I love Omnifocus 2. I fell in love with it almost instantly. The new UI is so much better then in Omnifocus 1.
I am using Omnifocus 1 or years now on a daily base. It is a crucial part of my workflow. Omnifocus 2 makes my workflow even better. It works smoother then Omnifocus 1 and it looks so much nicer.
It’s important to me to have a smooth working environment. Omnifocus delivers on this. I have a very clear overlook on all things that need to be don for all the different project that I am managing.
Can’t thank you guys enough for the great work you are doing.
KUDOS on REDUCED CLUTTER
Less Visual clutter in OF2 while keeping its features at one’s fingertips!
Exactly what you want in an organizing tool: The feeling that you are immediately reducing any anxiety.
Splitting out views is nice. The PRO version lets you “script” your own PERSPECTIVE views.
The terminology has improved a bit in the “DEFERRED/DELAYED START/HOLD” arena.
INBOX
The view at the IN BOX has the contexts & projects choices under the line entry tasks a little faint.
Probably not a big deal there. Its better viewable in the other views once these have been established.
Maybe this is by design to encourage people to assign projects & contexts promptly
vs keeping tasks perpetually in the IN BOX?
Page densities: Absolute contrast of black text on white paper
depends on the size of the screen & ratio of text to background.
If the screen is tiny: black on bright white is about as good as anything.
If its a large screen: A mostly bright white backlit page can be daunting.
The amount of white space varies as you type & its never perfectly optimal for long.
Therefore, being able to adjust the contrast by changing paper shade can help.
Further, you want the app to stand out, depending upon other screen apps in use at the time.
I’m pretty new to OF - so I only spent about a month on OF1 before getting on the OF2 beta… I really like the new design - much more visually appealing. Definitely “feels” easier to navigate than OF1. Keep up the great work!
First off, I have to say that I’m relieved that if I’m an old fart who can’t live with change, then at least I’m not completely alone… :-)
Have just started to work with v2, having used v1 since its inception – I just don’t get the lack of “data density” and scannability. In the task list, I need to be able to quickly scan down the list, but the notes icon (even if there are none for that item) and the project name just get in the way. I like a table or spreadsheet layout. I can scan down a column or shift to the next column and scan that. In v2, my eye is zigging around lines to get to the next task. In answer to Ken’s question: no, I would stay with v1 for this reason.
While I’m being negative – oops, constructively critical – I understand the drive to make both the Mac and iOS versions look the same, but the circles just don’t do it for me. The size is way too big (maybe partly to fill up the vertical space that’s there due to the multi-line entries) and the contrast between the halves inadequate. The ship has sailed, since the iOS version is released, but if we’re using circles couldn’t they have been designed to be filled in some way? Consumer Reports has been using different filled circles for years in their reports and I find them very scannable.
What do I like? Well, I like the inspector being a panel – have never used the inspector enough, I’ve felt, mostly because it was another floating window that would get moved around.
I haven’t figured Forecast out yet (you can tell I haven’t really worked with my OF on my phone), but I like the idea of it and think that it probably has real potential.
Will continue to evaluate v2 (I’m a self-professed software junkie – I have to play with new software) and will see if it starts making sense, but I don’t think the data density/scanning problem is going to go away for me.
Massive topic on the issue of data density on the Discourse forum, if you’re interested.
The OmniGroup team has already improved the data density somewhat, but as I’ve advocated, there should be a slider option for data density, much like how the text size is.
After a couple of weeks trying OF2, I decided I’ll stick with v1 for now. Main issues with v2 are:
Low data density
Difficulties in going through a list with the 2 line format
Difficulties to distinguish at first glance nested actions.
Review process: As I wrote in a previous post, sometimes I anticipate my weekly review of 1 day (Saturday instead of Sunday). With the new review mode it seems I can’t do it anymore, as project that I want to review wouldn’t show up yet.
Seems to me that now OF2 is more stylish than usable, while I chose OF1 exactly for the hard usage I had to do.
Overall it is an improvement, but there are still some bugs with the tab logic that needs to be improved. And some visual interface issues where it is harder to see things.
I’ve been using it now on my laptop for about 3 weeks, but still had OF1 on my desktop.
Upgraded to OF2 on the desktop at the weekend as I think it’s a better solution, although I still think it’s lacking a little colour to help me focus on what to do next. Maybe an option to extend the colour of the circle icon to the text as a on/off toggle in preferences would help, but given how quickly it’s changed over the last few weeks I’ll wait and see what the final version looks like.
My overall impression is quite good. The following I think was better in OF1:
Less information in the list view. I mean now in OF2, there are context, attachment below the main entry which clogs up the view. And on the right-hand side you now have deferred until and due dates, also adding a bit of noise. I’m not suggesting that these be removed necessarily, but it does feel a bit more heavy when you have a long list of items. Makes it harder to focus on the real entry text. Maybe this is due to the circle and each entry occupying two lines.
Liking the cleaner design overall, though I’m still surprised natural language input is still not present.
Also, why does Omnifocus use the Nvidia GPU? That’s a battery drain I don’t need for an app I interact with at most 10-15 minutes a day but which I need to leave running in the background.
