Perspectives and Expansion State

If you release 2.0 without saving the expansion state of perspectives, the product will not be usable for me and that would be a shame. It would also be a regression from 1.0.

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(If you canā€™t save expansion state, at least expand all items by default when showing a perspective so I donā€™t have to manually expand them each time).

That particular behavior is not necessarily precluded by UI Freeze. Iā€™m investigating whether we can do that without breaking the file format (a primary goal for OF2.0). Hopefully so, since OmniFocus 1 supported it.

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Thanks. that would be nice. Right now, some items are expanded and some are not in my perspectives. Thereā€™s really no rhyme or reason to itā€¦

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I wholeheartedly agree here. Additionally, I find that forecast exhibits similar behaviour. Whenever I move into forecast it takes me 5-10 seconds to decipher where I am and what Iā€™m being presented with. IMO everything should be collapsed except today. Also agree about contexts maintaining expansion etc.

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I just wanted to clarify: itā€™s not just the contexts or projects in the sidebar that donā€™t maintain the expansion state. If I have a perspective that groups by contexts, with a restriction on which contexts are shown, some of the contexts are expanded, and some are collapsed.

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I just posted on a related thread. This is something that HAS to get fixed. In OF1 if I had a perspective that used the Contexts pane and I specified which contexts were included and then specified the expansion state of each, I could then take a snapshot and that state would persist. Now it doesnā€™t, and this is a HUGE usability issue for me to the point where if itā€™s not remedied, I will be forced to look at other software alternatives, something I really donā€™t want to do.

Between the horrible data density design and now this, I find myself cringing every time I use OF2. I would go back to OF1 if it were going to be supported, but I understand why it wonā€™t. So itā€™s OF2 or leave Omnifocus entirely. At this point Iā€™m just praying that both this expansion issue and the data density issue are satisfactorily resolved by the production release. Because this is horrible.

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This is a big one for me too - the ability to save the expansion state on perspectives is a must. I find it very disorienting to work from one perspective with only the project Iā€™m working on expanded and all others collapsed, go to another perspective, then come back and find all of my projects expanded again. I would really like to see the option for perspectives to stay in their current state when you navigate away from them.

This is especially true for the Forecast perspective - would be amazing to be able to collapse all other days and keep only todayā€™s date open.

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I would agree that it really is something necessary. For quite some time, I would have to expand/collapse all depending on the view or project so I would be sure I was not missing something (especially during review).

Iā€™m so used to it now, and most of the time I just leave everything fully expanded to speed up my process.

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There are two things OmniFocus could restore:

  1. the things you had expanded last time you looked at this view
  2. the things you told it you wanted expanded (ala snapshots in OmnIFocus 1).
  • Which of these two behaviors do you really want?
  • If we canā€™t build your preferred one, would the other one still be better than whatā€™s there now?
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Since the perspectives now have ā€œsaveā€ and ā€œrevertā€ buttons (which I donā€™t quite understand. if I donā€™t press ā€œsaveā€, shouldnā€™t that amount to reverting also?), isnā€™t 1) incongruous with this behavior? I would say whenever a perspective is saved, save the expansions also. Best would be a checkbox in the perspective that would allow for restoration of expansion, a la OF 1.

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I, for one, would prefer the snapshots. Having the just the other behavior would be better than the way it is now. However, in the best of all worlds both types of behavior would be available.

It looks like youā€™ve spoiled us with OF 1.

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Iā€™d prefer #2. Let me dictate expansion/contraction states and save this at the Perspective level, then that choice needs to be persistent, I see that EVERY time I switch to that perspective until I make a different choice and save that.

I really miss the snapshot feature. Sounds like Iā€™m far from alone on that. Removing it seems curious to me.

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Snapshots as well for me.

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Thanks Lizard. I personally would prefer OF2 to remember the expansion state the last time I looked at the view. I use a few perspectives with actions grouped by project, and those projects will change every few days, so Iā€™m not sure the snapshot option would work for me. I have a ā€˜todayā€™ perspective for example where a number of tasks are organized by project, and I may switch from working on project 1 to project 2 or 3 at different points in the day. I would like to be able to collapse the projects that Iā€™m not using at the moment, and if I navigate away to another perspective and come back I would like that expansion state to be maintained. Not sure that snapshot will work in that case?

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Absolutely snapshots.

It throws me for a loop when I choose a perspective and the state isnā€™t saved. Specifically, you may want to see the sidebar / inspector panels when in your ā€œmainā€ mode, but in certain perspectives, you donā€™t want to see that information.

The snapshot feature of OF1 was one of the core reasons I kept using OF. It really allows you to customize exactly how you want to see various perspectives. Now, if I happen to have either sidebar or inspector panes open, they will automatically be opened when I open a new perspective (or vice-versa).

Please fix this before OF2 ships.

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Snapshots! Yes, please. And thanks.

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Tried to heart all of the ā€œsnapshotsā€ responsesā€¦I would agree option 2 would be best.

Iā€™m consideirng your second question, but I honestly cannot commit to saying ā€œYes it would still be betterā€. With my workflow it might not be that big of a deal, except for review days when I expand things, I would just need to manually reset my view each time.

Having a rough day today, I feel like an idiot asking this: how does it work right now? I just tried a few things and it looks like right now (without quitting the application), the default perspectives keep the expanded state of my last view. The custom contexts are all expanded. If I collapse, leave the perspective and come back, they are expanded again.

If thatā€™s actually how it works, I would rather have snapshots, or keep it as is. I think remembering every time I go in and out of a view might be messy. Expanded by default seems less problematic for my workflow.

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Snapshots! Of expansion in sidebar and main view. And visibility of sidebar/toolbar ā€¦ This part of OF1 is amazing! (To me itā€™s a big part of the Focus in OmniFocus ā€¦)

The other behavior (1) is better than whatā€™s there now, which I donā€™t understand.

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Any update on this? Will it be part of 2.0?