MacProject was a

project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...

and scheduling business

application Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

released along with the first

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

systems in 1984. MacProject was one of the first major business tools for the

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

which enabled users to calculate the "critical path" to completion and estimate costs in money and time. If a project deadline was missed or if available resources changed, MacProject recalculated everything automatically. MacProject was written by Debra Willrett at Solosoft, and was published and distributed by

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

to promote the original Macintosh personal computer. It was developed from an earlier application written by Debra Willrett for Apple's Lisa computer,

LisaProject LisaProject was the first GUI-based project management software. Developed for the Apple Lisa computer, LisaProject was conceived and implemented by Debra Willrett of SoloSoft and developed for Apple's Lisa computer. In 1981, Willrett realized ...

. This was the first

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

(GUI) for project management. There were many other project management applications on the market at the time, but LisaProject was the first to simplify the process by allowing the user to interactively draw their project on the computer in the form of a PERT chart. Constraints could be entered for each task, and the relationships between tasks would show which ones had to be completed before a task could begin. Given the task constraints and relationships, a "critical path", schedule and budget could be calculated dynamically using heuristic methods. One of the early proponents of MacProject was James Halcomb, a well known expert in the use of the Critical Path Method. Having supervised hand-drawn network diagrams for countless complex projects, Halcomb immediately recognized the promise of the

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...

graphical interface and computerized calculation of the critical path. Using a Lisa computer housed in a case designed to fit under an airplane seat, Mr. Halcomb traveled the United States demonstrating this new technology in his CPM courses. In consultation with the software's developers he authored the book ''Planning Big with MacProject'', which introduced a generation of Mac users to PERT and CPM. In December 1987, an updated version of MacProject, called MacProject II, was introduced as a part of Claris's move to update its suite of Mac office applications. In 1991, Microsoft Project was ported to the Macintosh from

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and became MacProject's main competitor. However, after the release of version 3.0 of Microsoft Project in 1993, Microsoft terminated support of the Macintosh release. MacProject 1.0 is not Y2K-compliant as it cannot schedule tasks past 1999.

References

TidBits reviews September 1993

External links

{{Apple software 1984 software Classic Mac OS-only software made by Apple Inc. Project management software Discontinued software

See also

References

External links