I realise this is a pretty high-level feature request, and is therefore unlikely to make it into OF2 for Mac. Nevertheless, I’d like to suggest it as it would dramatically improve my workflow around repeating actions/projects.
I have a number of projects and actions that pop up once a month or once a quarter. In every case, I have some text in the Notes field to remind me how to approach these items (including helpful links, etc.); however, I also use the Notes field to record some information about the item as I work on it.
As it currently stands, there is no easy way for me to ensure that the next instance of the action/project, which will be created when I complete the current instance, starts with a “clean” copy of the Note field text, rather than the one filled with instance-specific scribblings. I could either remember to delete all my instance-specific notes before completing the item (in which case I lose my record of those notes), or I need to go find the newly-created instance and clean up its Notes field after completing the current instance, which involves a lot of fiddling to make this deferred item visible for editing.
I suggest that repeating actions should have a ‘Note’ field as well as, optionally, a second ‘Note for this item only’ field. When completing the repeating item, the contents of the ‘Note’ field would be copied to the new instance, whereas the ‘Note for this item only’ field would always start blank in the new instance.
I realise my use case may be exceptional, and perhaps I could implement something with AppleScript and a delimiter in the Note field to achieve the same workflow, but if the need to take instance-specific notes on an action/project is more widespread, as I hope, I wonder if such a feature (or equivalent functionality) might be considered for the future. It could make a great Pro-only feature… ;)
I will send this request to ofpreview@omnigroup.com as well, but I’ve posted it here in the hopes of generating some discussion around whether this use case is common enough to be worth supporting explicitly in OmniFocus.
An additional note field would certainly require a file format change (which we’re not doing for 2.0). Even changing the behavior of what happens when a repeating action gets completed gets messy, because the Mac might know not to carry the note over, but the iPhone app (until we update it) would still think it’s supposed to carry the note over.
So, yeah, definitely more of a future idea than a 2.0 fix, but thanks for starting the discussion.
Understood that it’s not a 2.0 feature, but here’s my use case: I run a weekly meeting and would love a per-instance specific note where I could capture meeting topics for that particular week.
I am new to OF and thrilled to be a part of the OF2 test group as many colleagues use OF to stay organized in a fast paced profession.
As a Stage Manager I work on several productions a season (year). At the start of each production my team follows the same “to - do” list to assure that everything gets done. It would be great if there were a way to create a Task List (broken down in action steps) that I can apply to a Project the moment I am in pre production for my next show. While the “to do” list doesn’t alter too much, but who completes each task does based on team skills and production needs. It would increase my work flow if I could pull from a storage bank and drop that “to do” list into a new Project (clear of any edits from the last project it was used it, thus remaining the template for me to begin with once again. But because each show can have different needs. Once it’s in a new Project, I can add new action steps (to - do’s) for this particular project. All in all this would allow someone in my position to manage and delegate more efficiently - and mainly without the hassle of re-inputting a repeated list each time.
@ckanayag That sounds like a different feature. Rather than notes being reset, you want a whole new copy of a Project or Action Group. You might take a look at the “Populate Template Placeholders” script here.
