I’ve been awaiting a modernization of OmniFocus’ notes fields for years and am wondering if OmniFocus 4 is any better in this regard (I don’t see it mentioned in the release notes or marketing pages). I’m thinking Markdown support ideally but at the very least, support for common shortcuts like ⌘+K for creating links and automatically turning asterisks into bullet points, etc. This all feels like table-stakes in 2024.
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We’ve made some fundamental improvements to the rich text notes in OmniFocus 4, though the specific changes you’re looking for are actually about note-editing shortcuts rather than those fundamental capabilities. I’m afraid Command-K is still bound to the Clean Up menu item rather than the Edit > Link menu item, though we’re looking to make those keyboard shortcuts customizable in the app. (You can customize them already using System Settings, but we recognize that’s an awkward process.)
The biggest improvements in OmniFocus 4 are:
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Rich text notes are now supported on iPhone and iPad, not just on Mac. This means that links, inline images, bold, italic, font size, tab stops, text color, text background color, list headers, hanging indentation, etc., are now cross-platform rather than only showing up on Mac. Most text formatting features supported by word processors and web pages are now supported on all platforms.
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Rich text colors now dynamically adapt to the viewing environment. This means that when you switch between Light Mode and Dark Mode (or between platforms which are using different modes), the rich text maintains its contrast (i.e. dark text on a light background will turn into light text on a dark background).
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Omni Automation now has support for manipulating rich text. This has enabled a number of new plug-ins which do things like import spreadsheet data into columns (using tab stops), manipulate paragraph and character attributes, append inline images, and even convert notes to/from Markdown for editing. Some examples of this are available at OmniFocus 4: What’s New in Omni Automation.
That said, these changes mostly improve the foundation technology underlying the rich text notes in OmniFocus. There are plenty of improvements we’d also like to make to the interface for editing rich text notes, but we thought it was important to start by laying that foundation groundwork of making them available across platforms, adapting them to different rendering environments, and exposing them to automation scripts and plug-ins.
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I love that links are live and clickable on all platforms. There are so many times when I forward email to my Omni account for purposes of creating a task in my inbox and those emails often have links that I need to use.
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I wasn’t aware of the ability to forward an email to … in order to create a task. How’s that done?
I set this up a LONG time ago. I think it’s called Mail drop.
https://support.omnigroup.com/omnifocus-mail-drop/
Basically, you set up an account on Omniserver and you can then setup an email to which messages to that email will be added to your Omnifocus inbox. That email address, however, is pre-set meaning you can’t choose it and it’s some “ugly” looking email address such as TYHF3434@omniwhateverItIs.com
So what I have done is create a free gmail account to something that I can remember like: taskmaster@gmail.com. Then in that gmail account, I have it so that all emails form that gmail will automatically forward to TYHF3434@omniwhateverItIs.com.
That way, I don’t have to worry about memorizing what the ugly email address is and just use something I can remember :)
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@chomni
You could just add “OmniFocus” or “Mail Drop” on your contacts with that email to avoid using a secondary account.
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Yes you can do that except I’m not always on devices that I own. At my work computer, I definitely do not have my personal contact list. You can say why not add it? Because I’m not always at the same computer.
For me, I’d much rather memorize the email I use to Mail Drop so I can use it anywhere
May not be helpful if you’re working on a shared device, but adding to the discussion in case it’s helpful.
On mac OS, in System Settings, under Keyboard/Keyboard Shortcuts/Services/Text, there is a toggle for “OmniFocus 4: Send to Inbox” where you can set up a keyboard shortcut. While triaging email the shortcut brings up a simple OmniFocus interface to quickly turn an email into a task, with a link back to the email for responding to later.
Hope that helps.
