Task colour in perspective views is either purple or white OF 3

OmniFocus OmniFocus for Mac
#1

Hi,

Am a little confused by the automatic colour choice that OF 3 (am currently on 3.1) uses for tasks. Usually, tasks that I need to do in the future appear in purple, but sometimes, seemingly randomly, they appear in white. The colour used is the same in the Forecast View as it is in any of my custom perspective views, so it seems to be deliberate behaviour, I just can’t see a pattern.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

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#2

I presume you’re using the dark colour scheme? It sounds like you’ve enabled “Colour text in the outline” in the Settings > Style preferences, this makes the first task in a sequential project, first available task in a parallel project, and all the tasks in a single action list purple. (It also adds colour to due soon, overdue and flagged action names.)

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#3

Hi Rosemary,

Thanks! Yep, I’m using the dark scheme, and have indeed selected “Colour text in outline”. What I can’t figure out is why some (identical tasks) appear in purple, while others in white. You are saying it’s to do with availability of the task?

#4

The purple is the “first available” task - however for single action list projects they are all the first available.

#5

Thanks Rosemary! That explains it. I had thought that I had created a lot of single, stand-alone tasks, but see now that I’d put them all in the same project, hence the first one being purple as it’s the first available, and the rest being white. It was playing havoc with my OCD but all good now. Thanks again!

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