Hot Plan

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on March 07, 2013

Those trying to track home and work schedules on their computers have a number of options. Hot Plan for Mac fully functions as a calendar and to-do list program, but its price may make it undesirable in light of free options available.

Hot Plan for Mac can be used for free for 21 days, and the full version can be unlocked for $12.99. The program downloaded and installed quickly. The native installer performed well and prompted us for actions at the appropriate times. The initial setup required clicking through pop-ups regarding registration and the full version payment, but this is expected from a freeware program. Available support was better than expected, with upgrades to the application available. The simple interface lags behind that of other freely available time management apps in that it lacked any color or graphics. Colors may be added to the calendar and to-do list based on priorities, but not to the interface itself.

You have the ability to create different lists, such as those for shopping or housework, as well as take and save basic notes. In addition to a basic to-do list, longer projects may be tracked through a separate feature, which includes progress and deadline management. The program's ease of use is welcome, and it functions well without delays or glitches. Unfortunately, many of these features may be available at no cost via Web or smartphone apps, which function nearly as well.

For those seeking to work exclusively with their computer for time and project management and are willing to pay a small cost for full use, Hot Plan for Mac may be a good application.

Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of FotoMagico for Mac 4.2.

Publisher's Description

From intuiware:

Hot Plan is a multi-purpose personal planning tool designed to help users collect and manage their thoughts, ideas, projects, but also bookmarks, links and text clips. Actions offer a rich collection of attributes: title, completion status and percentage, creation date, completion date, target date, days left until target date, tags, priority, labels, locking, notes, external links, notification status. Displayed actions can be filtered using a search string and include or exclude completed actions. File, email or web links can be associated with each action and easily launched as needed. Bookmarks copied into the clipboard by any application can be grabbed and stored. Notifications can be triggered when an action reaches its target date. Plans can be exported and imported for easy backup or transfer to other computers. Action notes can be exported and imported as needed using the standard rtfd file format. Hotkeys can be configured to open the Hot Plan window, grab bookmarks or text clips. Drop files or URLs on actions to set them as links. Drag and drop of plans and actions supports copy, move and delete operations. Buttons on the main window for enabling and disabling grabbing. Statistics inspector for each plan status. Option to display the completion level of each plan. Labels for plans, just like actions. Priorities have associated icons and their names are configurable. Support for printing plans and actions. Support for exporting plans and actions in csv and tsv formats. All date fields offer a popup calender for easy date section. Tag editing with autocompletion. Advanced section in preferences for backing up, restoring and optimizing the database. Menubar icon with menu to display expiring actions. Send plans and actions via email directly from Hot Plan. Calendar view for easy display of actions with target dates set. Quick entry window for easy creation of new actions by writing just plain english text. Add Apple's Mail messages as links for actions. Quickly duplicate actions and plans. Synchronization with iCal. Keyboard and trackpad based navigation among plans and actions. Realtime preview in quick entry window.

What's new in this version: