Focus vs project selection

iOS only user. When creating a custom perspective (project hierarchy) what is the difference between setting Focus to the project I want and using the Project Selection parameter to choose the same project?

Thanks

+1, have the same question

https://support.omnigroup.com/documentation/omnifocus/mac/2.4/en/perspectives/#perspectives

This had me confused for a long time as well.

From what I remember, if you choose to Focus on certain projects, the new perspective will show all of those projects that you have chosen to focus on.

I’ll use my Big Rocks perspective as an example. In the perspectives editor, I choose 4 projects to focus on (my Big Rocks).

When I see my project sidebar, I will see the 4 “focused” projects. The 4 projects are automatically shown in the main outline:

If I add a project selection, all 4 projects will be in focus but the project selected by the default project that will be seen when you first open the perspective.

In this example, I set the project selection to “R&D FIleMaker 14”.

Now, when I visit the Big Rocks perspective, I will have all 4 projects in focus but the “R&D Filemaker 14” project will be the default project that will be shown in the Outline:

[EDIT: edited for further clarity]

You can add or delete project selections as needed.

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Sidebar selection doesn’t apply in iOS only though…

My guess is we found a bug or a user interface that didn’t translate very well from the Mac to the iPhone.

On the iPhone, it appears that focus and project selection do the same thing. But it behaves differently on the Mac.

There is a difference, though, if you don’t use project hierarchy. Then you can choose projects to focus on, and combine that choice with a context selection.