By this time I’m struggling to use OF2 at all. I’m perplexed by this as on paper there are so many things I am really happy have been implemented. My initial impression of the beta design was very positive. I really like the more modern look but ultimately it is coming down to the fact that it just looks like alphabet soup to me. I bring up my list of projects and tasks and my eyes just bug out trying to figure out what to focus on. My brain just scrambles leaving me feeling kind of overwhelmed which completely defeats the purpose. The design is weird, it looks aesthetically pleasing but functionally (IMHO) it just plain doesn’t work. I’m speaking specifically of the task list (and maybe forecast a bit). Its just way too cluttered (despite all of the density complaints). I’m no designer but I have heard that good design should guide the eye in the direction you are meant to look. This is what I feel is missing here. I try to scan my list from top down but the flow isn’t there. I had hoped it would just take some time but it hasn’t made much difference. Now we’re in UI freeze (I understand that this is “just the beginning”) but for now all I have to go on is that this is it. For the first time in a while i’m wandering.
I switched to the OmniFocus 2.0 beta the day it was released, and haven’t looked back.
What I love:
The Inspector now feels like a part of the actual app, and that’s been the biggest improvement in my eyes. I use it constantly, where before I igored it.
It’s beautiful. Using version 1 always felt like I was using a spreadsheet. If I’m going to use an app multiple times a day, I want to enjoy using it. I hope to never see another column. The one reason I missed using Things is now gone.
Love the review feature. The review is the one part of GTD that I often neglected. That’s a thing of the past for me now.
I’ve never really used Forecast on the iPhone, but I’ve started to give it a chance now that it’s part of the desktop app, and though it’s still now fully integrated into my workflow, I can see it become a bigger part in the future.
What I don’t love:
Notes. They still feel like they’re just slapped on the app to me. I realize many people use Evernote etc. for reference info, but most of my reference files are just notes. I didn’t enjoy using notes in OF 1, and I still don’t in OF 2. Not even sure how I’d like to see the notes feature implemented, but I know I’m not a fan of the current way.
Of course, I’d like to see a few other changes, but those won’t happen until later. But for the most part, I’m very happy. I completely understand the data density problem for some people, but because of the way I use OF (very focused, most projects relegated to ‘someday’), it’s simply not an issue with me.
For my workflow, OmniFocus 2 beta is both more stylish, and more usable.
I quite like the current implementation of notes, actually (and the past version as well).
Some tasks need to be embellished on, hence the requirement of notes. And others might hold certain data (e.g. Links) whereas a full .rtf/.pages document stored in DEVONthink would be unnecessary.
I’ve been wrestling with OmniFocus 1 since I purchased it for MacPro and iPad. I am determined to stop trying new project managers and master this software. Now that the Beta 2 has come out, it’s all making sense. I will definitely purchase OmniFocus 2 when it’s available!
Yes. It is definitely an improvement. I switched immediately to the new interface. It’s quite a personal preference of mine to feel more comfortable with integrated one-window interfaces than with the “old” flying palettes. This is, what in my opinion, an update to a newer version should be. Improved and modernized interface, kept good things working, adding a feature like the “forecast”. I am very impressed, and it is amazing and fun to work with this really nice peace of software. I did not have any problems yet, working with it for the second day.
One little thing that might be changed is, that every time when I start Omnifocus 2, and I switch to the Projects perspective, all the folders containing my projects are expanded. So I have to collapse them to keep focused on my actual Projects. It would be nice to keep them the state at closing the app, so when I reopen it, I find the folders the way I left them.
As a heavy inbox user, I couldn’t find an elegant way to move the items from the inbox into the projects via drag and drop. Am I missing something? In the Inbox perspective, I tried to hold the item over the projects tab, in hope it would open the projects view, so I could drop the item to the right project, but that didn’t work. How do you handle this?
Nevertheless, I’m all around happy with it and I prefer OF2 if I had to choose. Real good work, people!!!
Well, I think you hit on why I find notes lacking. Yes, notes is fine for ‘certain data’, but not for much else. I don’t expect it to be evernote, but wish it felt better to write in. I use notation velocity for my support notes, and they’re often only a paragraph or two. Would love to simply use OF, but it simply doesn’t feel right for me to use it that way (I’m sure others DO use it more extensively, I wish I was one of them). But with the way OF has always implemented notes, I have no doubt they see the feature more as you do, and less as I wish. But it’s a minor quibble.
I think OmniFocus 2 is better used as a project/task manager. It’s not necessarily useful as a place to store reference files or notes. I’d use Evernote, Yojimbo, Circus Ponies Notebook, or Devonthink for things like PDFs, reference text files, and spreadsheets. I wouldn’t want to bloat my OmniFocus database with too many reference files.
In any case, I just put a bunch of stuff in Evernote. Sometimes, I’ll put a file in my Dropbox folder, copy the link to that file and put it in the notes section of a task.
OmniFocus’ notes field is perfect for just a small snippet of information such as a simple phone number, a comment, or some other descriptive text. It wouldn’t be useful to use it for an entire chapter in a book.
I think the current spartan form is good enough. It’s for those notes that you don’t necessarily want to store in a .rtf in DEVONthink, but stuff that you don’t want to stow away in a Stickies or the Notes.app.
