Keyboard shortcuts when creating items for quickly setting project, defer until, due, etc

OmniFocus OmniFocus for Mac
#1

I’m wondering if there are keyboard shortcuts for quickly setting the project, defer until date, and due date when creating a new item.

Right now, I just tab through all the fields to get to the one I want, but it seems like there should be a better way.

Using the inspector is even worse than the quick entry popup (or the similarly-formatted inline project/defer/due fields): when I’m in the “Defer Until” field, it takes 4 tab presses to get to the “Due” field.

Am I missing something?

1 Like
Defer dates +1 day/week/month from today
#2

I’m afraid there is no specific hot-key for that, but there are some ways around it.

Before moving further though, you know that all Keyboard Commands can be accessed through the Help Menu → Keyboard Commands? Great source of information in there. Recommended.

The ways I imagine around this would require you to have an application called Keyboard Maestro. Are you familiar with it?

  1. You could create a Keyboard Maestro macro to accomplish what you want. Basically, you hit a hotkey and it does the receptive typing (tab through, like you said) for you. It’s quite similar to the solution I found to another problem, described on this thread here in the forum

  2. You could use AppleScript: Dan Byler has a nice collection of scripts here, for postponing tasks (snoozing, deferring, moving for tomorrow, etc). You could easily trigger those scripts via OmniFocus toolbar, AppleScript menu, or an application launcher of your choice, like Alfred or Launchbar.

  3. You could use a combination of both and have some magic, like Patrick Walker describes in this post in his blog.

I hope this is not much information and that you find some ideas. If there is something not clear, anything, just shout.

;-)

#3

Thanks. Was hoping I wouldn’t have to mess around with scripting for this. Maybe in v2.1…

BTW, there are actually some undocumented keyboard shortcuts that do not appear in that help file: http://protips.maxmasnick.com/omnifocus-2-dot-0-for-mac-single-key-shortcuts

This is why I was wondering if there were even more undocumented keyboard shortcuts I just hadn’t found yet.

1 Like
#4

Nice. Didn’t know about lots of those.

BTW, 1 does not work for me.

#5

I have figured out a work-around with TextExpander:

More info at http://protips.maxmasnick.com/omnifocus-2-quick-defer-plus-due-date-entry-with-textexpander

2 Likes
#6

Together with the undocumented (some were documented in Omnifocus 1) single key shortcuts mentioned by masnick, there is also ‘r’ for move right. The shortcut ‘l’ is by the way not only for convert to project, but also for move left in general. Most of these single key shortcuts could also be used in Omnioutliner.

#7

In the default configuration of a new user account, a single tab will take you from the Defer Until field to the Due field.

In this case, it sounds like you’ve enabled tabbing to “All controls” in System Peferences (under Keyboard Preferences > Shortcuts):

When you do this, the Tab key also gives you access to the +1 day / week / month buttons between the two text fields—which, naturally, means it takes more tabs to get from one field to the other.

As the System Preference screenshot indicates, you can quickly toggle between those two settings (without taking your hands from the keyboard) by pressing Control+F7.

2 Likes
#8

Thanks, I thought I might be missing something. I’ve updated the post on my blog about this accordingly.

#9

Hi,

I’m a bit confused, I found on http://protips.maxmasnick.com/omnifocus-2-quick-defer-plus-due-date-entry-with-textexpander, it was a lot like what I was already doing, however, I didn’t care about the dates so much as I did automatically assigning a “waiting for” context and a project for the entry to go into…

This is what I’m using as my snippet.

Wait for URL Verification%key:tab%%key:tab%%key:tab%%key:tab%now%key:tab%1w%key:enter%

However, I’d like to use…

Wait for URL Verification%key:tab%%key:tab%URL Redirects%key:tab%“Waiting For”%key:tab%now%key:tab%1w%key:enter%

The URL Redirects works for the Project, however, “Waiting For” turns into “Windows” when it tries to expand the snippet, and the rest gets goofy.

Any suggestions…?

Just wanted to add that I’m using OmniFocus Pro 2.1 latest test build (it never worked in earlier versions either).

Thanks,

Scott

#10

The Hit List has very nice keyboard controls using -,= [,] for setting start dates and due by dates. Something similar in omnifocus would make a lot of sense. It would be nice to see something similar in OF

(THL overall is very good at keyboard shortcuts which make managing larger numbers of items - as for instance when first switching to the programme - very much easier)

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