How to sync Inbox?

[Dalmet]

Is there a possibility to sync iCal todos to the Inbox context in OF?

The reason why I'd need this is that I frequently create events/todos on my cell phone and sync them to an Inbox calendar in iCal. I'd like to associate this calendar to the Inbox in OF so that todos create on my phone automatically end up in OF.

Any idea on how I can accomplish that?

[eronel]

I have the same obstacle in regard to the Palm. I use "Unfiled" category, which syncs to my "Unfiled' calendar in iCal, as my inbox on the Palm. Note, though, that the Unfiled calendar could also contain calendar events. Would that mess with OF task syncing?

[brianogilvie]

When I sync in OmniFocus, any Unfiled todos in iCal (including those that started out on my Palm TX and were synced by Missing Sync) are added to the OmniFocus Inbox and deleted from iCal. The next time I sync the Palm, they're deleted there too. It works fine for me, now that the colon and bracket bug has been squashed.

I have only been using iCal syncing for a week or so, but I've already found it quite helpful to have a list of actions on my Palm. I sync only contexts where I don't have access to my MacBook Pro.

[jgilmanuk]

When I sync in OmniFocus, any Unfiled todos in iCal (including those that started out on my Palm TX and were synced by Missing Sync) are added to the OmniFocus Inbox and deleted from iCal.

How do I set this up in Omnifocus? It sounds like exactly what I want to do, but at the moment any todos in Unfiled in iCal or on my Treo are not imported into Omnifocus when I sync.

[DataGazetteer]

How do I set this up in Omnifocus? It sounds like exactly what I want to do, but at the moment any todos in Unfiled in iCal or on my Treo are not imported into Omnifocus when I sync.

I have the same problem -- items that I create on my smart phone and sync with the iCal database via Missing Sync do not show up in OmniFocus unless I create a dummy "Inbox" context.

In the absence of missing something obvious, what I'm looking for is a setting in the Sync preferences that would say "Sweep new items from the following iCal Calendars into the OmniFocus Inbox..."

[gohnjanotis]

what I'm looking for is a setting in the Sync preferences that would say "Sweep new items from the following iCal Calendars into the OmniFocus Inbox..."

This is what I need too. It would be even better if it could delete them from iCal once they were imported to the OmniFocus inbox. I use my phone to save to do items that are just fragments of anything I want to remember to turn into OmniFocus actions so this would save me a ton of copying and pasting.

This feature would be much appreciated.

John

[Ken Case]

Is there a possibility to sync iCal todos to the Inbox context in OF?

If you synchronize an iCal calendar with one or more OmniFocus contexts, then any items you add to the calendar will be pulled into your Inbox.

If the calendar is synchronized with a single context, that context will be assigned to the new inbox item and it may get published back to iCal; if the calendar synchronizes with more than one context, the new inbox item won't have a context (unless you specify one using the form "@Home: Do laundry") and will therefore be removed from iCal after it's pulled into OmniFocus.

Hope this helps!

[bjornkri]

if the calendar synchronizes with more than one context, the new inbox item won't have a context [...] and will therefore be removed from iCal after it's pulled into OmniFocus.

This is not the behaviour I get.

I enter a task from my mobe, and sync to iCal. Any events entered on the mobile go into a calendar called Get It Done, which is synchronized with 13 contexts (no less).

These contexts are a bit like this:
people
people : wife
people : manteca
people : family
people : friends
real world
real world : read
real world : calls
real world : errands
real world : chores
think
think : brainstorm
think : schedule

When I now do a sync from OF, these new items do get placed in my Inbox, but they are assigned the first context in my list, people, and this is reflected in iCal:
@people: buy clementines
@people: test mobile sync

Did I just find a bug?

[DataGazetteer]

If you synchronize an iCal calendar with one or more OmniFocus contexts, then any items you add to the calendar will be pulled into your Inbox.

I'm afraid I'm still confused. I have calendars in iCal that correspond with contexts in OF. These calendars are sync'd with the smartphone via the application "Missing Sync." That way I can slice and dice tasks on my smartphone because the OF contexts -> iCal calendars become smartphone categories. (Admittedly, in this sync, I loose any notion of what the "next action" is, but that is okay for the most part. Until, at least, y'all come up with a Windows Mobile application and partner with Mark/Space to come up with a channel plugin for Missing Sync.)

