Filtering - especially on status

Is there any way to filter the rows that are displayed in OO? It would be especially useful to have a simple toggle to only display rows where the status is unchecked.

Even better, would be a simple query language you could type into the Find box.

I did find a script. But that only selects the rows. Then you could (I guess) delete them. But that’s not really want I want to do.

I’m somewhat new to OO and kind of surprised this feature doesn’t exist.

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In fact, being able to filter based on any column data would be best. And certainly within OG’s capabilities, since that’s basically what Perspectives in OmniFocus are. If they would only give us that capability in OO, it would enormously expand its utility and usefulness.

We have some edge cases to work out that don’t exist in OmniFocus (since OmniOutliner supports style propagation between adjacent rows), but filtering is definitely on our roadmap for OmniOutliner Pro.

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Thanks, Ken. It’s good to know it’s still on the map.

Since parent items are important to show after a filter has been applied (lest an item lose its context), I’ve been thinking that you already do this in Organize:Keep Sorted. If I sort by, say, checked Status Boxes, OO4 doesn’t simply move the checked boxes to the top, it keeps them in the context of their parent items. This is really helpful, and I hope filtering will keep this feature.

In the meantime, if someone reading this is adept with creating AppleScripts (which I’m hopelessly not), it would be useful to have one that adds a status checkmark to search results, then sorts based on status box … then clears the sort when we’re done. So I could do a simple search based on the value of a column … each of the results gets a check … the outline is sorted for checks, and the top part of the outline will now look pretty much like what a filter would have it look like. The only difference (I think) being that the unchecked rows would be visible after all the checked rows are listed.

Anyone up for a quick Script?

I’m not script savvy – but am (was) a software developer so might be willing to give it a try. The problem is I don’t have a ton of time in the immediate future.

But here’s a question: is there a way to restored the original sort? That would be important to me. I guess one could add a column with the original sort order. This is where things start to get complicated.

Hi Todd,

Yes - in the Organize menu, if you choose Keep Sorted and it sorts, then one of the options is Clear Sorting. This restores the original sort.

Thanks for considering this.

Not a real filter, but at least search and select all matches on KEY=VALUE, where key might be a column name, or just state (for checkboxes), note, or topic (the default, so it can be dropped).

A draft script at:

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That was from July 2014.

Any prospects of getting filtering in 2016?

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Filtering would be real nice

Indeed, would love it

It is real nice in the test versions of Omnioutliner 5!

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