter the Results by Tag

  • Click the Tag popup to see only those figure stencils associated with specific tags. You can use the actions menu next to this popup to create new stencil tags. Then right-click on the stencils themselves to associate them with one or more tags. Note that tags can only be created within your Personal repository.

Change the Sort Order

  • Click the Sort By popup to change the sort: title, most recently used, or date added to the repository

Add a Stencil Via the Stencils Library

  1. You can drag-and-drop an idea space from the Organizer directly to the Stencils shelf to save the entire contents of the idea space as a figure stencil.
  2. This is in addition to the other methods of creating a stencil such as by right-clicking on a figure and choosing Save as Figure Stencil.

Delete a Personal or Master Stencil from the Stencils Library

  • Select the stencil then press the Delete key.

Sleuth

The Sleuth library is a new, more accessible method for quickly conducting research while working on your Curio project.

It provides a subset of the sites the primary Sleuth window supports, that work well within the more compact width of the shelf. Currently there’s no way to customize the available Sleuth sites that appear in the Sleuth library shelf as they require a bit of testing to insure smooth operations in that slim area.

To use the Sleuth library simply type in a search term and quickly find images, definitions, synonyms, videos, and much more. Then drag-and-drop results from the Sleuth shelf directly to your idea space.

Show the Sleuth Library

  1. Click the Library shelf toolbar button, then click the Sleuth tab at the top of the shelf.
  2. Or, ⇧Click on the Sleuth toolbar button or press ⌥⌘F (or Edit > Search in Sleuth Shelf).
    • The shelf will open if necessary and the Sleuth library will immediately become active.
    • Any text that was selected or if a selected figure contains text will immediately become the search phrase for the Sleuth library and the search will begin.
    • This is an incredibly fast way to search for phrases on the internet.

Change the Search Site

  • Click the site popup to change where Sleuth is searching, or click the stepper to walk through the available Sleuth sites.

Evernote

Curio integrates seamlessly with Evernote so you can quickly search for snippets you’ve collected outside of Curio and easily drag and drop those items into your idea spaces.

What Is Evernote?

Evernote is a multi-platform product and service from Evernote Corporation which allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

Evernote has client applications for macOS, iOS, Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile, and even a web-based solution. Data collected on any of these clients are automatically synchronized between each other via the evernote.com service.

All clients are free and the service is free with some restrictions, although incredibly full-featured for a free product. Users can also upgrade to a premium service plan for more features. To learn more about Evernote go to https://www.evernote.com.

Yinxiang Biji / 印象笔记 / Evernote China

Curio should connect to Yinxiang Biji, Evernote’s China-based service, automatically using the user’s (a) China-based IP address, and (b) Chinese locale setting in System Preferences > Language & Region.

If this isn’t working then check Curio’s Help > Curio Advanced Settings on ways to force the connection.

Evernote Business

Curio currently does not work with Evernote Business accounts due to complexities in dealing with these types of accounts.

Get an Evernote Account

Log into Curio’s Evernote Shelf

  1. Once you have your Evernote account click on the Evernote shelf icon within Curio.
  2. Enter your Evernote username and password. If requested, this information can be remembered for quick access in the future.
  3. Click the Login button to log into Evernote.

Search for Evernote Items

  1. All search terms are optional but can include one or more of the following: search text, notebook, tag, kind, and last modified date. Search text is wildcarded at the end (so searching for the word ever will find evernote, for example) unless the phrase is quoted.
  2. You can also specify how the results should be sorted when displayed and what zoom level should be used for the resulting preview images.
  3. The results are automatically refreshed as you make your selection changes. You may also click the Refresh button to force a refresh.

Add an Evernote Note to an Idea Space

  • Drag the note from the Evernote shelf and drop it into an idea space. When dragging an Evernote note out of the shelf into your idea space, it is normally copied into your project. You can hold down the Command key while dragging to move it to your project, automatically removing it from the Evernote cloud.
  • Hold down the Option key and drag the note from the Evernote shelf and drop it into an idea space. This will create an “evernote://” link that, when clicked, will launch the Evernote Mac client and open the referenced note within that application.

