We are often asked about our plans for the future, and we would indeed love to discuss our plans in great detail. But there are so many reasons why it is in fact not such a good idea to publish detailed roadmaps. Today, I still would like to share a bit about what we are working on, while leaving a few secrets in the dark. After all, everybody enjoys a little surprise every now and then, right? ;)
Things for Mac
Our next release, Things 1.2, is due in about one or two weeks. Version 1.2 will be almost entirely about improving various aspects of keyboard support. Without going into the details here, let me just mention that 1.2 not only involves introducing many more keyboard shortcuts, but it also improves tabbing behavior when creating new to-dos, adds improvements for the quick entry window, provides support for Spotlight, and includes plug-ins for other apps. You might ask: “Why did those Cultured guys all of a sudden deem keyboard support that important?” Well, you’ll see when we release 1.2 – this is one of the surprises mentioned above ;).
After version 1.2, it gets more interesting. The reason being that we will have more developer resources available to us! This means that we will be no longer doing one feature at a time. Instead, different development threads (or goals) will be followed simultaneously. Forthcoming articles will have more background on the extraordinary talent we were able to attract.
Here are our priorities for the next releases: Over-the-air sync, performance, bug fixes, easier collaboration, mixed projects, and better communication of how dates work. Let’s flesh this out in a little more detail…
Believe it or not, we have been working on over-the-air sync since the beginning of this year. In the meantime, our goal changed from “something that works” (check out our competition if you want to know what we mean by that) to “a really sweet solution”. The tough challenge here is to develop a highly performance-oriented solution that works for everybody. In particular, we wanted it to work for Mac and iPhone users alike, without requiring a MobileMe account (or any WebDAV disk for that matter).
The whole issue is indeed complex and interesting enough to warrant its own blog post, but suffice it here to say that we are well under way to providing the above-mentioned “really sweet solution” :).
Performance should be pretty self-explanatory. Users with large libraries are beginning to see sluggish behavior. This is unacceptable for an application whose foremost goal is to make you more productive. While Things 1.2 will already deliver some performance improvements, major attacks on all other performance related issues will be started immediately after finishing 1.2.
Collaboration is a very interesting problem space, and I think the importance of better support for teamwork in Things is pretty obvious. We will soon make a little step forward in this area to ease the workflow when working together. We are committed to constantly improve what we are doing here in the next few months and most likely well beyond.
For some users, mixed projects are a big deal. What we mean by this is the ability for active projects to also contain inactive and scheduled items. What seems to be an innocent change is in fact also a big deal for us as developers. When conceiving Things, we very deliberately did not want to have mixed projects. We so much didn’t want it, that we even made the decision on the level of our data model design for both the Mac and iPhone version. This is the reason why we kept postponing the implementation of these improvements.
Let me close this non-roadmap with, uhh… a roadmap for Things touch:
Things for iPhone and iPod touch
- 1.4: Repeating tasks, global search, landscape mode
- 1.5: Push notifications, polish
- 1.6: People support
Pinging is currently not allowed.
Thanks for finally putting out some sort of timeline. Things touch hasn’t received a particularly useful feature update in a while. Now we now which version numbers to wait for ;)
As for push, just exactly how will it be implemented?
Sounds awesome! I can’t wait!
Sounds awesome guys! Excited about all of this!
Awesome… great job guys–keep it up!
Glad to hear that things are in full flow. Only disappointed that there is no mention of nested projects / tasks :(
Anyway, atleast some good features to look out for.
Excellent! I hope to receive the Russian localization in version 1.2 as said Michael. Thank you for your nice application!
It’s really nice to hear feedback on enormous amount of forum threads on aver-air-sync. It’s superb you are working on it, it really makes life much, much easer. I’ve been thinking to migrate to OmniFocus this days but I really like the way Things work, the only problem for me which made my Things and Things for iPhone completely unusable. If it’s really “one or two” weeks, I’ll wait without any problem and thinking to migrate on other software. I’ll really waiting for proper sync, it is crucial feature for Things.
I’m waiting on a bug fix in 1.2 so that I can finally sync to my iPhone again – it’s been months. Please hurry.
New features sound exciting – over the air syncing without using mobile-me — WOW — can’t wait to hear the details on how you’re going to do that.
Hmm… Isn’t “a really sweet solution” how Steve Jobs described iPhone web apps back in the day? :)
Jokes aside, I’m excited about these updates!
