How come I can add new items in some perspectives but not others?

OmniFocus OmniFocus for Mac
#1

I am so totally newbie at OF, I don’t even know if I’m using the right terms, or even how to ask the question right so please bear with me. I have one perspective saved that I can hit return to add new items in, but other perspectives that just beep at me when I try that.

I’m sure I’m missing something… anyone know what?

Thanks!

#2

This is one of my few real annoyances with omnifocus. It seems to be a quite arbitrary restriction.

#3

If OmniFocus can determine where to place your newly added action/task, it will allow you to add it.
If otherwise it can’t (say, your persoective shows multiple projects/contexts), that’s the reason why it won’t.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, after all that’s where tasks/actions go (projects/contexts, not perspectives). Not arbitrary at all.

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#4

My cursory experiment revealed to me that I can add tasks directly in these perspectives:
Inbox
Review
Forecast
Projects
Contexts
Flagged

But you can’t add tasks directly in these perspectives:
Changed
Completed

If I’m guessing correctly, the ability to add tasks directly in the outline pane might be attributed to the way your tasks are grouped. I think it works best when sorted by projects, folders, and contexts. Some of the others might not work. I can see that I can’t add when my perspective shows tasks grouped by Due date. You’ll need to experiment to see what works and what doesn’t.

As @ediventurin stated in the above post, perspectives with multiple projects and contexts will make it difficult for OmniFocus which project or context you want assigned as a default.

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