I’ve wasted too much time in the past with tweaking the theme in OF v1. If you do add any such text controls, just keep it simple: just a choice of a single font as the default.
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Yes, the ability to change the default was what I we referring too. I don’t really care about the type of font just would like to be able to set the color to black so that it’s clear on the screen instead of the default greyed out look. Don’t really want to highlight the text to change the color each time I add new notes.
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I can appreciate that Shawn and suspect a lot of users feel the same way. Of course, just because the feature is there doesn’t mean you have to use it. I loved the ability, in OF1, to tweak nearly every aspect of the program. and have my screen views set up (different font sizes for different areas mostly) so nicely that It will take a lot of getting used to not having that.
And this is exactly what turned me off about OmniFocus v1. It felt like it wasn’t necessarily well designed and the user was forced to pick and change a bunch of settings to get a “reasonably” usable result.
Good design often means making choices (hopefully GOOD) choices for the user. I hope the customizability of v2 is a lot less than v1, because with choice, comes complexity.
“Just make it an option, and you don’t have to use that option if you don’t want” does have some significant downsides.
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I hear what you are saying CatOne. I’m not a software developer but I sure use a lot of it. I doubt any program will ever be developed that has a design that fits all of their consumers. I appreciate that people like and in many cases prefer simplicity and would hope that those folks would appreciate that others might want multiple options to either use or ignore.
You may have used OF1 very differently than I did and therefore found the need to, or be “forced to pick and change a bunch of settings to get a reasonably usable result.” I guess I might point out that your need was accommodated by OF offering the options to do that.
I would agree that OF1 had many more features than I needed and/or made use of. Still, something about knowing they were there that gave me comfort. I have tried ALL of the other known task manager apps on the market (and own licenses for all of the well known ones) and quite literally found that my only option was OF because it had enough features that could be manipulated by the user to get just what we (I) wanted in a program.
I did really like the simplicity (especially the look) of another top app out there but heck… it couldn’t even offer sub-tasks or specific date and time alerts…
I’m not trying to argue the points but think that these kinds of discussions, if read by the developers, might be somewhat helpful to see how we, the users, are looking at it from different perspectives.
If you read this Omni - (More Features please)!!!
i really disagree with this. if it’s there as an option, then you don’t have to use it. some of us do want to customise our text styling and colours. why should that bother you if you want to leave things as they are?
I´ve changed my style preferences in OF1 (fonts, colors, shadow, etc) using one of the (very beautiful) templates available in the forums.
Are you going to dive us the option to configure our style preferences in OF2?
I have 2 experiences with user styling with the original OF and currently with OO for both ios and mac. User styling has been very important to me. Perhaps if I had come from the vanilla styling of OF1 to OF2 I would feel differently but I’ve always used a variartion of asianefficiency’s template. After a certain amount of procrastination I have a tempate in OF and templates in OO that I engage with daily. I have found I require fairly strong signposting of projects within the outliner, far more than the default.
I feel we have been spoil with this choice and it is now expected. I’m not against a single style or perhaps a reduced number of style options if it provided the desired result. However at the moment the beta is not currently it.
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Like others, I also have my own personal theme going on. At first it was to play around, because it was cool. Then I realized that the ability to change colors and fonts made it quite easy to highlight (or downplay) certain content, and suddenly theming was more than just fun, it was useful.
It’s unfortunate that OF2 will not have theming as a feature at initial release; that suggests that the ability to visually separate content meaningfully is not a high priority. (I say this because the current pre-release of OF2 has very little content differentiation.)
As an example, in my theme for OF1, everything is based off Helvetica Neue Light 14pt, black, with a white background
In the sidebar:
- Projects are 15pt and blue, allowing them to pop out
- Folder names are also 15pt
In the main outline:
- Groupings are 24pt and blue,with a light grey background
- Projects are 16pt
- Actions are 14pt
- Blocked actions are a medium grey to fade out while still remaining readable (this mean projects with no actions, also considered “blocked”, are also grey, and thus visually different; I do wish I had a separate “blocked projects” style though)
- Due Soon are orange and bold
- Overdue are red and bold
These settings give me a visual hierarchy of information, at a font size that’s readable for my needs. I can keep my Contexts and Projects set to Remaining (instead of “Available”) and still visually ignore the items that aren’t actually Available (because they are grey instead of black), while allowing me to see them in context.