@Paul Grozyan: Oh yes, I forgot to mention that. Version 1.2 will add localizations to French, Spanish, and Russian.
i dont see anything about multiple computer support? is that the same as over the air sync?
I unfortunately have had to move to Remember the Milk as the Things iPhone Mac syncing solution just doesn’t cut it for me day-to-day.
I very much look forward to the day when I can ditch that and move back to Things. :)
Sounds excellent!
I’m a big Things users and have turn a bunch of people on to it. My biggest complaint is not having the ability to set reminders for certain task at a specific time. I wind up having to set specific timed reminders in my iCal. Am I missing something? Thx
Thanks for the update, it is disheartening to see that scheduled project items don’t seem to be coming any time soon.
“Mixed Projects” might be difficult to implement, but it is a daily work impediment not to be able to schedule project tasks – not only for me or “some users”, but for a very sizable share of Things Mac users – it is the single most requested feature in the now defunct user forums.
Please, please, please implement it now!
Looking forward to “Over-the-air sync”. Glad to see you sharing your plans. Would also like to see some sort of nested projects in there. Currently the areas/projects combination is not really doing it for me. But on the other hand that keeps forcing me to bringing projects into small task lists which are easier to manage and execute.
So happy to hear there will be keyboard improvements. Cannot wait, and thanks for tackling that part of the UI.
Glad to hear. People love to hear updates!
Really wish to see sub-tasks, and the option for discrete-vs.-sequential tasks in projects!
@Jimmy – I found an acceptable (but not optimal) solution for multi-computer syncing. I use DropBox and put my Things data file in my dropbox shared folder. The only drawback is you have to quit Things on one computer before you use it on the other.
Nice to see this kind of a road map…
But I also agree that there has to be done a lot!
It is a very good idea not to brag out to many details about a new software release. And this has actually not to do with marketing alone, but far more with commitments that will probably be unfulfilled in the future. What if it comes out a feature is more difficult then initially expected? What if it is not really needed or something different is more important? Don’t make commitments too early. The result will be the crap software we see all around.
So good luck finding your right way through the jungle, CultureCoders!
@Toto Tvalavadze: Over-the-air sync will definitely take significantly longer than one to two weeks to complete (we cannot give time estimates yet). The ne to two weeks timeframe is for 1.2.
Still no word of things for windows? There must be literally thousands of iPhone users who love the things app, like me but don’t have a mac. Any plans?
I’d be perfectly happy to simply have the bugs fixed which cause all the to-do items to re-order when syncing between Mac and iPhone… :-/
I’d like to see the ability to send tasks to others to be added to their Things list. One example: I have a shopping list project in Things. I’d like to be able to send this list to my wife, which would be automatically integrated into her shopping list project in Things.
Sophia Teutschler’s excellent “Groceries” app allows you to send your list via email, which automatically imports your list into the other user’s Groceries app. This functionality could be extremely effective for project collaboration in Things. No syncing necessary – just transferring tasks via email.
Sophia is there in Germany – maybe she could code this feature for you. :)
You guys are the best! Thanks for your hard work!
Excellent! I really can’t wait for mixed projects. I use Things for a blend of GTD and 7 Habits. Scheduling tasks of a project is vital. I really hope you’ll consider allowing the schedule at a specific time of the day like your competition does. Without this Push will be pretty useless. Can’t wait for over the air sync also! You guys are spot on. Last 2 important feature requests: Things iPhone desperately needs to be able to filter by multiple tags. Things mac handles tags beautifully; iPhone needs to catch up. The last suggestion is that when viewing tasks/projects by area of responsibility it would be super convenient to be able to ‘view all subitems’ or something so that you can then filter by tags. So a kind of Next list for that specific area. Keep up the great work! I’m glad I decided to stick with Things.
Push… yay… I can’t wait. :)
Does “repeating tasks” for TT 1.4 also mean that tasks scheduled in the Mac version to “highlight” today won’t get changed to “move to today” when they’re synced to the iPhone? This particular problem forced me to remove TT from my phone, and I would dearly love to bring it back. Thanks for all your hard work.
Well this make me feel like my money is well used :D I can’t wait to see the new improvements but I’d really like to know if there’s anything in the mac 2 mac sync area.
