Forum Posts Feed
Omnifocus 3.0 to come out Monday
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by Hugh
Sep 24, 2018 at 09:45 AM
I have used the four applications NickG discusses above (plus several others over the years - including MLO way back in my Windows days).
My feelings about the four more or less chime with NickG’s excellent summation - with the exception that I put greater emphasis on the OmniFocus “hinterland” which, if nothing else has always in the past brought me back to the application.
For example, with OF1 and OF2 I shamelessly borrowed other people’s AppleScripts in order to streamline the application, and I used Übersicht with OF2 to place my “Today” list on my desktop. With OF3 I’m dropping OF tasks into Fantastical, with Fantastical honouring the tasks’ durations (and using Blotter to put the calendar of tasks and “hard landscape” for the week on my desktop). Previously, I used BusyCal for this, but unlike Fantastical, BusyCal doesn’t yet seem to accept dropped OF tasks cleanly.
In the past, Things 2 has also mimicked much of the OF inter-operable functionality and now Things 3, like OF, effectively has “start dates” (which are important for me - and currently unlike, say, ToDoist). As NickG says, Things also looks very pretty when compared with its rivals. But for me Things and the others still lack much of the rest of the “hinterland”: for example, David Sparks’ videos, Tim Stringer’s Learn OmniFocus, guidance on OF from Asian Efficiency etc etc.
If I have a beef about OmniFocus, I do wish it were more inter-operable with OmniPlan (which I use a lot)!
Posted by Hugh
Sep 24, 2018 at 11:27 AM
satis wrote:
>I was listening today to a podcast with Fraser Speirs, who’s known for
>having created a precursor to OF before OF was even developed by
>creating some insanely complex Applescripts on top of Omnioutliner that
>provided GTD functionality. He discussed how GTD as initially
>promulgated hasn’t aged well, since the original concept of contexts has
>eroded in a world in which people can do work anywhere with mobile
>devices.
Agreed that GTD as originally formulated is somewhat out of date and needs updating in the light of developments in technology since David Allen wrote his book.
As a matter of history, it’s usually Ethan Schoonover who’s credited with creating the original “Kinkless GTD” (kGTD) on top of OmniOutliner. As I understand it, the Omni Group then bought in Schoonover’s work and developed it into OmniFocus. Perhaps Schoonover and Speirs were working separately but in parallel?
Posted by Amontillado
Sep 24, 2018 at 03:44 PM
I’ve just resolved one misconception I’ve had all along. The explanation for contexts I read somewhere was like “things I want to do when I’m in a grocery store.” It didn’t resonate.
Perspectives, my dummy self has just realized, are stored searches. When you go into a perspective, it finds the things that currently match and shows them to you. These things are attributes of the items in the to-do database.
Tags are just what they are supposed to be, arbitrary labels I add at will to any items I want.
I can be so dense at times.
For something much more intriguing, though, there is a mention in the help text about a warning bar. It shows things like an update available that will change the database format.
It can also show when you’re looking at a “foreign” database, not the one that’s baked in to iCloud.
I’ve started using TaskPaper for per-project to-do files where I only want to see chores when I’m working on a certain writing project.
Will OmniFocus open an arbitrary database file? Can I put things off in their own little boxes like that?
That would be awesome.
Posted by Jeffery Smith
Sep 24, 2018 at 09:17 PM
I made the investment in OF3. I have it on my two iPads, so having universal syncing with all of my devices is a must. Others also do that, but I am expecting that I will grow into OF3.
Posted by Lothar Scholz
Sep 25, 2018 at 08:02 AM
Tried to install it today, but it needs HighSierra while i’m still using Sierra because HS does not work well with multiple external monitors :-(
Thats one of this Mac Problems that you always have to repurchase everything.