BE TA! BE TA! BETA..... backup

[Lozz]

Hello Ken and Omni, Its hightime I emptied all my stuff into my GTD system again to start 'acfreash' and keep on top of it, but Im hanging on for OmniFocus because I feel it will be alot of work to repeat the process.

This made me think of the following questions:

Will it be possible to import GTD data from other apps (KGTD, Actiontastic, etc)?

Will there be some form of backup mechanism for the Beta (Perhaps a way of dumping the data to an OO file to be preserved incase of crash and corruption during early beta?

[BwanaZulia]

They have said that 1.0 will include a kGTD import feature.

I assume you can backup the file like any file with any of the many backup programs or just put it in your iDisk.

BZ

[ueila]

I can appreciate the time it takes to create and develop a perfect product but there are times when it's important to just get it on the street.

Omnifocus - is a wonderful concept and a welcome if not crucial development in the world of GTD applications.

ThinkingRock - was "the leader" because it stuck to the GTD paradigm and was multi-platform but it seems to have fallen back a bit because of the slow development cycle. http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/

iGTD - attracted and continues to attract more attention and is building a sizeable user base because of the developer's response to user input and the speed of development. http://bargiel.home.pl/iGTD/14beta/index.html

Actiontastic - has taken a minimalist approach that some people like but is also very slow in its development cycle possibly complicated by its intention to link to a web site. (last post 2007/03/15) http://www.kaboomerang.com/blog/category/actiontastic/

So where are "we" poor GTD afficionados today in our "quest" for the perfect GTD application?

It seems most serious GTD people are eager to give Omnifocus a shot when it arrives but are in the mean time are using iGTD to get results unless we've a prior committment to Kinkless. http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Kinkless_FAQs

The new GTD adopters I come into contact with daily - a group of nearly 100 - are growing more and more frustrated with the wait.

Ueila

[-jr]

I can appreciate the time it takes to create and develop a perfect product but there are times when it's important to just get it on the street. ...
The new GTD adopters I come into contact with daily - a group of nearly 100 - are growing more and more frustrated with the wait.

Ueila

If we have to wait a a little longer to ensure that OF solidly performs as shown, I for one will be patient. OF should streamline our workflow a bit, but it won't make any of us GTD-proficient. Most of us have been using one software tool or another and will continue to do so until OF comes out. I too am enthusiastic re: OF, but I'll try to practice a little patience until it's ready and work my existing system in the meantime.

-jr

[bushford]

I have been using kGTD for almost a year now, but it is creaking under the weight of the number of projects I have going, and without some more flexible filtering/smart folders it's just not good enough any more.

OF seems to take a lot longer than I expected, so I started to move stuff to TR2. Despite the fact that they only have 1 developer, they managed to deliver something vastly superior to iGTD and still better than what I've seen from OF. The only drawbacks are its lack of QS support and the heavy UI.

Omni better get their act together soon, if they want to justify a license fee...

[BwanaZulia]

I guess I would be more patient if this hadn't started last year and OmniDudes hadn't said there would be a beta by the end of April.

Just get something out the door, no matter how rough. If Ethan has been using it for months as his production task organizer, I am sure it will do fine for most of us.

Hell, charge for the beta (money goes towards final or upgrade) I don't care.

BZ

[JKT]

I honestly don't see the point in OmniGroup releasing what is presumably alpha software as a beta - what use is a rushed release of a GTD app if all it does is prevent you from GTD because it is too buggy to use reliably?

[BwanaZulia]

I honestly don't see the point in OmniGroup releasing what is presumably alpha software as a beta - what use is a rushed release of a GTD app if all it does is prevent you from GTD because it is too buggy to use reliably?

If someone has been using it for months and they have been developing it for months, I can't imagine it getting in my way too much.

Also, kGTD isn't exactly polished.

BZ

[pheski]

I'm torn.

Take your time, but release it tomorrow, please.....

Peter

[JKT]

I suspect that Ethan has been testing it for months and that is not the same as using it for that period of time.

[Ken Case]

Ethan has actually been living in it for months, which we view as clearly insane. :) (None of us were ready to take that step ourselves until sometime within the last month!)

I assume everyone who is interested in testing OmniFocus has signed up for the OmniFocus-beta-announce (http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnifocus-beta-announce) list? If not, I'd advise you to do so very, very soon.

[BwanaZulia]

I suspect that Ethan has been testing it for months and that is not the same as using it for that period of time.

I am just going by what he said in the video. Pretty sure it was "using".

BZ

[BwanaZulia]

Ethan has actually been living in it for months, which we view as clearly insane. :) (None of us were ready to take that step ourselves until sometime within the last month!)

