Looks good mat_rhein - so this would involve making the far left sidebar wider to accommodate (perhaps a smaller version of) the calendar?
Here is an illustration of what I had in mind - with the calendar at the bottom of sidebar in the project / context / or perspective view:
The sidebar would show the categories for the project / context / or perspective along with the calendar at the bottom, and the main window would display information from either the day(s) selected in the calendar or the project/context/perspective depending on what is selected.
Shouldn’t be too difficult to implement given that tasks can already be dragged to the calendar if you open a second OF2 window. Of course, it should be optional whether or not the calendar is shown in these other views.
Actually, You’re right @Bowtree00, the calendar could just stay there throughout all different perspectives and be thereby available for utilization anytime… Please submit this one to the Omni-magicians, will You?
I would really like to go beyond the Forecast tool just being OF2 specific - I would like to see a melt between OF2’ Forecast and my calendar. All items entered in my calendar should show up in OF2 and I want to plan a task in my calendar (or link it to existing blocked out time). Perhaps I haven’t yet mastered the proper art yet but I am constantly struggling bridging the gap between working on “due things” in OF and then having to plan these in another package with another work flow.
You are heard and understood, @yohst2… I can very much relate to the problem. Having been frustrated of the division I tried different CRMs and Calendar / tasklist hybrids, such as the fabulous Pocket Informant on iOS that once was on the verge of being able to sync with the OF database… But it should not be…
So as of today You either get a good calendar in company of a stellar OF or a mediocre mix… the reason for this is that OF makes a clear distinction between tasks and scheduled events: tasks are not limited to a certain day and time, they are much more complex than a simple calendar entry and the likes…
At least, OmniFocus is the only app with functional calendar syncing in form of a .ics calendar You can subscribe to (either by linking to the file on Your DAV or by clicking the link in the sync prefs)… that gives You a visual representation of Your tasks with due dates within Your calendaring app of choice…
@mat_rhein: I completely understand the notion that “tasks <> simple calendar entries” But… they are related.
I accept that the best software is laser sharp on focusing on its fundamental business. OF is all about tasks, projects and management thereof and not a calendaring tool. Accepted and appreciated.
The problem is that with my workflow I feel I naturally go from the task/project list to its planning aspects which may bring more subtasks first but eventually I need to block out calendar time associated with the task and subtasks. That is not just a one way flow. The calendar changes continually and the deadlines for projects may change or are negotiable. Yep, my work is a continuos stream of soup ;-)
What I miss between OF and Calendar is some sort of connection that shows the link/relationship between what I have planned in the calendar and what needs to be delivered when in OF. When I am working in the calendar, I don’t want to hunt down the specific task in OF and vice versa, it is just too disrupting for my flow. I have OF deliver target dates to my calendar but this is still not very connected, they are just blips on the radar. So I invariably end up using the calendar more then OF simply because my tactical AND strategic life is there, as opposed to just my strategic life in OF.
I admit not being too clear on what that link is or could be but I hope that some of this resonates with the OF team. After all, with the new OF2 being so much better in workflow by its new layout, why not go a little further… (hint hint).
I’m with You on the seemingly inseparability of tasks and scheduling- and honestly I don’t see much of a choice there for the OmniFocus team- support cooperation between companies makes development - due to lack of control over all aspects of it- a terribly difficult thing… but since OF is the task management powerhouse,
why not build a full-fledged calendaring option into OF?
Importing of all the calendars in Your ecosystem already is reality, only the interaction with calendar entries from within and the “associate this taks with this calendar entry” idea needs some development… and, of course, there needs to be a perspective enabling You to interact with the calendar and Your projects.
Sounds easy enough, right ?-)
Sounds “easy” but I expect it to be quite complex. The calendar developers certainly are not going to tackle this my hope is for OF/Omni to take some significant steps here.
There are, of course, the purist GTD folks who might not like this broadening of the domain tool. However, it should be recognized that bridging these two silos would mean a major improvement in GTD for me, and it sounds like for you (mat_rhein) as well … and perhaps a few others? :-)
Oh Omni, listen to our prayers, please… pretty pleeeaase?
There have been a number of great updates and fixes to OF2 in the last few weeks, but I haven’t seen much change in the way of addressing comments/requests for modifications to how the ‘Forecast’ feature works. Are any of these requests on Omni’s radar? Can we expect some work on this functionality during the beta?
