Collapsible action groups on iOS

Is there no way to collapse an action group on iOS?

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This issue has been discussed quite a bit when OF3 for iOS came out. Send a vote to omnifocus@omnigroup.com to upvote this feature request.

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The other complaint I have with the iOS Version ist that you cannot collapse group actions in iOS.

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I know. It’s a huge omission for such a Simple fundamental thing and shows no consistency across the apps as it can be done on desktop and possibly even could have been on earlier iOS versions.

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It was not fully available on earlier versions. I seem to remember that in v2 it worked OK in iPhone, not on iPad. There are several previous discussions in the forum about this.

I also seem to recall from somewhere (maybe a Slack discussion) that collapsible action lists are on the roadmap but I don’t remember whether there was a schedule; probably not, because Omni are usually sensibly cautious about committing to timescales.

It’s irritating

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when a company REMOVES a fundamental feature without telling the users, that’s very poor client communication and business practise. Especially whilst charging for a new update.
And the fact that it’s then ‘put on the roadmap’ for reinclusion with no indication of when it will be implemented, and as well as being such a small yet important thing, is just very poor. It’s an indication that they have a sub par development team. Sounds harsh however it’s evident. It’s been too long since release for this not to have been fixed. We are talking about a to do app, not a nasa science programme.

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OmniFocus for iOS has never had the option to collapse and expand groups. We’ve always wanted to add that option, but on iPhone everything was collapsed by default (and you had to drill in to a group to see its contents), while on iPad everything was expanded by default, using indentation to show your full outline of tasks. We received many feature requests for the iPhone app to be able to show the full outline by scrolling through the list, so when we unified the display logic in OmniFocus 3 that’s the view we kept.

But, yes, as mentioned above: we’ve always wanted to add expandable groups as well. This year, we happened to have been focused on other long-requested features, like tags and improved repeat options and custom notifications and more flexible filter rules for perspectives. With those huge features having shipped, we look forward to implementing even more features, like powerful automation and collaboration and floating time zone support. And, yes, collapsible action groups.

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Fantastic I am so glad you’re adding the floating time zone support! That would be so useful.

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Collapsible actions groups (that still exist on the Mac version) will be a welcome eventual return for me (on iOS) as I made a lot of use of them. For me the new view is to much scrolling on the iPhone and I have had to rework that functionality with folders and projects within folders

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I appreciate the clarification and reply, and apologise for my error re which devices had or did not have collapsible group actions. I must have got muddled up. This in itself however exemplifies the confusing nature of the non unification across devices. I see though that you have attempted to now unify it somewhat, by deciding on non collapsible group actions because some people requested it, however in doing so you have now taken away a basic fundamental work flow that many other users, who have invested in your eco system, had been using, forcing them to now think of other more clunky ways of implementing their work flows. That’s a backward step. And this isn’t a case of ‘you can’t please everyone, there will always be someone who’s not happy with the system’ at all, as all you do is simply provide an option to do either method in settings.

As a long term user of OmniFocus for over 7 years across all the platforms, who has therefore supported development and invested in this product all that time, I find the priorities in your specified roadmap confusing.

You yourself say that collapsible groups actions will be prioritised in tandem with a list of other new features. Would it not make more sense to nail the fundamental core features first, particularly ones which you removed. Especially in terms of unifying consistency of expected behaviour and functionality across all devices. I am confused how it is not evident to see how frustrating it is and seemingly lacking in design, when you have been sold on an app for having cross platform parity. But instead if you create a group action list in Mac OS, you have to do it in such a way as to take into account the fact that despite everything looking fine on the Mac screen, now it will show up as one long list on your small iPhone screen. Meaning if you have a list of action groups which now cannot be collapsed, you have to endlessly scroll down to find an action buried in amongst it all, as there is no way to tidy up and hide the lists, in order to reduce screen clutter through collapsible groups. Why this was implemented for a mucher smaller screen UI does not seem to make any logical sense. It does not take into account the smaller screen size. I am struggling to empathise with this design decision.

Also there is no way to have your custom perspectives homepage, synced across platforms either. So any changes in your carefully curated homepage made on one device, have to be manually changed again on your iPad, and then yet again on your Mac. This is supposed to be software that speeds up your workflow, not slows it down. Some people may prefer to have different CP setups based on location ie Mac OS in the office, iOS at home etc, but not everyone does. Give users the option in settings to either sync or not sync your homepage perspectives.

These things are not asking for a game-changing revolutionary new system. It’s simple, basic functionality that seems as though was not properly thought out and considered. New features should be relegated until the fundamentals are fixed. It’s great that a car has a radical new system software update but let’s fix the broken side mirror first. It pains me to have to write this as firstly I don’t have the time, and secondly, it’s clear OmniFocus has the potential to be an excellent piece of software, hence the frustration at some of the perplexing design choices made.

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Definitely this is one of the worst and silly mistakes of Omnifocus 3. In order to please some costumers, Omnigroup wrecked the many people workflow´s that depends on action groups and many items. I totally agree with Luke1: this is not an advanced feature or some fancy new thing. It is a basic feature that was deliberately excluded without considering the size of an iPhone screen and how difficult it would be to deal with big action groups. To this day I cannot use this app, which is sad: it is as limitating as Things 3 and 2Do when dealing with subtasks.

I hope that this gets fixed as soon as possible, but I think that it is not a priority.

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This has been something I have needed and asked for for a long time. It’s a pain to reorganize tasks in a large project on my iPad without this.

I just downloaded the beta version that has been updated for iPadOS. I then opened two windows and displayed the same project. I was then able to grab a task in one window and drag it to another place in the project in the other window, which moved the task in the project. This makes it much easier to work with a project until they implement collapsing of action groups.

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I would also advocate for being able to expand and collapse groups on iOS. It would be very helpful, also, to be able to add items directly to the group rather than having to add to the project and move them into the group. When trying to capture ideas quickly, the dragging process can be pretty disruptive.

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Does anyone know if there is any development regarding collapsible action groups on iOS? I have built my entire structure in OmniFocus (currently >2000 unfinished actions) around actions groups within projects. Since the launch of OmniFocus 3 I have postponed to fix my structure as I was hoping that the view from OmniFocus 2 (for iOS) would be brought back. I am starting to assume that I am out of luck?

While OmniFocus has claimed that this is a feature that is being worked on, that has been the same statement for a couple of years now. I have given up on the use of all nested tasks, which is one reason OmniFocus absolutely doesn’t work for me any more. I’m currently using iThoughts for project planning and then occasionally copying immediate actions over to OF, but it’s really a crappy workflow that means that I am absolutely underutilizing the incredibly expensive OmniFocus ecosystem that I have paid for on multiple platforms.

That’s too bad. I resisted the upgrade for a long time because of this, but as the app (OF2) started crashing very frequently I hoped the upgrade would improve that aspect (it did not). So here I am stuck (as I upgraded the database).

Even thought using OF from my phone has gotten a lot worse it is still so much better than the alternatives on the mac (that I am aware of) that I will stick with it.

It is really surprising that this hasn’t been fixed yet. The inability to collapse sub-action groups make it impossible to effectively use many of the complex actions I have created and use easily in Mac OS. I have upvoted this by notifying support@omnigroup.com. I am wondering if others have found a satisfying work-around by using sub-folders?
Thanks.
-Chris

It is very frustrating

One of the many reasons I flip flop… Things 3 and Todoist

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