At a minimum, can you add that as a button option for the toolbar please? At a push, I can live without being able to drag tasks to become projects in specific folders, although it’ll make every inbox task>project upgrade at least a 2-step action, but there should at least be something a little more visible in the UI.
At the same time, I miss the old Switch menubar button, which took you to the same action in the context/project view.
I too was trying to figure out how to get items from my ‘Inbox’ into a given project. I tried to select the item and then use the right-hand side editor to set the project. That didn’t seem to work and to be truthful even it had worked, it would not be preferred manner.
Thanks for the 2 window work around. It’ll work in the short term, but by no means should it be the only solution. My vote is for the ability to drag-drop the inbox item onto the project in which I want to associate it.
Just my 2 cents.
Pretty much agree with everyone else. Would be nice if it were easier (more intuitive) to move things from my Inbox to a project. I do this pretty much every time I open OF.
I wonder if this particular thread Can I drag items from the inbox to a project or context? - should be merged with this one?: Viewing the Inbox at the same time as Projects? [Available in v2.10]
The two threads kind of deal with the same issue, don’t they?
Merged the threads as requested. Thanks for pointing that out!
First off, thanks to everyone that’s posting here. “I’m having trouble doing important_thing, and here’s why…” is the most valuable information we can get out of testing programs (and threads) like this.
I don’t have a hard time remembering my project/context structures, but I am terrible at remembering keyboard shortcuts. The vast majority of the time, I just click on the Help menu in an app, then start typing the name of the menu item until I find the one I want, then hit Enter to trigger the action. Not as fast as memorizing the shortcut, but faster than scrubbing over all the menus.
Similarly, I have been using the keyboard to assign my inbox items to projects and contexts in both v1 and v2. I click the field and start typing. Even if I can’t remember the exact name, I can generally get close enough to choose the one I want with a few arrow-key strokes at most. Upside: fast, requires one window. Downside: the projects aren’t visible, which several people have said is important to them.
Which isn’t to say that anyone that’s assigning things by dragging is doing it wrong, of course, or to say that you should be doing it the way I do. Like Kristina, I’m just describing what works for me in case it’s an improvement for anyone else using the app, and trying to better understand other people’s workflows.
I can’t speak to what solutions the design & engineering folks will come up with, but I know they’re aware of the issue being discussed here and are thinking about how to address these concerns. I think it’s safe to say that all the solutions suggested in this thread are under consideration to varying degrees, but it should also be said that most of them require design, engineering, and testing.
Between now and ship, we have to give the highest priority to crashes, errors, and any sync bugs we uncover. (So far, so good, but there’s work to do.) Issues like that the one being discussed here are relatively more likely to be addressed in a post-2.0 release.
That turned into more of a wall of text than I intended - I hope it helps, and thanks to anyone who read through it. :-)
Awesome the Edit Convert to Project (Cmd !) is exactly what I needed I just hadn’t seen it thanks for the pointer its actually faster using the keyboard shortcut than trying to drag and drop it. Thanks again.
Ah – that is where it went. I was used to the Command-[ shortcut in the inbox to convert an inbox item to a project.
Brian, thanks for the reply. However, I must respectfully disagree with you on this one as being a ‘post 2.0’ release issue. Processing the Inbox without friction is one of the single best and most important things that OF1 allows us to do. Whether dragging or dropping, converting to projects, etc. - it just works. The ability to see my project hierarchy is critical when doing this, and I think that is why you are seeing so much similar feedback on this. Would love to see something done on this prior to the release.
Having said that, I really do love the beta in so many ways! Keep smiling and many thanks for allowing us to provide feedback!
Jeff
I love, love OF (and OmniGroup). But, one of the basic ideas of GTD is dumping stuff into your inbox, then moving them into projects. I’d really be interested in hearing what the thought process was in making this simple action more difficult as is the case with OF2. I get the “2-window” idea, but as others have suggested, it’s clunky and seems like a work-around. Am I missing something? What is the advantage to the current design?
Great - What happens if you want to insert the project into a particular folder?
I just let it drop my Action in the Inbox into the Projects list then as part of my review process I clean them up and get them into the correct folder. For example I have a Work and a Home folder amongst a few others I don’t see a way to cleanly automate it and I sure don’t want them dropped in the wrong folder so I like the way they are dropped by default into the Projects list and then its just a simple drag drop at review to ensure things are clean.
I just started working with the beta, new to OF, and the first thing I wondered is how the heck I can see my Projects list and Inbox at the same time for easy drag-and-drop organization. So I hate to log in just to say +1, but since it’s a workflow issue for me I think it’s especially important. I’ll use the two-window method for now, but agree it’s less elegant than a one-window solution.
Have you tried typing the folders in separated with “:”?
I don’t believe it’s possible to do what @Cliftonplymouth is trying to do with that method - you can navigate the folder structure, but I believe that smart match will only let you drop into existing projects. (There’s a feature request filed on what he’s after, though.)
Nonetheless, I really appreciate it when folks are willing to try and help each other out here. Have yourself a “like”, sir. ;-)
On second thought, I guess it depends on what @Cliftonplymouth is trying to do. You can create a new project if you type out the folder path with each level separated by " : " and ending with the name of the new project. The project is created, and the action gets put inside.
What I assumed they were trying to do, though, is make the inbox action itself a new project.
I understand that at this point in the release cycle the design is fixed but I strongly encourage Omni to revisit this feature. This is a basic GTD workflow model of marshaling inbox items to projects. In OF1 I was able to quickly do this in one window in a matters of seconds. In working in ONE window that task has now turned into minutes. The option presented of opening a new window is viable provided you aren’t accustomed to running the app in full screen mode. By opening up a new window you break the user experience and create much more friction for the power OF user. This is a major ding against a very well designed product.
I agree.
Inbox processing it maybe the most important part of the GTD task management process for me. I just dump things into the Inbox and sort it out later but currently there is no way to know what’s in the Inbox (if anything) because I have to click on the sidebar to access it separately and then I have no spatial/organizational sense of where it needs to go once I’m in sequestered away in the Inbox screen.
I use a small Macbook Air so having a multi-window solution is a pretty terrible one. It’s not so much about drag and drop as much as having a structural sense of my projects and/or contexts being a very visual thinker.
So, to sum up my thoughts —
A greater emphasis on Inbox clearing is needed.
There needs to be a badge denoting the number of Inbox items remaining.
There needs to be a way to see the Inbox and the Context or Project structure simultaneously.
Ok so there are two issues or flows here I think
a) You have stuff in your Inbox and you want to create a project from it. This is accomplished by hitting Cmd-! or Edit-> Convert to Project. Or you can now drag the action from the Inbox over the Project tab it will glow blue and get moved over as a project.
b) You have stuff in the Inbox you want to add to an existing Project. This is accomplished by dropping to the second line in the action on the far left there is what looks like a small right facing triangle and document just start typing the project name in select the one you want and it will get assigned to that project.
Admittedly the actions are added to the bottom of the projects list of tasks which in the old drag drop method you could select where you wanted it but so far this is not a massive issue in my workflow I catch these in review and ensure the project tasks themselves are accurate.
I think everyone understands how to get inbox items to where they need to be but the problem lies in
a) Its now a two step task instead of one step.
b) We want to see the inbox item in relation to the folders and project lists.