@Jimmy, @Etienne Maheu: Over-the-air sync does indeed include Mac-to-Mac sync.
Landscape?…eesh. Can you please make that optional? Just a little switch to turn it off if desired. That’d be sweet.
Keep Things rockin’.
Got really high hopes for things. OTA sync is a must for me. Bought the desktop version and the iphone version but have not converted over from RememberTheMilk until OTA is implemented. *Keeps Fingers Crossed*
@Bonobo +1. Scheduled project items, please… Many users wait for this feature and it is being postopend all the time…
This all sounds great, really looking forward to the enhancements.
But please please please fix the constant crashing and hanging when creating new to do’s.
I am delighted to hear that so much work is being done to improve this application. Like I am sure many other posters are, I was a beta user and a very happy current user. Over-the-air-sync really does appear to be the most useful time-saver feature that I see (for myself anyway).
Thank you for continuing to work on this project.
great post. keep up the good work.
Hey – Congrads! the biggest thing that makes software terrible is the lack of vision and dreaming! You guys are making it happen! Also I was thinking about what I really wanted from my Things workflow – and it was the ability to be able to work with others. Can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!
What about Polish localization?
Awesome guys. Keep up the great work. Really looking forward to getting the new features.
Thanks for the update guys, it got a bit stale on the communication front for a bit which was very unsettling for a lot of us. This is exactly the kind of heads up we needed.
I feel my money has been well spent, and am happy to sit tight whilst these things are thought through thoroughly and implemented brilliantly first time. You’d think we Mac users would be happy to sit patiently after being at the mercy of Steve Jobs’ decisions on timings!
Cheers,
Lewis
Thanks so much for discussing a little bit about upcoming plans. I’m sure this will help people who were discouraged by a general lack of communication and were considering switching to other products.
I think you have a good roadmap. I’d like to add my vote for having scheduled tasks within projects (eg. what I believe is your “mixed projects” bullet). This is probably the single biggest thing that’s causing my things project lists to get cluttered up and unmanageable.
Thank you again for the post! Please keep them up!
Thanks for keeping us informed. Can’t wait for the updates!
thanks for the update Jurgen, very excited about what you guys come up with next
One item not on your list that has been mentioned in previous “official” posts is support for nested Projects and Activities. I would appreciate a vague reply to indicate that this is still planned for a future release. BTW, from my perspective even the ability to nest a single level deep would allow for MUCH better organization and MUCH less clutter. Thanks so much for a great product!
I’d also really like to see nested projects & tasks. A single level project & area isn’t enough. I like the outline structure used in some other applications which lets me add more levels of detail to a task.
@Nick, we are not aware of the problems you mentioned with creating new to-dos. Could you please contact tech support. We’d be happy to help resolving your issues.
@ErikAbele: I assume the issue you mentioned is related to scheduled tasks being moved to the Today list at different times on the iPhone and Mac. This is indeed on our radar. A fix for it will be part of Things touch 1.4. It might also require a small desktop update that goes with it.
@David and others: We are still very open to adding more hierarchy to Things. But all improvements of Things Mac that were mentioned in the post above, have higher priority.
We have seen so many users of competing products practically shooting themselves in the foot by overusing nested projects. This is why we are not going to rush this feature. I believe we have found a useful approach, but final decisions will not be made until everything mentioned above is safely on its way.
I just bought Version 1.1.3 last week. Are future updates free? Do I need to pay for another full version? Thanks for a great product!
While “over-the-air” sync is great for some people, I really truly need a sync that will work between macs that are not on the same network – ie, my mac at work and my mac at home. I use MobileMe for everything else, and I’d like to see it as least as an option in Things. Also, I can’t sync my iphone with Things at work thanks to restrictions on the wireless network (ie, my iphone is on a different network than my mac). Copying the database on a thumb drive just so I can take it home to sync with my iPhone is quite annoying. And I’m sure I’m not the only user with such limitations.
@Elwing: Over-the-air sync solves exactly the problem you have described.
@Cindy: All 1.x updates will be free. All the features mentioned in the blog post will be part of upcoming 1.x updates.
Hi,
@Jürgen: I would really love to also have nested projects but I didn’t think about the risk of overusing it. But have you think about just add limited nesting projects. For example, I have one big project that will need lots of things to do. Many of them will need few tasks for each. So why not just implement the possibility to add just one level on projects, as David suggested. We have projects list within we could just add one subproject level. Not more !