Use Quick Look on an Evernote Note

  • Press the Spacebar to activate Quick Look on the selected Evernote note.

Open an Evernote Note

  • Double-click an Evernote note in the shelf to open it with the Finder.

Delete an Evernote Note

  • Select an Evernote note and press the Delete key to delete it from the Evernote cloud.

Automatic Meta Import

When bringing Evernote notes into Curio certain meta fields are automatically captured.

Tags

Your Evernote tags and notebook names are automatically synchronized into Curio with two special Curio global tag sets: “Evernote Tags” and “Evernote Notebooks”. These new tag sets can be found in Meta inspector’s Tags panel.

Then, when a note is dragged from the Evernote shelf into the idea space, the Evernote tags and containing notebook names are mapped their Curio tag counterparts.

This tag mapping feature allows you to use the Curio inspector bar or Search shelf to quickly find figures on your idea spaces collected via Evernote.

Character Recognition Data

The Evernote service will automatically scan any images for handwritten or typed words.

When an image note is dragged into Curio, that character recognition information is embedded as meta data in the resulting Curio asset figure. This feature allows you to use Curio’s Search shelf to find those images on your idea spaces using the same search phrases.

Source URL

If an Evernote note item has a source URL associated with it then the resulting figure will automatically be associated with that URL as well. Simply double-click the figure in the idea space to open the URL. If the note is a file, like an image file, then right-click and choose Open File With Finder to open it with the Finder.

Limitations of the Evernote Shelf

The Evernote shelf is currently unidirectional so you cannot make changes to any of your Evernote notes from within Curio. Please use one of their free clients to make any changes.

Evernote’s 3rd Party App Rate Limits

Evernote imposes rate limits on all 3rd party apps which limit the number of calls an app can make to the Evernote cloud within a 1-hour period. Therefore several changes were made to Curio’s Evernote shelf so we greatly reduce the number of calls made to the Evernote cloud.

  • Curio will no longer automatically download all notes in the selected notebook to the local cache.
  • Instead we will only auto-download the first 5 notes in the resulting list. There is now an advanced setting if you wish to increase this value, although don’t make it too high or you could hit the rate limit.
  • When you select any note in the result list, if it isn’t already local, Curio will then immediately download it from the cloud. Related to this, you can only select a single note at a time to ensure that we only download precisely what the user needs and we minimize our connections to the Evernote servers.
  • A note will now clearly indicate if it is on the Evernote cloud, is being downloaded, or is in the local cache.
  • Instead of downloading the note’s resources and recognition data as separate calls to the cloud the entire note is grabbed with a single call which is much more efficient.
  • Once a note is local you can hit spacebar to preview it, double-click to open it, or drag it to an idea space to embed a copy of the note in your project.

Evernote hasn’t provided any specifics so we don’t know exactly what these limits are or if the limits are the same for regular vs. premium users. However, with these changes we have optimized Curio’s Evernote integration as much as possible to greatly reduce the chance that you’ll hit the limit within 1-hour periods.

Advanced Evernote Customizations

The Evernote shelf supports a few advanced customizations which you can read about in Help > Curio Advanced Settings.

Status

You can access the status shelf by clicking on the Status toolbar button. Go ahead and do it now so you can look at it while we go over some things.

Curio’s Status shelf view packs a lot of information into a compact display.

Getting Things Done (GTD)

“Getting Things Done” is a popular method of task management in use today. Using Curio’s built-in GTD tags, you can very easily implement the “Getting Things Done” methodology within your Curio projects.

For example, you may have several days of meeting notes spread over multiple idea spaces within a project. At each meeting, you made a list of action items and tagged them appropriately. Some you may have tagged as active, others nextAction, and still others waitingOn.

Using the Search shelf view, you can easily find a list of all the items you tagged active. But even better, you can use the Status shelf view and group your tasks by the GTD tag set. In a single list, you’ll see all the items you tagged with GTD tags, broken down into each category appropriately. You’ll instantly know what your current active items are, what your next actions are, and what items are on hold, waiting for input from an external source.

