[Feature Request] Recognizing sub-groups of a project in the Project field in Quick Entry

When I want to do Quick Entry and assign it right away to a sub-project (inside another project, inside a folder), I can place it only in a project as a task.

Is that design made on purpose? Or it’s a bug?

I would want to be able to place a quick entry in a folder as a project, or in a sub-project as a task.

I think your “sub-projects” are probably Action Groups.
By design, these are not included in the Project field.

I think it would be useful to be able to add something right away to a folder (or an action group) to skip the inbox. Simply a time saver.

I wonder if other OF users would agree.

alt-space, enter task description, tab-tab, enter project (pick from list after a couple letters or create new!), tab, enter context, tab, enter deferred and/or due date /time, cmd-shift-L for flagging, cmd-s for saving the task directly to the project and context…

that takes me about 20 seconds

@mat_rhein, that’s not what I meant. I think you have missed my precious comments.

For example:
I have a folder “Branding Project,” where inside the folder I have a project “UPrint” inside which I have a few subgroups with a company names.

From the quick entry box (Control+Option+Space in my case), I am unable to assign a task specifically to the subgroup.
Which I would find useful, but I understand that this is not a project.

Moreover, I am unable (from the quick entry position) to create a project inside a folder.

I think if Quick Entry would allow to create not only tasks, but also to insert a “position” inside a folder (which would result in creating a project), and adding tasks in sub-groups, it would be a useful thing many users would benefit from.

Benefits:
-skipping inbox and processing the information instantly
-saving approximately 30-60sec per position
I measured the time with 29 real insertions. Something which would take 5-10 sec with the Quick Entry (depends on the length and if there’s a due date), takes 30-60sec (42 sec on average with 10 sec of standard deviation) if I have to command+tab to OF window, find a folder/sub-group I want to assign project/task to, create a project/task in a folder/sub-group.
In an busy environment, where my mind is completely somewhere else, I have to refocus and find the path to my destination in OF. That not only takes more time to input, but also takes more time to “go back.” It literally takes 6 times more on average to do that.

But that’s just my opinion. I’m not sure if any people would benefit as much as I from it.
For now, I just throw everything into the project (for example Uprint) and I’m adding some more information. Still, I have to sort it later. That step would be skipped if I could insert the position exactly where I want from the Quick Entry.

Just throwing out there that you can create a project inside a folder from quick entry if you are also creating an action inside that project.

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How do you do choose what folder a project will appear in?

Thanks for the clarification, I was guessing that it weren’t fixed that easy since You’re also around here for a while it seems- and I now have a clearer idea of Your struggle.

What You call a subproject is a sub task, which is why it is not appearing in the project search field. So ultimately what You want instead of a project search field is a global search instead. I can see the use for this, usually one only remembers some cues from the project task the newly written idea is relating to. Add me to the list of fans for this idea, I think it could save us the whole hassle then again digging into the db, organizing everything…

That said, the quick entry currently contains what is written outside of it: it lets You enter stuff quickly so that it’s out of Your head- later, when the dust has settled, You can take Your sweet time to reallocate everything within OF. At least that’s the concept I embraced so far and - agreed, it’s something that is made to be used exactly that way.

I don’t know what are you asking for.

I don’t understand that sentence

Sub-group. Sub task is one task. I’m writing about a group of tasks in a project.

I think it would make sense if it would be searchable from the position of quick entry box:

The process I described really makes it longer, and I think of these sub-groups as smaller projects in a a project.

Also, out of my head could go straight to the place where it belongs.

BTW. Just my curiosity. You have to be from Poland, or some country very close, because you write “You” and “Your” with a big letter, which isn’t like it’s written in English. Am I right?

If you type in the hierarchy of folders, separated by a colon (:), then the new project will get put in that place. It will also create the folders if they’re not there.

cute… let me cut this chase down to the most important information:

  • I am german, being educated that “You” is the polite form (which is proper english and nothing exceptionally foreign), so yes, You’re right, I’m close to Poland, and no, if it matters even english natives use that form- the americans usually are too lazy, though, especially in forums…
  • when You say sub group, you are still referring to tasks in contrast to projects, which is exactly why You can’t select them in the quick-entry window- I just wanted to clarify that there is actually a real reason for all this weird behaviour in OF

I don’t think it’s a sign of laziness. It’s improper and grammatically incorrect way of writing in English (British or American). I haven’t seen that form in any official publication, nor used by a native English speaker. It’s like you’d decide to write “I” with a small letter, because you don’t want to “look at people from above.” Every language has it’s own rules. English doesn’t have a rule of a polite form in the form of a large letter, when you’re referring to someone directly or indirectly. However, there are other rules, which other languages do not have.
Anyway, I do consider English as a lazy language (not in a negative meaning), but that’s what makes it very easy to learn and master. German, French, or Polish, are much harder to learn and master. Still, it doesn’t make the English language any less sophisticated.

I see this as a sub-project. A project can be made of many sub-projects. I personally prefer that way of grouping my tasks which include more tasks (sub-projects), since there is no way to link an ongoing project to another project without which some tasks/projects cannot move forward.

A couple posts in this thread got flagged as Off-Topic. Myself and another person here took a look at the posts in question. While in some cases it can be helpful to move a sub-topic to a new thread (and Discourse makes it easy for a poster to do so themselves if they want), we don’t really feel that doing that in this case would produce a thread that would be understandable to a visitor that hadn’t read up on this one.

Upshot: we’re un-flagging the posts in question.

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What you want to see is perfectly fine by me- as long as the Omni guys call it sub-tasks and the field of question project field your subprojects won’t appear there by definition ;-)… not to rain on your parade but that is a logical barrier many other developers might neglect but not the Omnis…

I agree about the defining, no matter how I see it, but still, it makes sense to be able to assign a task to a sub-tasks from the position of the Quick Entry. It’s 6 times faster.

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[Delayed reply] Thanks!

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I agree with the OP’s request. This actually would be really useful. Right now my workaround is to add the project to inbox tasks, then create a new tab and finally reveal the project. This makes it possible to move the newly created task to a specific action group.

Needless to say, the fact that action groups cannot be added directly creates friction and additional efforts here.