But creating perspectives that can help focus on the right tasks helps to reduce the need for long lists.
I use perspectives to chop and slice and dice everything.
Often, I’ll just look at one folder at a time. Or I can command-click to select multiple related projects or contexts at a time. If it is a common view that I like to use, then I’ll save it as a perspective.
The whole idea of OmniFocus is to help you zoom in on a few handful of things instead of creating one huge scrolling list. Making the list denser may or may not make things easier to see.
I follow similar path in OmniOutliner. I just select sections to focus and edit on. I don’t necessarily want to see the entire outline. I just want to see what I’m working on it. It makes things easier to see.
Is that just an interim solution? Because it’s really annoying to have to change settings in text files (I assume something like a CSS file), or with hidden preferences (even though you’re use of URLs is better than going to Terminal).
The problem is that OF 2 forces a 1/2 density, high mouse/eye movement layout on a user base used to the compact and efficient OF 1 interface. Perhaps it would have been better to serve the existing user base first, then expand to less-dense layouts later. To use your example, you may not want to see the entire outline - but at least in OF1 that’s your choice, not a limitation of the application. In any case, the whole idea of GTD is that you can see everything on a given list at a glance - OF2’s default layout breaks that paradigm pretty badly.
For the record, I’m very apprehensive about OSX 10.10 for the same reason - Apple’s designers seem bent on reducing density via adding whitespace (which again, triggers unnecessary eye and mouse movement). Repeat after me: A computer is not a phone, a computer is not a phone, a computer is not a phone…
So for one more specific example, the checkbox-on-the-right issue is a really poor choice. It takes significant eye and mouse movement to associate the target with the text. I’ve now seen this in a couple of different applications, and would love to know what UI design ‘guru’ came up with it so I could go have some very stern words with them. I’ve done eye-tracking HCI studies in the past - let’s just say that if we did one on a right/left design like this there would be so much eye movement that it’d probably look like someone was in REM sleep, and so much wrist movement that it’d make a carpel tunnel surgeon put a down payment on a new boat :-).
So the net is that the double-secret-probation layout Ken posted solves most of the issues, though it still needs work (fixed width columns and checkable check box/circles, for example), and needs to be added as an explicit preference.
I guess I was expecting OF2 to be at least as mature as OF1, especially given the lengthy development cycle it’s had, and that’s the root of my disappointment. OF2 removed a bunch features from OF1, but I guess I haven’t seen any new ones that were added.
And after working with it more, the frustration continues - particularly the lack of ability to resize columns, and well, the lack of columns to begin with. The UI makes it impossible to quickly scan and see what items in my inbox are missing projects and/or contexts.
The lack of an inline calendar widget (yes I know it’s in the inspection bar, but that’s yet another mouse movement to get to it and then back to the task), and the really poor font size and color choices make it both frustrating to use, and hard to read. Doesn’t anyone at Omni use reading glasses?
I hope we’re going to see some major UI layout and font improvements very soon…it really is much much less usable than OF1.
Which brings me to my next question - is there a clean way to go back to OF1 until these issues are fixed?
Well, after figuring out a workaround for the sync, I just downloaded OF 2. Now I’m wondering if I should have just stuck with OF1. The user interface is much much less efficient. The large amount of white space means that only half the tasks show up on the screen compared with OF1. The significant amount of eye and mouse movement required by the placement of the checkbox (circle?) on the right is distracting and frustrating. The elimination of columns makes it hard to scan down the lists of tasks for missing information.
I guess the most surprising thing is the complete lack of customization - it forces us into using one particular layout. Very very disappointed.
I do see some small test builds that keep popping up every few days. I see we’re up to version 2.0.2. These new test builds mostly address bug fixes. Custom styling is probably in the queue somewhere. We’ll probably have to wait for version 2.1 for custom stylings to be addressed. We got a sneak peak with that URL which allows us to try the experimental one line layout.
@kcase Ken, you are such a tease! I’m trying hard to convince my wife that OF2 is as great as her iPad version, but the lack of visual styling hierarchy in the outline view is killing her. Would be totally happy with a text-file-based hack for now. Any chance that’s still in the works?
I too would like to be able to customise the appearance of OF 2 - the spacing of lines, indents, fonts etc. I could all of this in OF 1 - why not in the new version?
Customization is critical. Every time I look at that monotonous page I have no visual clues to find anything, and I want to delete OmniFocus forever. Forget ‘general’ app appearance, give us back the ability to make it appear any way we wish.
@lizard, I am another “silent themer” of OmniFocus 1. I have set the colour for “Next Action” to the same colour as “Available” because I don’t use the “Next Action” feature. I have also set the sidebar to Lucida Grande 15, and all other text to Lucida Grande 18. I am not a fan of whitespace, but I like big text when I’m tired.
Nothing crazy, just my favourite font and maximum readability.
This is a good refresh for the app, but is there really no option for changing the themes, fonts, colours? Does anyone out there have a workaround to at least get rid of some of the white? A solarized dark theme would be huge.
I too would like to be able to change the font size and style. I often print a list for the day or week and share this with my employees. I liked that flexibility in OmniFocus 1 previously. Thank you.
I’d like to change the font used. It is really bad. And yes, the views need a better and more inviting and compelling design overhaul. The focus now is on a lot of white space, and less on the actual activities.
This is a good refresh for the app, but is there really no option for changing the themes, fonts, colours? Does anyone out there have a workaround to at least get rid of some of the white? A solarized dark theme would be huge.