That’s seems easy to add and avoid overusing nested projects I think… Just a suggestion !
Apart of that, it’s really good to see that we will soon have a good update. Things is amazing but quite expensive. I recently bought it but with the help of a coupon code.
Thanks for the update on updates! I really hope you do collaboration right. I use Things Desktop and Things Touch combo constantly, but now when I need to work with my family (shopping lists, packing lists, vacation planning etc) or coworkers we all end up having to buy something like zanbe or GQueues. I’d rather pay the reasonable cost to get them using Things and sharing lists with me if you had smooth collaboration.
That was my real point but I can’t sign off without adding a “pet favorite feature” to ask for like so many others are doing. Mine would be voice recording into your TT inbox which can sync back to the desktop version. Then when I’m out and about I can gather new tasks without having to stop everything and type my ideas up.
Brilliant! I am so looking forward to over-the-air sync. I love Things, but the current syncing solution is very close to useless to me as I am just not disciplined enough to always sync before leaving the house. Plus I have two Macs, one at work one at home. Syncing those via DropBox sort of works, but I can sync the iPhone only to one of them (I think).
I was debating of switching to something else, but now I’ll definitely wait for the OTA sync in Things.
Just want to make sure there’s at least one positive word in here about landscape mode. That + global search will make it so, so much easier to use TT to enter new tasks. (I now do 98% of all data entry through the desktop app.)
Very much look forward to it. Thanks you guys!
Thanks for this update!
Did I miss what will be in 1.3?
Very happy to finally see a sign of life from Cultured Code.
I have been so close to switching to that other GTD app (you know the one…) the last three months. I am still considering it now and again. I have even gotten an extended trial license, but the interface is so bad that I keep coming back to Things – even though such crucial (for me, anyway) features as mixed projects, sequential/discrete projects, OTA sync (oh, man how I long for OTA sync!!!) and repeating tasks on iPhone are still lacking…
Very excited to here about application plug-ins! Hope that there will be an Evernote plug-in!
Helpful post.
Would love to switch days at 4am instead of midnight. Very important! (And easy to implement.)
Does plugins for other apps mean importing as well??
@Jürgen: I understand the desire to keep users from hurting themselves by using project/area hierarchies improperly. Without going into specifics, one idea to solve this might be to formalize the idea of tags a little more. If you allowed saved tag searches that could be made into sidebar items, this would give the appearance of hierarchy (a very flexible one at that) while technically maintaining a flat structure.
OMG, just last night my head exploded on the forum and now this! Wow! Sings of life!
What does “people support” mean for the Iphone version 1.6?
Very much appreciate the news that improvements are coming. This has become one of my most important apps — and anything that makes it faster and easier to use will be most welcome.
And please try to keep the desktop app and the iphone app in step with one another. Sometimes syncing undoes things that were delicately set up in one version or the other. Would love to see these two products in seemless lockstep.
Thanks for your continued work!
A great feature to add to the iphone app would be to add items by voice ala ReQall. I think this would be a killer feature to set Things even further apart from the competition. Thanks for the update.
Thanks so much for this update, Jürgen!
I agree surprises can be nice. But something—anything—is better than prolonged silence. This blog post is exactly that! And it’s exactly what I needed to hear.
I’m delighted to have read this post, and to hear that you’ve got some new programming talent. Keep it up, and keep posting (even if you save a few surprises for us along the way)!
Just yesterday I was trying to register to Things forum just to post this question:
“How do you know that CC is still alive?”
Seriously, that’s all i need to know. Because the blog is not updated too often and the forum now looks sterile from insiders (moderators, developers?). These raise doubts to me, as someone who is eagerly interested in your products and now trying to get to know the people behind the screen.
Your post today is a strong sign which tells us that “CC is alive!”. Good to know that you are gaining dev resources. But please also consider your ‘Net presence’ as something crucial to gain new interests and maintain old followers.
Let me refer to this blog as an example: http://blog.evernote.com/ They’re growing, and they refresh their blog at least weekly (I registered for the new EN since beta, and they has bored me since with news and updates–but then that’s how i knew that they’re still alive all this time!).
Things is the #1 reason i’m getting an iPhone and preparing to move to Mac. The app might not have matured yet, but if i could see the men alive and going, i’d be happy to live with the shortcomings until it matures.
