OF4 iphone: difficulty selecting project

OmniFocus
1

I’m using the iphone OF4 app. I want to select a project and have it occupy the main view. For some reason this seems challenging in OF4. Can someone explain to me what I am doing wrong?

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2

You select the project name and switch to editing mode.
To go to the project itself, you need to click on the arrow.

If I understood your question correctly.

3

all that happens when I touch on the arrow is that the project “untwirls” and exposes the actions. All of the other projects in this view are still visible when I scroll up/down.

BTW, how do I switch between editing mode and __(?) mode?

4

Do you mean that you can’t return from editing mode to normal viewing mode?
On the iPhone, this is done only through the blue check mark.
With an external keyboard, Mac and iPad have a keyboard shortcut ⇧+⌘+A

5

You would need to focus on that single project by long pressing on the project name.

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6

thank you!

….Hm, when I long press I just get a menu of options. Is one supposed to choose Focus here? It seems strange that in order to navigate a tree of projects and arrive at the right place, one has to

  1. find the project in question in a larger list
  2. make sure that it’s the right thing first by “twirling down the project” (arrow), and then
  3. holding on project name, then
  4. hitting focus

Is there nothing akin to Quick Open on the iphone?

7

Thank you for asking about this, and I’m sorry the design isn’t more clear! I’m afraid this is an area where our work to make the design more consistent across platforms in v4 made the iPhone design less obvious (especially if you aren’t familiar with how the app behaves elsewhere).

In general, the idea is that the main outline is now the place where you edit things, rather than the place where you navigate between things. To navigate between things, you use navigation controls instead: such as the sidebar, or Quick Open (as you just asked about), or Focus (as suggested by @Geoffairey).

To elaborate, here’s how you would do this using each of those options:

  • Sidebar: Tap the Sidebar icon in the top left corner of the screen, then tap on “tax project 25-26” to navigate to it. The main outline will now show the contents of that project and nothing else.
  • Quick Open: Expand the bottom toolbar by tapping on the Projects perspective icon, then tap the Quick Open button (with the icon featuring a lightning bolt). At the top of the Quick Open dialog, you can start typing a few letters from the project name (such as t p for “tax” “project”) to bring that project to the top of the list, then tap on that project to open it in your Projects list.
  • Focus: Since you already have the project on screen in front of you, you can long-press on it and choose Focus to tell the app to focus on that project, showing nothing else. This works in any perspective, and carries over to every perspective other than the special Inbox perspective (which is always focused on itself).

I hope this helps!

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8

Thanks a ton - that clears it all up. I did finally find the Quick Open icon, but I wasn’t sure about how to “get back home” → the main outline view. I’ll experiment a bit more but for now I think this is definitely working more fluidly.

@kcase Regarding your mention of the Sidebar option: This only seems to work if the project is not in a folder. If it is in a folder, OF4 takes me to the folder and it is in this specific area that I think it’s difficult to navigate backwards or forwards into a specific project.

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9

@zineroga Hmm, are your folders collapsed in the sidebar? You can expand them by tapping on the disclosure arrow on the right edge of the sidebar, which should reveal the contents of the folder. You should be able to tap on a project within a folder to show just the contents of that project rather than the contents of the entire folder. (Tapping elsewhere on the folder will take you back to the contents outline with that folder selected, showing you everything inside that folder.)

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10

I see. I hadn’t considered that the sidebar could be an area to pre-filter as such. I can imagine some use cases in which I want to navigate the contents of the folder so I think this is a nice implementation, once you get the hang of it.

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