I’d also like a perspective bar/dashboard “switcher”. I think many people have a top level segregation of perspectives. Most typical would likely be Home/Work. Would be nice to be able to design a perspectives bar (Mac) or dashboard (iOS) specific to each and then just activate whichever one is relevant at the time.
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The OF3 mentions in the Jan blog post exceeds my expectations actually. Some notion of task sharing AND tags. Very cool. Still curious what improvements will be there for perspectives to leverage tags. Ability to say “show all with tag A and tag C but not tag F”. So you can do stuff with a “Today” view that is flagged, or due soon and in your “errands” tag or “weekend” tag.
Stephen:
Right now when you create a list of contexts to display in a perspective, that list is treated as an inclusive OR statement for each context. So you’re basically saying “Include every task that is in any of these contexts.” (#context1 OR #context2 OR #context3)
If contexts are replaced with tags, and tags can be used for anything, including but not limited to context, this basic functionality will start to feel more limiting. It would be useful to say things like “Include every task that is in one of the following contexts AND is also tagged with #easy10minutes”.
Essentially: (#context1 OR #context2 OR #context3) AND #easy10minutes
The default behavior of perspectives right now cannot support more complex logic that combines AND and OR statements, but if tags are doing more work now than the old contexts did, we’re going to want to be able to create more sophisticated queries to get the most out of them.
Basically, if OF is going to replace context with tags, there will be that much less differentiating it from Things. OF has perspectives, but they’ve always felt kind of half-implemented. The GTDness of the app and the inherent constraints of the GTD framework helped justify this lack of full functionality, but dropping that pretense makes it harder to justify that design choice. The first of these two apps (the only two apps that really get start dates right) to offer real smart filters wins my vote.
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I read the recent blog post. OmniJS coming to OmniFocus 3 is a great announcement! Looking forward to test it! AppleScript and Javascript for Automation improvements would be welcomed, too.
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A great feature that Omnifocus 2 lacks (and many GTD apps for that matter) is some stats about the tasks. For example, a stats section next to Attachements/Notes/Info that shows you when the task was created, when was it last edited, and when was it completed (exact date and time)
In the context of the 2018 roadmap, is there plans to have a redesign of the Mac as well? Will the Mac be seeing all of these features? A lot of the blog post seemed to be in the context of iOS, and want to make sure that all of these are going to be seen on the Mac as well (cc @kcase)
Also, some things I’m keeping an eye on for OmniFocus 3:
- Share Extension updates (iOS). This needs to be updated to provide more glanceable information, pull in article names (if applicable) to the name of the task if sharing a URL, allow you to set everything there without going into the app, or at the very least flag things.
- Better support for viewing/manipulating attachments, on iOS especially. Currently if I have two photos on a task and tap one to view, I have to dismiss the view to view the other one. Can be better. In the same vein, a better viewer for attachments on the Mac. Currently they expand inline with a note, and it’s just less than ideal. Maybe also consider to have an attachment type of “link”, letting you specify a webpage?
- Markdown in notes. Maybe?
- Support for adding locations to tags on the Mac.
I’ll come up with more stuff as they come to mind. I’m also keeping a keen eye on the design; the screenshot given seemed to have a bunch of whitespace, although I like the direction and can understand the intent.
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Mpopke,
Thank you for the reply and clarification. Much appreciated
They did announce somewhere in the forums that they are releasing the iOS version in TestFlight first and then roll out the Mac TestlFlight shortly thereafter.
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Given the feedback of @jamiekoi about missing insight in additional task meta-data.
Note that this only holds for the OF2 on IOS. The OF2 MacOS version does display all this information in the information pane.
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Maybe a simple request, but Things 3’s maildrop clone somehow attaches a reference link to the email to the task.
Really really helpful. Would love to see it implemented in OF3.
Thanks for your information @sander1!
I should have made it clear that I meant this for iOS version of OF, as I exclusively use the iOS version, and not the Mac version.
Nonetheless, thanks for pointing that out.
My fingers are crossed that the limited OF3 Web interface is “good enough” for most users. It’s a good start, at least.
I remove ToDoist from my iOS devices and will deal with having to pull out my phone to look at task while I’m at work ( Windows-only environment ) .
Another few things I wanted to add to my previous comment:
- I would love for OmniFocus to get some sort of quick-entry (a-la Fantastical or Todoist), using the TaskPaper syntax that they already have for automation. It’s nuts that I can more quickly create multiple to-do’s by exporting from the Drafts app via the TaskPaper syntax rather than creating the task in OmniFocus itself, and I hope that the process for entering tasks can be improved in OmniFocus 3.
- I really want to see the time entry (for due and defer dates) improved. I get that the default controls that Apple provides are there and easy to implement, but man do they leave a lot to be desired. Picking dates from a calendar-like month-view would be great, incrementing/decrementing times like Due would be fantastic, etc. etc. There are plenty of other apps that solve Apple’s poor time entry implementations and I would love for OF 3 to improve on the defaults as well.
If I think of anything else I’ll be sure to post them here.
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One of the main drawbacks of OF 2 is that I have to define what duesoon means for the whole app. This should be a perspective specific feature. For instance, I should be able to create a perspective where I show only tasks due 1 day. Then another perspective with only tasks due 1 week. And another perspective with all tasks with a due date… and so on. There’s no reason to force one to define how to filter due dates for the whole OF.
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I might find a way to use what ‘soon’ means in different projects or contexts, though I do not have a compelling need. I am curious why you miss it in contexts more than in projects or in perspectives.
My top three:
- Summarizing Estimated Duration in grouped items and perspectives as summarized here.
- Conditional background highlighting of task items. So, for example, if you had a #high_priority tag, the background could be shaded automatically. This would mean that instead #high_priority requiring its own list or group, #high_priority items could be highlighted in every group it’s in.
- Mac Version and iPad version: Forecast perspective uses multiple columns with reorderable rows (similar to how Trello functions) for better use of horizontal space for those wide monitors we all have.
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I definitely agree defer/due date entry could use improvement on iOS. I’m now typically using my iPad with the smart keyboard, so ideally this would look like an improved touch interface, along with an option for keyboard inputs if one is attached. It seems that entering date and time information with a keyboard is always going to be faster than any touch interface.
Based on the roadmap, true smart folder functionality in perspectives would be the most useful, hands down. Some type of GUI to create conditions based on and’ing/or’ing rules. I say this because of the interaction between projects and tags. Unless every task is in one project and tags are used to differentiate projects, I need perspectives to be able to say “this project” OR “this set of tags”. Otherwise the potential of tags will not be realized.
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My top request is better note taking functionality. Even this forum posting input allows more and easier formatting.
Thanks.
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