I assume everyone who is interested in testing OmniFocus has signed up for the OmniFocus-beta-announce (http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnifocus-beta-announce) list? If not, I'd advise you to do so very, very soon.

Signed up. Can't wait to see some action (and do some tasks!)

I nag because I care. :)

BZ

[SpiralOcean]

Ethan has actually been living in it for months, which we view as clearly insane. :) (None of us were ready to take that step ourselves until sometime within the last month!)

I assume everyone who is interested in testing OmniFocus has signed up for the OmniFocus-beta-announce (http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnifocus-beta-announce) list? If not, I'd advise you to do so very, very soon.

Duuude... don't tease us like that...
Bring it on baby... bring it on...

[Lozz]

This wasnt a post complaining about how long this is taking, or anything like that, Im quite happy to continue with KGTD at the moment and wait for a BETA to TEST before seeing a final version. I was wondering about the backup mechanism.

Its like the Guinness....

[Ken Case]

Will it be possible to import GTD data from other apps (KGTD, Actiontastic, etc)?

Yes, OmniFocus currently imports Kinkless documents. (Select Import from the File menu and point it at your Kinkless document.)

Will there be some form of backup mechanism for the Beta (Perhaps a way of dumping the data to an OO file to be preserved incase of crash and corruption during early beta?

If you select "Back Up Database..." from the File menu, it will make an XML archive of all your tasks which you can open as an independent document in OmniFocus (by double-clicking) or use to restore your main library (by selecting "Revert to Database Backup...").

You can also publish your tasks to iCal using the "Publish to iCal" menu item, although the current implementation of that is very naive. (We're working on two-way synchronization with iCal, but it's somewhat destabilizing so we're doing that work on a branch rather than on the main line of development. The current "Publish to iCal" implementation that's in the alpha just runs some simple AppleScript that loops through all your tasks and pushes them out to an OmniFocus calendar in iCal.)

[BwanaZulia]

The current "Publish to iCal" implementation that's in the alpha just runs some simple AppleScript that loops through all your tasks and pushes them out to an OmniFocus calendar in iCal.)

Is that the planned feature or just a quick work around for Alpha versions?

I ask because reading that concerns me that you are going to go away from the way kGTD does it which is to publish on Calender per Context which has some great advantages.

- In iCal you can choose to view any calendar you want, thereby focusing in on what you can do at that time (very GTD).

- When syncing to the Palm, multiple calendars also allows you focus on a context in the Tasks of the Palm (Email/Calls/etc) which is again, good GTD.

If you dump everything into one big calendar, there will be no way to distinguish that on the Palm/iCal and for my 100+ tasks that gets me back to having to go through them all to figure out what to do.

A clarification would be great.

BZ

[Ken Case]

Is that the planned feature or just a quick work around for Alpha versions?

The planned feature is that you select a calendar for each context, but in current alpha builds the script (did I mention it's naive?) publishes to a single calendar which it rebuilds each time. (It does put the context name and project names in the task summary so you aren't totally lost when viewing them later.)

Here's the current script (again, note that this is not the planned feature!):

global targetCalendar
tell application "iCal"
set CalendarName to "OmniFocus Export"
try
delete (first calendar whose name is CalendarName)
end try
make calendar with properties {name:CalendarName, color:{43176, 24158, 54227}, description:"OmniFocus tasks"}
set targetCalendar to first calendar whose name is CalendarName
end tell

tell first document of application "OmniFocus"

repeat with aContext in contexts
set MyContextID to (id of aContext)
set MyContext to context id MyContextID
PublishContext of me from MyContext
end repeat

end tell

tell application "iCal" to activate


on PublishContext from SomeContext
using terms from application "OmniFocus"
PublishContextTasks of me from SomeContext
repeat with childContext in contexts of SomeContext
PublishContext of me from childContext
end repeat
end using terms from
end PublishContext

on PublishContextTasks from SomeContext
using terms from application "OmniFocus"
repeat with aTask in (tasks of SomeContext where blocked is false)
set taskName to name of aTask
set taskProject to containing project of aTask
using terms from application "iCal"
tell targetCalendar
make todo at end of todos with properties {summary:name of SomeContext & ": " & taskName & " [" & name of taskProject & "]"}
end tell
end using terms from
end repeat
end using terms from
end PublishContextTasks

[BwanaZulia]

I guess you can't use the AppleScript that Ethan wrote?

Either way, glad to know you are going down that same path, because it is well thought out and works really well (besides the syncing issues, but I can't tell if they are Missing Sync, iSync, iCal, kGTD or what)

BZ

[TommyW]

As in...

Like Now?