Your Top 3 New Features for OmniFocus Mac

Another one I’d like to see: round-trip integration with Reminders (not so much the application as the iCloud/CalDAV reminders lists). I know it would be tricky because the data model for a reminder is simpler than that of an OF task, but surely there are ways around that.

That’s one of OmniFocus’s big flaws: The lack of a working to do list that you can re-order easily. That’s something Reminders does well.

I’ve often thought it would be nice to have something equivalent to a flag that allows you to have a re-orderable work list.

Syncing via reminders has its fundamental limits. Not every omnifocus feature will translate with reminders. Look at the caveats section in the 2Do app documentation.

Apple reminders uses a very simple foundation.

Yes, I know that. I’m not much of a programmer, and obviously I don’t know anything about OF’s internal object models, but there’s a sort of “Reminders Pro” app called GoodTask that somewhat extends the capabilities of the reminder object, so it’s not altogether impossible. Maybe something could be done through a mechanism similar to how OF publishes due items as calendar alarms. Even though Apple split calendars and reminders a few OS versions ago, aren’t the underlying objects both based on CalDAV? If that doesn’t allow for enough extensibility, maybe the OF task object could include an optional field that references a reminder and then take from it whatever subset of data does overlap. Or something like that…

I looked at your link, and I don’t think the “caveats” listed there for iCloud sync would be a problem at all. Most of them refer to features of 2Do projects and “checklists” that wouldn’t be supported directly in the Reminders app, which seems pretty obvious. And the others (smart lists and tags) are features that don’t (yet) exist in OF anyway.

OmniFocus properties such as contexts, duration, defer date, and flags will not carry over to Apple Reminders because there is no equivalent property.

Duplicating a task in Reminders and OmniFocus would mean more maintenance to ensure that both items will sync together. Syncing is never an easy feat to master. It took a long time for Apple to master iCloud. Dropbox is the king of syncing and even then, it isn’t great for collaborative teamwork with simultaneous editing of one document by multiple users.

I use Apple Reminders for quick one-off tasks. For more involved things such as projects or tasks that I want to keep a record of completion, I’ll use OmniFocus.

Who said anything about duplicating?
Do tasks in 2Do not have equivalents to OF contexts, duration, etc.?

If I understand correctly, round-trip integration would mean full communication in both directions of different properties of a task.

Apple Reminders does not have properties such as context, duration, defer date, and flag.

All we have in Apple Reminders is task title, location, and a date that could be either defer or due date.

This is 2Do’s list, not my list. The 2Do developer suggests using Dropbox for syncing. Apple Reminders has its limits unless one wants to just put single tasks into Apple Reminders.

But if you have a suggestion about how Apple Reminders and OmniFocus can perform round-trip communication, contact omnifocus@omnigroup.com.

Or, how about a kanban view?

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I would love a kanban view - an overview of all the projects in different folders that we are juggling…

Totally! I’m thinking about how I could use the multiple contexts to accomplish this (i.e. project-level indicators of what projects are in what states).

ScottyJ

  1. Stolen directly from@Rockyroad because it’s brilliant: Defer flag (i.e. become flagged at a future date). Similar to how you can defer the start date, however the action will continue to show, but will not be flagged until the set date. That would let me use due dates as they are intended and wouldn’t hide the task so I don’t make a second one forgetting that I already had one.

  2. Apple Contacts integration.

  3. Multiple contexts.

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I experimented with 2Do/Reminders integration.

The benefits (over Dropbox) were (a) that I could add items to 2Do via Siri, which I find very convenient and (b) I could sync to my own CalDav server, which I’d prefer (I’m trying to reduce the amount of data held on other people’s servers) and © a web view - I sometimes find myself having to use Windows-based systems - but see below for the downside.

I found that the Reminders app became hard to use, because the sync dumped dozens of tasks into it, but without the organisational structures native to 2Do. That’s not necessarily a killer, if one doesn’t ever want to use Reminders except as a route to 2Do. In my case, I’ll use Reminders for things like shopping lists, or lists of minor local errands. The extra data began to look like clutter, even in web view.

My point is that we shouldn’t underestimate the value of the various structural elements OF has in keeping a view - full Reminders integration could compromise that

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I realize I’m new here (just starting a trial of OmniFocus) but what I find most glaringly missing is a way to link to documents from an action.
– Is there a way to incorporate something like LinkBack that I’m missing?

– I’d also appreciate some other, distinct set of icons that we could use ourselves for visually tracking an action or project. Say – 6 different coloured stars?

– My third request would be a way to focus a list to just what I’ve modified recently. That was a feature of MLO that I used frequently.

Great suggestions here and thanks - I’m learning how to get around OmniFocus from your suggestions.

You can copy paste (or just type) file:/// URLs into the Notes field, and they’ll be clickable.

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@ajdster, have you tried the menu item Special Characters in the Edit menu for adding icons?

You could create perspectives that group and sort actions by date changed. Would that be enough as a way to focus?

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  1. Options for custom perspectives to group and sort by top-level projects or contexts. Maybe for my Next Actions perspective I’d like things sectioned by my ‘areas of responsibility’ but not every specific project I have going on, or by general context without each specific one I have nested.

  2. More options for configuring Forecast. I’d like to only show deferred tasks, not due ones. In order for Forecast to be useful for me, I would need to be able to only include certain contexts. So give me the ability to select contexts and focus by project, as in most other perspectives.

  3. Option for filtering tasks in custom perspectives to show only ‘Unavailable’ tasks. Bonus points for being able to show the ‘First Unavailable’ task in a project, sort of like the ‘First Available’ task. I’d even be okay if this option were relegated to the Forecast perspective, if the support humans didn’t want to perplex users; the only use I’d have for this would be to make my custom replacement for Forecast less cluttered and more useful.

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Nice!
Permissioning issues - “OmniFoucus isn’t allowed to open that!” - but easy to fix.

Thank you!

Jan_H, but I don’t seem to have the menu item “Special Characters”. Still looking, though.

Thanks!

Haha! Always good to laugh at oneself. :)

Thanks to eurobubba for the file:///URLs into Notes suggestion (vis a vis LINKBACK) - that works very nicely!

Thanks to Jan_H for the Special Characters suggestion – I’m still working on finding some alternate icons.

And I get the prize for “right in front of your eyes, ya newb!”. How to get a ‘modified recently’ focus — drumroll — click on the flippin’ CHANGED icon in the menu bar, lol! Works a charm. :)

Thanks also to Hal9K - I’ll be working my way through your suggestions – very handy tips!

Jan

Yes future flagging would be great. Just found myself in a scenario where I wanted it earlier today.

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