Often, I want to capture related information about an item or project; for example, some links, or some ideas on how to progress it. I might even want to link to a document that the item is about.
“Note” seems to be the field for this, but it’s not too useful.
First of all, it’s all the way at the bottom of the narrow right-hand pane, so it’s very small and hard to locate.
It’s also just unstructured text; links are clickable, but that’s about it.
My suggestion would be an option to make “Note” a separate pane at the bottom of the window (full-width), and to allow Markdown to be used in it (either auto-formatting it upon entry, or having an “edit” button to switch back and forth).
If you haven’t already, I recommend that you email the Omni Group at omnifocus@omnigroup.com with these suggestions.
I make regular use of the Notes field in OmniFocus, though tend not to use it for detailed information. Instead, I include a link to a note (e.g. in Evernote or Google Docs) that contains details about the project/action. The advantage to this approach is that it’s easy to reference these notes even after the OmniFocus project/action is complete. Assuming the note-taking platform supports it, these notes can also be shared with other people.
You can edit notes in line. Hit command-’ and don’t you see a space drop down below the task where you can enter a note? I rarely edit in that little box in the inspector pane.
Some other formatting options, such as Markdown or a default font and style, would be welcome. However it appears you can enter rich text in notes (see Format menu).
Tim makes a good point about storing notes externally for permanent access. I don’t use Evernote or Google Docs but I’ll often go to Edit > Attach file to link an OmniOutliner or another type of document to the project.