OF2 does away with this. Now an item that’s due soon has just a small orange circle on the far right of the action. I have no way of visually identifying projects with no actions. There’s no more color to make items pop and relieve the dreariness of black and white and grey.
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Hi, please also consider japanese, chinese and korean fonts. The readability of omnifocus2 font in those languages is really bad…
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I´ve changed my style preferences in OF1 (fonts, colors, shadow, etc) using one of the (very beautiful) templates available in the forums.
Are you going to dive us the option to configure our style preferences in OF2?
I’d like to add my voice to those calling for more customization options for fonts, colors, and other elements. I find it difficult to see light grey text and icons on the main pane’s bright white background, and the fixed-size text in the sidebar is too small for me. Even if there is no way to apply themes in the first release of 2.0, some options to address these UI issues would be helpful.
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For me, it’s very black and white. If the style options aren’t coming back, I’m not upgrading, period. The new layout wastes an enormous amount of space, no longer fits side-by-side with OmniOutliner (where I’ve had it for years), and at least for me, there is no benefit to this new spacious layout. Classic case of form over function.
If it’s two or three years before we regain the ability to decide how we want our own lists to look, then that’s how long it’ll be before I upgrade. And if OF1 stops working in the meantime, then I guess I’ll go find something else that actually works the way I need and want it to.
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Yeah, can well understand that sentiment. Styling options and great variability of “Your personal OF” is one of the hallmarks of OF1. If it won’t return until june, maybe until the end of the year? It’s requested badly and could be combined in a new style drawer together with data density settings ;-)
Hi,
I really like the new UI (much better then the previous beta version) but in my opinion there is just too much Windows grey being used for the interface - which just looks a bit dated.
I’m not good at using Photoshop but I have made 2 different themes. I have just used the paint bucket to change the colors so the lines between the icons in the sidebar are missing, the icons are a bit messed up and there isn’t any shade in the menu bar anymore. (It is highly appreciated if someone has the skill and time to make it more professional looking)
I’d also recommend to completely remove the status bar at the bottom of the window as this also looks dated and isn’t even used in new apps like Numbers, Pages or Airmail. I’m sure there is another way to incorporate the current functions of the statusbar.
This is the dark theme (inspired by Twitter, Airmail, Photoshop CC):
This is the light theme:
This is the default grey:
and this is Windows NT:
That Windows NT skin for OmniFocus is awesome!
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@psidnell it would be funny if they’d really call it “Windows NT Skin” in the settings :D
These are the same themes without status bar. My point with all these pictures is just that there are so many different colors you could use instead of sticking to the more than dated looking Windows grey.
light without statusbar:
dark without statusbar:
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In a previous life, I would customize everything. I have become a lover of “default” for a couple of years now. That being said, I made some adjustments to color coding in OF1 (next action, deferred, waiting) that has really helped me when scanning projects, along with reviewing.
This and one other issue already being addressed (off topic here), are the two reasons I am really struggling to use OF2 regularly.
The irony for me: I find the OF2 iPhone app and the reviewing feature in OF1 on iPad to be AMAZING. So you would think I would be in heaven with OF2 on the Mac even without the custom themes/colors. I want to love everything about it, but it is still a round peg in a square hole for my daily routine.
It’s close, so I think it just needs more time (we have another couple of months). It will get there. :)
Please add font size settings for OF2. If I increase the font size of the task items, Context, Projects, and Folders look tiny and create an unpleasant experience when working with OF.
Font size and style are essential for more than just the task items.
There is also not font size option for notes.
I must say that lack of font size and style option is a deal breaker for me.
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