The problem comes with items created on the smartphone. New items have no category assigned to them (because it is too inconvenient to go through the number of screen taps to assign one -- besides, the smartphone is just used as an inbox capture device, not a processing device). Missing Sync, upon synchronization, assigns them to a default iCal calendar (because Missing Sync has to put them somewhere in the iCal database). That "default iCal calendar" is not known to OF because it isn't really a "context" -- it is an inbox of items. That's why I'm looking for a preference option that says "sweep tasks from the selected iCal calendar(s) into the OF inbox".

Does this explanation help explain the desired workflow? I don't think what you are proposing will work for this case...

[Ken Case]

That's why I'm looking for a preference option that says "sweep tasks from the selected iCal calendar(s) into the OF inbox".

Yes, that makes sense to me. We can't make this change for this Tuesday's 1.0 release, but we can look into this for 1.1.

[Ken Case]

When I now do a sync from OF, these new items do get placed in my Inbox, but they are assigned the first context in my list, people, and this is reflected in iCal:

Woops, sorry, my mistake! I was remembering the old sync'ing behavior—but on November 15, we made some changes to iCal synchronization to ensure that new inbox items created from iCal would stay visible to iCal after being synchronized, namely (quoting from that day's message of the day):


New actions created in an iCal calendar which synchronizes with more than one context will be automatically assigned to the first synchronized context.
Inbox items assigned to a synchronized context will be published to the appropriate iCal calendar.


So what I described was the old behavior (which upset a number of people when their calendar to dos disappeared after synchronizing), and what you're describing is, in fact, the expected behavior.

[DataGazetteer]

Yes, that makes sense to me. We can't make this change for this Tuesday's 1.0 release, but we can look into this for 1.1.

Okay -- thanks for considering the request. I think I'm going to be spoiled by the great work Omni has done in the beta process for OF leading up to Tuesday. You mean I have to wait for a 1.1 release to see the new feature? :-)

I've only been tracking the OF beta process for about a month now, but in that time I have to say the development team has been great in a) responding to user feedback as the product evolved; and b) pushing on daily stable releases of software. It is a process that admirable and enviable.

[bjornkri]

So what I described was the old behavior (which upset a number of people when their calendar to dos disappeared after synchronizing), and what you're describing is, in fact, the expected behavior.

Too bad! I never understood how this worked until you explained it, and I kind of preferred that behaviour to what actually happens :P

That said, before all this I was really looking for exactly what DataGazetteer suggested, so I'm glad to hear it will be considered for 1.1.

[ptone]

That "default iCal calendar" is not known to OF because it isn't really a "context" -- it is an inbox of items. That's why I'm looking for a preference option that says "sweep tasks from the selected iCal calendar(s) into the OF inbox".


This would be relatively easy to do with Applescript, especially if it was OK to delete them from iCal after they were added to the inbox.

-P

[DataGazetteer]

This would be relatively easy to do with Applescript, especially if it was OK to delete them from iCal after they were added to the inbox.

That would be okay, but unfortunately I'm inexperienced in Applescript...

[elnj]

Hi,

I realize that this is an old thread, but I just started using OF and am running into the same problem (perhaps just a conceptual problem, perhaps a missing feature) that seems to be affecting others. Namely, I'd like to be able to capture tasks on my Palm when I'm out and about, and then get those to appear in my OF Inbox after syncing Palm -> iCal -> OF.

To my mind, the Inbox is the natural place for things that have no context yet - however, OF will currently allow (unless I'm misunderstanding) only assigning of *contexts* to sync with OF. When I create a task while out on the run, I like it to be quick entry - I don't assign a project or context (which is problematic anyway outside of OF, as it would have to be parsed somehow). So quick-entry items in Palm To-dos sync to Unfiled calendar in iCal. I'd like to then sync this calendar to the OF Inbox, and do the work of assigning projects and contexts when I'm back at my computer.

Specifically, then, is there a way to have a new task (created outside of OF) sync from iCal and arrive in OF *without a context* assigned, preferably into my Inbox. I guess I'm looking for a preference item that is something like "Choose iCal calendar to sync to OF Inbox".

Thanks,

Eric

[nicofournier.volcano@gmai]

Hi folks,

Same problem and wish list here: being able to add on-the-fly tasks/ideas on my Palmas unfiled (=no context). Then sync Palm->iCal->OF and get these to appear in my OF inbox.

Any update on the matter?

Cheers

Nico