In particular, I’m curious as to whether we can see the following points addressed:
Forecast calendar pinned in project/context/perspective views
Show ‘past deferred’ on the forecast calendar (so as to not ‘lose’ track of deferred tasks if a date has past and they haven’t been completed)
Remove duplication of tasks in Forecast view if they are both ‘due’ and ‘deferred’ on the same day
Thanks for addressing these - really enjoying the OF2 builds, but would love to see the Forecast feature become more useful for work planning
All of the ones you listed are on our radar. None of them are likely before 2.0 ships, but I expect there will be many updates after that in which these could be included.
Thanks Lizard. I understand that you want to focus on bugs and aesthetics at this point, though I’m surprised with as much attention as this feature request got that it won’t be implemented in the 2.0 release. It seems to me that it shouldn’t be too difficult to implement given that the functionality is almost there (you can drag and drop into the Forecast calendar if you have a second window open), and it would be a great new feature to improve on OF1.
Not to complain - I really like the direction OF2 has gone. I hope to see these features implemented soon after the 2.0 release, it would be a shame to miss out on an opportunity to improve the work planning utility of OF2.
I had also hoped there might be an easy way to get that. But I talked to the engineers and unfortunately, it’s one of those things where the basic functionality would be easy, but polishing all the corner cases would take a lot longer.
One problem that I keep coming up against with the Forecast view is that in order to work from that view each day tasks either have to be assigned a ‘due’ or ‘deferred’ date. I, like many others, like to reserve ‘due’ dates for when tasks are actually due, and so I have been using ‘deferred’ dates to get tasks on the calendar. The problem with this approach is that this now messes up the ‘proper’ use of deferred dates, which is to hide tasks when they don’t need to be looked at until a particular day (when filtering by ‘available’). If I mark tasks as deferred to get them on the calendar, I now unintentionally hide them in other perspectives.
What OF2 introduces with Forecast is the potential to put tasks on a calendar to plan for today, this week, or this month, but some changes are needed to make this work. Introducing a third date field for ‘planned date’, or a flagging system for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc would really improve the ability to use the Forecast view for planning and working from on a daily basis.
seems like there’s no one-fits-all solution there yet. For ticklers that then stay relevant (i.e. tasks that become relevant and are supposed to annoy me from then on) I am flagging them and set a deferred date. If You now have a today perspective that shows You only active tasks, You’re settled.
I agree, having an additional one or two months shown in the empty space underneath would be absolutely brilliant and seems like it would be easily implemented
This would be a great place for a summary of the “estimated time” fields. It would be very, very helpful to see what I am committed to on the calendar and be able to compare that to the estimated time for the tasks due on a given day. That way, I can reschedule if I need to.
This topic has many posts so I hope I’m not repeating.
The forecast view is the very best calendar/to-do interface I have yet seen on the Mac bar none but?
Is there anyway Omni could take it the next step and that is be able to build every kind of appoint / task from Omni and have it appear (at least in an abbreviated form on the system iCal? Omnifocus 2 is about tasking and getting things done it ought to be the center not at the periphery IMO? Things like alerts, customized repeating, etc. would be helpful? Adding Omnifocus tasks to iCal tasks? The whole tamale.
It would be nice if something like the forecast view appeared in the iOS version fro the iPhone?
Its almost 2018 now and I still hope this is top of the list for OF3!!!
Agreed. OmniFocus should be an easy to use record of the past in addition to doing what it excels at: planning for the future.
Adding this one simple feature would make it so.
I know OmniFocus and GTD in general are future focused. Its all about for planning for future events. But I also use OmniFocus as an infobase . A record of all the things I have done in the past.
It would be IMMENSELY USEFUL to me if I had one simple place in Omni Focus to go back into the past and see…" hmmm… what were the last things I did in the office before I left on vacation. December 22 2016"
It would also make past year archives, when you expunge old records, MUCH MORE USEFUL.
Simply allowing the Forecast calendar to go to any date in the past would allow this.
Please make it so!!!
(Also: Sometime I am entering things I completed yesterday or in the past just to have a record of when I did something. And this is why it is also frustrating that you cannot enter tasks that occurred in the past on iOS. I have to use my Mac to do it. Grrrr… almost make the iOS version useless for me.)