So, please, let us know you guys are still alive… more often! :)
Thanks
I’m glad to hear performance improvements are pretty high on your list. I’m sometimes seeing degraded performance which is propably caused by my rather large set of to dos. Mainly it affects startup time, activation time and overall responsiveness.
I’m eager to start using the new versions.
Will OTA syncing still include WebDAV support as well for those who have their own webDAV server?
At last!!! Over the air ssynchronization..
Also the collaboration features will mean that I can FINALLY get everyone here (at work) to use Things both on their Macs (shame about the PC bound people… ) and their iPhones (we all have them).
Collaboration is absolutely the most important feature though, for us business users. We travel a great deal and have PA’s and staff that all need to keep up to date with projects and tasks.
Things is by far the best solution. I have tried all the Mac solutions and nothing beats it… Or at least that WILL be true when the OTA and Collaboration are made as awesome as the features already there.
Thanks guys.
Keep it simple. To much features wil infect te easy to use factor of Things
Yes, keep it simple.
All the improvements on the time line are wellcome. Thanks for the spanish version. I have worked in other apps translations (the last ones Evernote and Landscape Tweeting next versions) If I can help translating or doing a check let me know.
Great news about the ’sweet’ OTA sync. Currently I can’t sync from my work Mac to my iPhone because it isn’t on a wireless network (or have an airport card). Really looking forward to having Work, Home and iPhone Things working together.
Also thanks for implementing a way to hide my ‘Home’ tasks on my work Mac with “Manage Areas of Responsibility…”. I look forward to using that when OTA sync comes out.
Very interested in working with the new keyboard shortcuts. I have always found entering tasks in the Quick Entry Window a little clunky when adding Due Dates and then adding it to an Project/Area.
Thanks for a fantastic product.
Hopefully things will then work on Snow Leopard, too! Can’t wait to use it on my now main operating system. I’m missing it already
Great news guys!
Better/more keyboard shortcuts is biggest improvement i could wish for.
Thanks
It’s so great to hear about all of these developments – particularly over the air syncing.
I do agree with the previous commenter though – please keep Things simple. The simplicity of Things is the reason I chose it and find it so user friendly.
It would be cool to see the creation and last modified date of items in the Things Mac GUI. The XML file contains this information already…
I am really hoping that the ‘over-the-air’ functionality gets released soon. After much waiting and finally frustration, I switched to another unnamed to-do task manager in the meantime. Hoping to come back to Things once the multiple macs sync is good to go.
I can’t wait for push notifications! Things is perfect apart from that. I don’t want any other GTD app but push notifications is a must. I make things lists as a reminder to get things done, so I want to be reminded which is what push will offer.
When is it coming?
I laughed out loud at your reference to the competition re: OTA sync. How very bold to speak so condescendingly about their long-implemented system compared to your currently-vapor one.
I agree about keeping it simple, but argue that simplicity is not a lack of features, but rather the perception of a simple, easy to use, self-evident User Interface. So far, CC has done excellent on this front, so I welcome any and all powerful features they can add.
Thank you for the timeline. The goals look good for me, but I miss one thing: Windows/Web support. I work with three OS Systems (iphone, win and mac) and I miss a usefull solution to add tasks on windows. What about sync with RTM or build an onwn web interface? (or other solution ;) )
I’d like to say that I love Things for Mac. In regards to the original blog post and the responses to it I’d like to cast my vote on a few issues too.
Nested tasks are indeed dangerous, the power of things comes from its simplicity. Mile stones or a list of task-break-downs would be a much more safe option. For example, if I had a task of calling all of my customers I would first have to decide between making one task “call all customers” or create a separate task for each customers call “Call customer 1, call customer 2, call customer n”. If each call had its own set of information such as “Call Fred Smith on Tuesday and follow up on Widget order” then each call would obviously warrant a dedicated task. If however, my task is as generic as “Call all customers and tell them about our new promotion” then it would be great to have a single task which contained a list of customers that I could check-off as I contact them. Note that these are not full tasks with my main task as a parent. They don’t have all the attributes of a task, they can’t stand on their own. They are just items on a very simple list which can be checked off one at a time.
