The features of the OmniFocus3

Hi, everybody.

I, a beginer learning the GTD software, am interested in OmniFocus recently.

I am not familiar with the features of OmniFocus3, and wanna to look for help.

Hope someone can tell me, thanks.

The following are what i am confused at :

  1. The version 3 could search multiple tags at once?

  2. What can i do if i want to send a message to my ipad from a android phone?

3.How to back up the files in the OmniFocus3 of my ipad to my Window 10 installed PC? How to restore the fils?

  1. Is the invisible archived files stored in my ipad? or can i archive the files to my PC and restore them at any time?

5.Whatā€™s the differece between archive and backup?

The version 3 could search multiple tags at once?

Iā€™m not quite sure what you mean by this. You can make a kind of saved search, with multiple tags and other options, by using custom perspectives.

What can i do if i want to send a message to my ipad from a android phone?

If you want to send a task/action to your android phone, for now you can email it. There will soon be a web version of OmniFocus that you could use.

3.How to back up the files in the OmniFocus3 of my ipad to my Window 10 installed PC? How to restore the fils?

You can access the OmniFocus database file using the Files app. From there you can save it or send it somewhere else.

To restore this, I think you can copy it back to OmniFocus, but you should check with support before you do it.

I would recommend syncing the database with Omni Sync which may remove the need to back up and restore most times.

5.Whatā€™s the differece between archive and backup?

Thereā€™s no archiving on iOS. On Mac, archiving moves old completed items to a separate database to clean your main database.

A backup is an extra copy of your main database.

If you decide to use the free Omni Sync Server, you can create an account that allows you to keep your database on the Omni Sync Server as well as on your iPad.

https://manage.sync.omnigroup.com

Omni Sync Server has a feature called Mail Drop. It creates an e-mail account for you. You can send e-mail to this e-mail address. The Omni Sync Server will add it to your OmniFocus inbox.

https://support.omnigroup.com/omnifocus-mail-drop/

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For example,

If I type " home + in 5 min + Internet " into the search box, could i find a list where all the tasks tagged with ā€œhomeā€ ā€œin 5 minā€ ā€œInternetā€?

Could i select the ā€œintersectionā€ that the list will be only the tasks tagged with ā€œhomeā€ ā€œin 5 minā€ ā€œInternetā€ at the same time ?
or ā€œcollectionā€ that the list will be tasks tagged with one or more of this three tags above?

But when the notes get more and more, i am worried about the slower speed of omnifocus.

You canā€™t search like that but you can make a perspective like this:

You can also set a duration on a task instead of using a ā€˜in 5 minā€™ tag.

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OmniFocus is designed to handle very large databases (10,000 items, I believe). Itā€™s been around about ten years and some people have lots of data saved there.

File attachments are saved separately so they donā€™t slow down the database. Iā€™ve never heard of someone having so much stuff the app couldnā€™t function properly.

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Thatā€™s not search, thatā€™s a very ineficient way of doing ā€œsearchā€ā€¦

A proper search would allow searching with @ to refine the search with tags.

Things 3 doesnā€™t have saved searches. 2Do and OF3 allows us to create search criteria and save it. If it is a frequently used search criteria, it saves time instead of having to go the Find button all the time. I just tape on the saved search (custom perspectives) and I immediately get what I want.

The current Find in OF3 allows us to search for tags as well. To do a refined search with and/or logic will require a custom perspective.

I have a custom perspective called ā€œSearchā€. I go to this perspective and do a search here by editing the custom perspective settings to find what I want. It becomes the same thing. I can clear out the perspective settings when Iā€™m done,

Does the omnifocus have the feature of task dependency ?

For example,

There are some tasks and subtasks as following.

Task A

  • sub-task a
  • sub-task b
  • sub-task c
  • sub-task d

Task B

  • sub-task e
  • sub-task f
  • sub-task g
  • sub-task h

Task C

  • sub-task i
  • sub-task j
  • sub-task k
  • sub-task l

If the activation of sub-task a is launched by the completion of sub-task e,
the activation of sub-task e is launched by the completion of sub-task i,
the activation of sub-task i is launched by the completion of sub-task f,
the activation of sub-task f is launched by the completion of sub-task c,

could OF3 make the next task active when the last one is complete?

Some dependency is possible, but itā€™s very simple. OmniPlan is the product for complex project management situations.

You can, though, get some of what you want in OmniFocus.

A project and its sub-projects (called action groups) can be set as sequential meaning that only the first item in the list is available to do.

You can accomplish some more complex structure combining sequential and non-sequential (parallel) project types.

You can read more about it in the OmniFocus for iOS Manual.

In general though, itā€™s important to interact with your projects and actions. You canā€™t always rely on software to tell you exactly what to do next.

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But sometimes these sub-projects or actions have nothing to do with each other.
Itā€™s a little unsuitable to integrate these actions into a project.

I set the sequences of these actions not because of a tight cause-effect relation,
but because of too much energy consumed after re-thinking the priority of these actions in a muddle especially when I am tired.

I donā€™t want to carry out one project all the time. Instead, I preferred to switch one project to another flexibly.
But these actions have nothing to do with each other.

I understand.

You might be able to work around this using tags and custom perspectives, similar to something I wrote a few days ago: Quick entry to sub-tasks (or do I need to think about this differently?)

Once Omni Automation is implemented in OmniFocus, you may be able to work out a solution using scripting.