You can use Curio’s tagging system, Search shelf, and Status shelf to implement a wide variety of task management methodologies.

Projects Panel

The top panel of the Status shelf shows your projects grouped in to the same categories that you created either in the Open Project Gallery described earlier or by using the Add New Category action menu selection.

Under each project title in the top pane, you will see a count of a subset of your tasks in the project. The subset is defined as tasks that have a start date and you have not yet started or that have a due date and have you have not yet completed. When you start a task (by setting or completing it to a certain percent) or complete a task, it is not counted in this list. When no tasks are yet to be started or due on a project, Curio will indicate in the top panel by a statement that No tasks to start or due. The count of tasks in the top panel is therefore different than what you will see in the bottom pane, where tasks can appear regardless of whether they have start or due dates and regardless of whether they have been started.

Finally, a color coded jewel to the left of the project title indicates the status of each project. Red indicates tasks are late to begin or are overdue, magenta indicates a task is starting or due today, purple indicates a task is starting tomorrow, brown indicates a task is starting or is due within a week, blue indicates a task is starting or is due within a month and green indicates either no tasks or a task is starting or is due beyond a month.

Tasks Panel

At the bottom you’ll find all the tasks due in either the current project or a category of projects. These tasks can be grouped by start/due dates, priority, rating, or even a tag set such as flag or GTD state. Each task is displayed with a color-coded status jewel and a checkmark indicating its current completion date.

Note that a task, as currently defined, is a figure with either (a) a checkbox, (b) a start or due date, or (c) an assigned tag. A tagged item is considered a task primarily for GTD or Kanban task tracking workflows.

Toolbar Icon

The Status shelf icon displayed on the toolbar has a color-coded indicator dot as well showing the status of the current project. If green then all’s well, but other colors would alert you so you can click the button to display the Status shelf and see what task needs your attention.

Projects Panel

How to use the projects panel area of the Status shelf.

Change the Scope

  • Use the Projects In popup to determine what projects to display either based on a smart category or custom category. See the Open Project Gallery section described earlier for more details regarding project sections.

Change the Sorting

  • Use the Sort By popup to change how the projects are listed: by status, title, last modified date, or date created.

Adding Projects

  1. Drag a project from the Finder into the list to add it to the current custom category.
  2. Note this only works with custom categories as the projects listed within smart categories, such as “Recently Opened Projects”, are determined automatically.

Deleting Projects

  • Select a project and press the Delete key to remove a project from a category. Curio can also send the project to the Trash if you wish.

Ignoring Projects

  1. You may want to ignore tasks in specific projects that are either on hold or simply no longer actively used. You don’t want to remove those projects from their respective categories but you really don’t want tasks from those projects cluttering up your Status shelf results or live exports.
  2. Right-click on the project in the projects list at the top of the Status shelf and toggle the Ignore Tasks In Project setting.
  3. An ignored project’s tasks will no longer appear in the Status task results area or in live exports.
  4. You can control whether ignored projects are displayed in the projects list at the top of Status using the the Projects In actions menu’s filtering options.

Assigning Categories to Projects

  1. Right-click on a project to associate or disassociate categories with the selected project.
  2. Or, use the action button menu to add the current project or a specified project to the current category.

Creating, Modifying, and Deleting Categories

  • Use the actions menu to create, rename, or remove project categories.

Switching to a Project

  • Click on the project to load it within the current window.

Opening a Project in a New Window

  • ⌥click on a project to open it in a new window.

Finder Tags

  1. As mentioned above in the overview of the Project Gallery, any project categories you associate with your projects will also have corresponding project category Finder tags as well.
  2. For instance, if you associate a project with the categories Active and Personal, then Curio will create “Curio Active” and “Curio Personal” Finder tags and associate them with the projects.
  3. With category Finder tags, you can now search for categories of projects in the Finder, outside of Curio.
  4. Just enter the search tag, such as Curio Active in a Finder window search field and you’ll find all projects associated with that category.
  5. Click the Save button in the Finder window to save the search and even add it to your sidebar for one-click access to those projects.

Tasks Panel

How to use the tasks panel area of the Status shelf.

