This should be a simple fix…but if it is, I can’t find it! I’ve just upgraded from v.3 to v.4, and an immediate change is that in all my views, the circle to complete a task is now on the left, not the right of the task title, etc. Many years of ingrained habits have me clicking on a now empty block on the right (or flagging/unflagging a task by accident). Is there a way to turn this back around?
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Play around with the app settings, it is all there.
In OmniFocus 3, the status circle was on the left on the Mac and the right on the iPhone and iPad.
In OmniFocus 4, the status circle was moved to the left on the iPhone and iPad. The consistent layout can make switching between devices more intuitive. While this took a little getting used to, I prefer having the status circle on the left.
There isn’t currently an option to change the location of the status circle. I recommend contacting the Omni Group with this request. You can send them an email by choosing “Contact Omni” from the Help menu (Mac) or Settings > Help (iPhone & iPad).
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I think that the checkbox on the left-hand side directly in front of the task is better. If you list a lot of tasks with short texts in one perspective, there’s a greater chance that you’ll select the wrong one when checking off completed tasks on large monitors.
I prefered it on the right on iPad and iOS especially as it made it easier to check something off with my thumb.
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8+ year OF power user here, managing more than 3,000+ items in OF3
This is by far the issue preventing me from upgrading to OF4.
I hold my phone in my left hand, and in my OF4 trial I found myself inadvertently checking tasks Done with my left thumb EVERY TIME I pulled up the app. I was surprised they don’t have a setting to move this back to the right.
IMO the mobile experience needs to allow for this: one hand to hold the phone (my left) and one hand to interact with the app (my right). I found the left-circle remarkably dangerous — i was losing items with it on the daily during the trial by inadvertently brushing them with my left thumb.
I shared this feedback and was told “well, that’s why there’s a trial! you can uninstall back to OF3” i.e. they expressed no intent to consider giving us the option to move it back.
I would look to OF4 again if they were to reconsider and give us this option.
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Options are slippery slopes… no end to them, if one starts. Maybe that’s why options are always considered with great caution and thought.
Is there any other task manager that offers this choice? I just checked Todoist and it is same as OmniFocus - checkmarks on left.
Agreed on this option. It is a nice-to-have on the desktop anyway, and maybe even need-to-have on the smaller mobile screen.
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You raise a really good point. I don’t think that your standard user understands the complexity these kind of options add to a product under the hood.
Yes of course you can have an option to have the checkboxes on the left or the right, but every time you add even something with two options (left or right) you double the number of possible selection configurations that need to be considered and tested every time you make a change, you increase the load time for pages as they need to take into account the selection and render that selection.
If you have 10 settings with two options, considering them all is over 1000 (1024) combinations. It’s possible that some of those selections would never impact another, but with something like the location of a checkbox it has a wider impact.
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Omni takes a long time before they release features. And, I believe they are right in doing so. Piling on features and options is great in the short term, but may prove catatonic and catastrophic in the long term when it comes to managing all features and options.
I look at Apple of today. They announce something to great fanfare this WWDC, and then users get to experience everything in installments way into summer of next year, by the time the next WWDC is imminent. Even then, all of what was promised is not functioning reliably or is straight-out missing. And, sure enough, new features are promised in that WWDC.
Omni is smart to avoid falling into this trap. They have software they can manage reliably, and users can expect a certain level of performance and experience from their software. Sure, each offering has its niggles and issues, but, overall, it is commendable for Omni to be in the industry for quarter of a century and going strong. It is because of their focus. They have not sold out, nor are they diversifying in a way that becomes unwieldy. Users, be it consumer, prosumer, or enterprise, love that stability and trust.
I suppose they use their own tools well enough! ;)
I see different parallels between Omni and Apple. Both are companies that would benefit greatly from actual competition and which are largely coasting at this point. I use OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, and OmniPlan for work and they’re all better than alternatives in some ways (and have been for ages) but all have some significant issues that wouldn’t be tolerated if there was anyone with a competitive feature set.
As previously discussed, OF4 has a bunch of UI oddities and quirks that can make using the software significantly less pleasant. I will concede that OF4 is generally a solid upgrade from OF3, but I spent a day working on my iPad trying to figure out why one of my perspectives shows the projects in the left window and another almost identical one shows tags. Turns out the answer is that I needed to open it on a Mac, which apparently changes the perspective in both places. Not sure how I would revert that change but since I was trying to view projects I’ll take the win.
OmniGraffle is way better than Visio for me, but it also takes up an inordinate amount of memory and grinds my computer to a halt if I leave it open for too long (and that’s not even with particularly complex products). The features are great but OG7 was released eight years ago.
OmniPlan is pretty good, but equally long in the tooth and really doesn’t play well with other apps of the type. I need to be able to synchronize (or at least, import) data from other programs and it is a royal pain with OP.
All of which is to say that Omni has made good software in the past (just as Apple once did) but I think that lack of competition has let them coast on once-cutting-edge products. They’re still good and maybe even best-in-class for power Mac users, but the botched release of OF4 doesn’t give me a whole lot of hope for improvements to OmniGraffle or OmniPlan.
I don’t agree at all with your suggestion that Omni is coasting. Omni regularly add new features and functionality to their products.
The reality is that their products are now mature and do not need as much advancement as you seem to think that they do.
