I have all of the Omni products but I struggle with having to use yet another sync service to make it all work seamlessly. In addition to using OmniPresence I have to use Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, and Google Drive. While developing application sync services is beneficial for the business, and to a certain extent users of the specific products, it’s not really consumer friendly.
I’m sure there are many legitimate reasons that other syncing services don’t meet Omnigroup’s needs. I’m sure requiring OmniPresence provides the highest quality sync experience for the application user. I get that. As a consumer however, I’d prefer to use one, maybe two services. Those two for me would be Dropbox and iCloud.
This all kind of bubbled up for me again with the release of OmniOutliner. Another great product. I’ve never been more satisfied with Omnigroup’s product line. It must be time for me to start complaining about OmniFocus 3 not being out yet!
I originally used only Dropbox and Google Drive. Then iCloud came along and I used that too, though primarily to sync Safari bookmarks and other items like that. Then my employer (Duke University), got everyone Box enterprise accounts and I started using that too as my main sync service to sync work documents between three computers. With my recent adoption of OmniOutliner, I now have yet another sync service to work with: OmniPresence.
So, Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, Box, OmniPresence. That’s a load of cloud services!
I agree that a single service would be preferable, although I’ve found that given time I’ve trained myself to go to the right silo for a particular file. Excluding OmniPresence, you could take a look at services like IFTT or Zapier to duplicate/move items from one sync service to another…at the cost of opening yet another online account.
Thanks for the tip. The problem with duplicating files is that they’ll duplicate locally as well. I’m just not smart enough to keep everything pointed in the same direction. And when I mix in work files, it all just falls apart for me.
Microsoft now supports Dropbox. So I don’t use iCloud for Document and Data storage at all anymore, except for miscellaneous application syncing. Dropbox is where I keep the bulk of my documents. I have to use OneDrive for OneNote. I have to use Google Drive for Google Docs. Which leaves me on the fence with OmniPresence. It’s likely I’ll uninstall it and just do all my Omnigroup work, with the exception of OmniFocus, on my laptop.
Hazel could certainly help with the local duplicates if you have one or more of the services mapped as local sync folders on your machine. For instance, you could write a rule that any filename from OneDrive which matches Xproject_title gets moved to folder Y on Dropbox and deleted on OneDrive.
Although OmniPresence can be used by all their apps for some things, OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle are the only two which would have to use it for their iOS apps, if I recall correctly. I’d encourage you to keep OmniPresence if you find the iOS apps useful in your workflow. It would be easy to write an AppleScript to tie a launch of OmniOutliner, say, to a launch of OmniPresence. Then you could similarly close both when quitting. The extra step would become second nature in time, and your system would bear no extra resource load when the Omni app is not in use.
Thanks again for the tips. I use Hazel regularly for moving files around and all of your points are valid. But, I’m just not very smart, or maybe I’m lazy, and the more customization I do to limit file bloat, the more likely I am to burrow into a rathole from which I will never escape! The secret sauce for all of this is ease of use and hiding as much of the sausage making as the user would like hidden.
OmniFocus sync is a great example of what I want: set and forget. Done. The other Omni Group products are different. I get that. But I want to use Dropbox for all my file storage.
Thanks for trying to help. I do appreciate it. OmniPresence is about to be removed from my laptop, and I’ll live to sync OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle, and OmniPlan another day…
