I keep coming back to the idea of enabling users to keep track of "other things" every time I start thinking in detail, I abandon the idea as too cumbersome.

For starters, I learned that 9x% of the people only use the most basic functionality (of any tool). For these people, adding new features only complicates things. At some point new features actually result in fewer users using the tool (more are being repelled by complexity that attracted by the power factor).
Even well hidden features need documenting. And when people read about "how to do a cryptic thing" they're not as successful as getting to know the basic functionality.
So far I hope it's simple enough to be understood well without much reading (there are sparse help messages and informational tooltips).

Also, I find it hard to come up with a way to display it on a chart in a way that would cloud everyting. Use different scales for everything? In your suggestions, there's a "Thyroid function - TSH 0.3 to 3.0". There's no way I could display it on the same chart without adding a new scale. New scales = more clutter, less horizontal space.

So every time I start thinking about it I end up deciding not to do it... .

this is a very useful tool. thank you for creating it. it might be useful to add what typically a vegetarian, carnivour, fish eater only averages for bp. i'm mostly vegetarian with some dairy proten and my bp is really low. what worries me is the diastolic which ranges from 44-67 mostly. my pulse averages about 85 and my diastolic averages about 120. it's hard to judge whether i'm healthy or not without seeing a medicine person.

@Joe: you mean two horizontal lines set at 120 and 80?

I don't really like. It's more clutter.

Also, I'm using a 3rd party library to draw the chart and it has its limitations - I can't just draw a line there - I'd need to add artificial "points" on the chart, which would be displayed on the top bar (where numeric values are given).

Also #2, 120/80 is the target for those of us suffering from hypertension... people with hypotension (low blood pressure) want to have BP go up to lower boundaries of normal range.

If you want to make it simple, what's wrong with a simple Excel spreadsheet? You can add many more columns, the document can be parsed and sorted any which way. In other words, why reinvent the wheel? I think that's what I'll start doing on my own. I can always add or subtract columns and I can still use Chart Wizard. But, the idea of setting this up is commendable; thanks for investing your work into it.

One minute from what? The timer wouldn't know when you've finished taking your last reading. Just use one of the countless desktop or web stopwatches if you want to get it exactly right.

@sonyamartin: allright, maybe some day...

Ostatnio edytowany: Sep 15th 2010, 12:00

kattrby: that's precisely what I'm talking about when I argue against implementing some ideas.

Could a entry and bar graph weight be put in. With congestive heart failure tracking this would be a plus. We need to track our weight to see how much water retention we are having in our bodies. The comment section gives us a place to record how we feel and such. Congrats this is a great and simple tool.

The only thing I would want of that list is body weight, but overall I like this tool the way it is. I wish it hand an android app to enter information, but this way works well enough at this point.