Things touch works great for viewing and checking off tasks. And for tasks as simple as “Buy bread” it’s easy enough to create tasks on-the-go. My problem come when I’m at work, where I have my iPhone and my PC, but not my Mac. The tasks I create while at work are too verbose and detailed to use the TT interface. Though the iPhone has a great keyboard and TT has a fantastic interface it takes too much effort to enter these complicated tasks. As a result my tasks usually end up on the PC where I can typing using a real keyboard. It would be nice if there was a web-app that could be used in combination with OTA sync to do task creation. In short, I don’t need Things to run on a PC, but a webapp I could use to do data entry and then sync OTA would mean I can fully use Things even when I’m not at home with my Mac.
Thanks for the great apps and keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Lew
Thanks for your excellent work on these improvements. I’ve hardly ever had cause to regret switching to Things from a competing product, and it’s great to know that the few lingering advantages of that product (over the air sync, for example) will be eliminated in coming releases. Even more importantly, I’m confident your solutions will be much more elegant and efficient (OTA sync to the iPhone is too slow in other applications, even though it works). Push notifications will be a big deal (another thing which your competitors recently took a stab at and came up short).
I only have one request I haven’t seen mentioned: the ability to filter by tags and see only ‘next’ actions. In other words, when I filter by a tag (e.g. ‘home’), I currently see all tasks which have that tag including those which are not really ‘available’ because they are number 2 or 3 in a project. For example, let’s say I have a project to clean the steps. First item is to go buy some soap and a brush, second is to do the cleaning at home. I can’t do the cleaning until I complete action 1 (the errand); but when I select the tag ‘home’ to see what tasks I can do at home, it comes up telling me to ‘clean the steps’. This isn’t a huge deal because of course I can mentally filter that out, but I’ve always thought it would be nice to select a tag and just see ‘next’ actions, i.e. the next available actions rather than actions which are further down the list of a project. In other words, to use tags to quickly see which things I can do right now in a particular context. I’m not sure how feasible that is from a development point of view, and of course adding complexity is the last thing we want (simplicity, speed and elegance are still the biggest joys of Things, compared with competing products), so it’s just a thought rather than a real issue, but there you have it. Keep up the excellent work!
Stephen “I only have one request I haven’t seen mentioned: the ability to filter by tags and see only ‘next’ actions. In other words, when I filter by a tag (e.g. ‘home’), I currently see all tasks which have that tag including those which are not really ‘available’ because they are number 2 or 3 in a project. For example, let’s say I have a project to clean the steps. First item is to go buy some soap and a brush, second is to do the cleaning at home. I can’t do the cleaning until I complete action 1 (the errand); but when I select the tag ‘home’ to see what tasks I can do at home, it comes up telling me to ‘clean the steps’. This isn’t a huge deal because of course I can mentally filter that out, but I’ve always thought it would be nice to select a tag and just see ‘next’ actions, i.e. the next available actions rather than actions which are further down the list of a project. In other words, to use tags to quickly see which things I can do right now in a particular context.!”
I would love this as well, and it would make sense since “Next” should show the “next” actions.
Other than that keep it up guys Things is a wonderful product!
I’ve got to agree with Hamish, Marquies and Lew that a solution is needed to create and edit tasks on a PC. Rather than a separate PC version, I would suggest that the best solution would be a web app which would sync with the Mac, PC’s and my iPhone. There are free to-do apps that offer this ability now. Of course as task management apps go they pale in comparison to Things. The ability to create and edit lists from anywhere is a compelling feature and one I would love to see made available to Things customers.
I own Things, Things Touch, and another popular GTD application for the desktop and iPhone. I wanted Things to work for me because I prefer how it looks. But I switched because I needed the peace of mind that syncing would be flawless — which it has been. I’ll keep checking back and trying the updates to see how your progress is coming along. Thanks!
Sweeeeet news !!
I’ve tried and tested others , but THINGS beats it hands down by the sheer fact that its simple and usable.
WIth over the air Sync , its should be the tipping point where this product is going to go thru the roof.
Thanks again for making “Things” better for us all!
@Mike: People support for Things on the iPhone means all features related to people and delegation the desktop version already has plus those we will add in the meantime.
@Richard Neal: We will indeed add an importer for one specific other GTD app. But since we are having AppleScript support, everyone can write their own importer. Take a look here for some examples (maybe what you are looking for is already there):
User Contributed Scripts
Great News! I can’t wait to see all the new improvements to Things in the future. Keep up the good work gentlemen!