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Equilibrium is an open source project managment application.  It was designed
to help its multitasking-challenged author keep track of many on-going projects
and responsibilities.  It is useful for managing small groups (1-20 people or so)
and keeping track of what everyone is working on.  People often keep track of
their work with to-do lists, project spreadsheets, notebooks, and document files.
Equilibrium combines all these things into a single web-based application.

There are five main parts to the program.  The first is the To Do List page,
which lists all the pending tasks for the user or any selected staff member.
These can be rearranged by drag-and-drop to reflect their priority order
(thanks to the Scriptaculous library).  To-do items can easily be edited,
deleted, marked complete, or scheduled for a particular day.  Completed
to-do items can be listed for a quick summary of what each person has done
recently.

The second part is the Projects page.  Users can enter a project simply
with a title and description, and can optionally add a client or contact
person who the project is for.  Administrators have the option of requiring
each user to select a "type" for each project (e.g. programming, training,
administrative tasks -- the administrator decides what the list of types
are).  The default view on the Projects page is the list of all active
projects.  Another view shows the details for a specified project,
such as its status, who is working on it, and when it was started and completed.
For each project, users can enter to-do items (they will also show up on the
To Do List page when the project is Active) and comments, and can upload
files (such as a project report, or slides from a presentation).

The third part is the Duties page.  Duties are long-term responsibilities
that may not have a clear end date, such as software maintenance and
upgrades, monthly training sessions, or committee meetings.  Like the
Projects page, the Duties page allows users to enter to-do items, comments,
and files, but duties don't have a "Completed" status (just Active or Inactive).

The fourth part is the Log page.  This is a place to enter notes or comments
(the outcome of a meeting, hiring decisions, policy changes, etc.).  Comments
entered on the Projects or Duties pages are visible here too.  HTML tags
can be used in comments to display italics, bold type, underlines, etc.

The fifth and last main part of the application is the Files page.  This makes
it easy to find files uploaded by any staff member to their Projects or Duties
pages.  This can provide a convenient central repository for files of
interest to the whole group.  The files can be searched by a date range
(the default is the past year) and by a type, as specified by the administrator.
Examples of useful file types are "Report", "Protocol", or "Presentation".

Other features are that users can log in using their institution's single
sign-on system (usually Active Directory or LDAP), so that they won't have
to remember new passwords to log into Equilibrium; multiple staff members
can be assigned to the same project; and projects can be marked "Private",
viewable only by the person who entered them, as can duties, to-do items,
and comments.

Equilibrium is built on (and requires) the widely used LAMP architecture
(Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).  Though originally developed for Linux,
it also works on Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista with Apache, MySQL, and
PHP installed and running.  An easy way to install all of these dependencies
on the Mac or Windows platforms is to use the XAMPP software
(http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html).  Installing the dependencies
in Linux is even easier, using apt-get or Synaptic for Debian-based
distributions, and yum for RPM-based distributions.

Several other free software projects are used by Equilibrium and included
in the "external" subdirectory of the code:  Prototype, Scriptaculous,
and the DHTML/Javascript Calendar from dynarch.com.