Change the Scope

  • Use the Tasks In popup to determine what projects should be searched for tasks.

Changing the Grouping

Choose the desired task grouping from the Group By popup:

  1. Date. You can group tasks by “Action Items” (tasks with a start and/or due date assigned to them, or items that have a checkbox next to them), by “Start Date”, or by “Due Date”.
  2. Rating
  3. Priority
  4. Tag Set. For example, you might choose to group tasks by the GTD (“Getting Things Done”) tag set, in which case any tasks that have been tagged with one or more of the GTD tags will appear under the appropriate tags.
  5. Local Project Tags. Only available if Tasks In is set to Only This Project.
  6. Local Project Resources. Only available if Tasks In is set to Only This Project.

Changing the Sorting

  1. Choose the desired task sorting from the Sort By popup:
    • Action Date
    • Start Date
    • Due Date
    • Title
    • Percent Complete
    • Rating
    • Priority
  2. If a project category or All Categorized Projects is selected then sorting by project name is also available as a sort option.

Jump to a Task

  1. Click on a task to jump to its location in the project. If the task is from a different project, Curio will automatically switch to that project.
  2. Hold down the Option key while clicking on the task if you want Curio to open the project in a separate window.

Changing Task Properties (For Tasks in the Opened Project Only)

  1. Right-click on the task in the Status shelf and change the item’s associated tags, its percent complete value, its rating, and its priority.
  2. If you’re grouping your tasks by rating, priority, resource, or global/local tag set then you can drag-and-drop tasks between groups. With resources and tags, Curio will disassociate the figure from the task’s prior grouping and associate it with its new grouping

Action Button Menu Options

  1. Copy all the displayed tasks as text or to export the tasks as an RTF document to disk. This is a very easy way to share assignments with other team members.
  2. Export all task information as markdown for display in a markdown-compatible viewing app.
  3. Export all raw task information as CSV file perfect for importing into Apple Numbers or Microsoft Excel. The following fields are exported: Task Title, Project, Section, Idea Space, Start Date, Due Date, Duration, Duration Units, Percent Complete, Priority, Rating, Tags, Resources. Duration units are specified using a numeric code: seconds=0, minutes=1, hours=2, days=3, weeks=4, months=5, years=6.
  4. By default, Curio will include items with checkmarks (aka to-do items) which are unchecked but have no start or due dates. If you want to only include to-do items that have start or due dates then uncheck the “Include items with no start or due dates” item in the actions menu.
  5. By default, Curio will alert you of tasks that have a start date associated with them and it is currently past the start date and the completion percentage of the task is zero percent. If you don’t want to be warned in this event then uncheck the “Include items late in starting that are 0% done” item in the actions menu.
  6. By default, Curio doesn’t include untagged tasks when you group by tag set or local tags. However, you can enable this by checking the “Include grouping for untagged tasks” item in the actions menu.

Live Export

Curio can export task reports in real time as you change data within the project.

Setting up Live Export

  1. Use the Status shelf’s Tasks In actions menu to manage live export.
    1. Enable live export by specifying the folder where the live export reports should be saved.
    2. Click the menu again to enable each type of live export you wish to produce. RTF and HTML exports are enabled by default.
    3. Use the same menu to specify the category of projects to export and how they should be grouped.
  2. In the background, the Status shelf will keep those live export files automatically up-to-date as tasks and projects are changed. The export files created in the specified live export folder are named Curio Status.rtf, Curio Status.csv, and Curio Status.html. If you specify a synced folder, like Dropbox, or a network folder, then those updates will be available to everyone with access to that folder.

Customizing the HTML Export

  1. The resulting HTML is standard, compact, cross-platform, self-contained… and generated using a bundled template file which you can customize!
  2. You can find the template in /Applications/Curio.app/Contents/Resources/Repository/Status Templates/Status Board.html.
  3. The template includes placeholder variables which filled out with figure data and the result is then dynamically constructed and rendered with Javascript.
  4. You can create your own Status Board.html at ~/Library/Application Support/Curio/Version XX/Repository/Status Templates/ to completely change the look of the report and Curio will use that instead.