Working with Life Balance Documents

Life Balance stores all of the information about your life — your goals, daily tasks, places and events — in a single file called a Life Balance document. Usually you only need to have one Life Balance document per person. Storing all of your work, home, school and personal tasks together in a single file allows Life Balance to track how you are spending your time, help you balance different life goals, and remind you of tasks that may have slipped your mind. Life Balance sorts and filters your to do list automatically, letting you keep all your tasks in a single file while still being able to focus on what’s most relevant.

Life Balance also uses “exchange files” as a way for different users to share portions of their Life Balance data. Exchange files can also be used to store templates for projects that share the same structure, or that you may use only now and then. Once you have set up a project in Life Balance, you can save that portion of your outline as an exchange file and give it to another Life Balance user. That person can then import the exchange file into their own document, adding that project to their outline. Llamagraphics provides exchange files on its web site that can give you a jump-start setting up the outline for your own needs.

If you synchronize with the iPhone edition of Life Balance, then you may also encounter “.lbsql” backup files from your iPhone. Although you cannot edit these documents directly, you can open them in Life Balance and save them as desktop documents.

You can distinguish the two types of files by their names and their icons. Life Balance documents end in the name “.lbd” and have an icon of a tightrope walker holding an umbrella. Life Balance exchange files end in the name “.lbe” and have an icon of a juggling tightrope walker.

Note: Under Mac OS X, file name extensions are not always displayed, but you can see the extension in the Info window for the file.

Opening Documents

The Open command in Life Balance will open both documents and exchange files. Exchange files are opened as untitled documents, which you can then customize and save as regular Life Balance documents.

Most of the time, each person will use one document in Life Balance. As a convenience, you can use the File menu option, "Open Automatically" to tell Life Balance to open the same document (or set of documents) each time you launch. You can also use the file menu option "Open recent" to find and open other documents you have worked with recently.

Auto-save

Life Balance automatically saves your work every five minutes to a special auto-save file, which is stored in the same folder as the original document. These auto-save files have the same name as the original file, but with a number (like "-1") appended to the end. You should not normally open thses files yourself. If your computer crashes before you have a chance to save your work normally, the next time you run Life Balance it will ask you if you want to recover your document from the auto-save file.

Auto-save files are deleted automatically once the main document has been saved.

Life Balance also automatically saves your document each time you exit the application.

Find

The Find and Find Again commands allow you to search for text throughout your Life Balance document. These commands search the task names, task notes, event notes and place notes for the text you specify. The search is not case-sensitive, and begins on the currently selected item.

Life Balance also provides support for Spotlight, so that you can search for Life Balance text from the Macintosh finder.

Creating exchange files

You can save all or part of your Life Balance document as an exchange file that you can share with other Life Balance users. You can also save an exchange file for yourself to use as a template for a set of similar projects.

When sharing your Life Balance data, you should always use an exchange file since your regular Life Balance document file includes information about your specific HotSync configuration, licensing, and accumulated history. If you share a normal document, the recipient may get a message that the software has “expired” because your license information is not valid for the other person.

An exchange file contains one or more sections of your outline, along with any associated places and calendar events. Exchange files do not include the checkmarks next to completed tasks or the credits that you have accumulated in the actual pie chart.

To save your entire Life Balance document as an exchange file, use the Save As command and change the “Format” popup menu to “Life Balance exchange document”. Your entire outline will be saved in the exchange file along with all of your places and calendar events.

To save a single section of your outline as an exchange file, select the task at the top of the section and use the Export Exchange File command. Only the tasks, places, and calendar events associated with that section of your outline will be saved in the exchange file.

Tip: You can edit an exchange file in Life Balance to customize it for the person you are sharing it with. Open the exchange file, make your changes, and resave it as an exchange file.

Inserting exchange files

You can insert an exchange file into an existing document using the Insert Exchange File command. The tasks from the exchange file will be inserted into your outline after the currently selected section of your outline, at the same level of indentation. Any associated events will be placed in your calendar. If the exchange file refers to any places that are not already in your document, then these places will be created as well.

Tip: You can use the Open command to open an exchange file as a separate document, which gives you a chance to preview the exchange file before inserting it into your main document.

Using Save As to Duplicate a Document

You can duplicate Life Balance documents using the Windows Explorer or the Macintosh Finder, but if you are planning to move a Life Balance document to another computer and HotSync with it, you should use the Save As command to duplicate the file. The Save As command assigns a unique ID number to the new file that allows HotSync to distinguish the original document from the copy. This will ensure that both desktop files HotSync properly with the handheld.

Opening files from other applications

Life Balance also knows how to open a few other kinds of files programs so that you can import data from other software.

Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML): Life Balance can open OPML file that have been saved with the “.opml” file extension. Many outliners can export in OPML format.
OmniFocus: Life Balance can open OmniFocus backup and archive files that have been saved using OmniFocus' “Export...” command. (The “Back Up Database...” command uses a more complex format that does not open reliably in Life Balance.)
ShadowPlan: Life Balance can open ShadowPlan XML files. Make sure the file is saved with a “.xml” file extension.
MyLifeOrganized: Life Balance can open MyLifeOrganized XML files. Make sure the file is saved with a “.xml” file extension.