Is OmniFocus an outliner?

[OOO]

Lately I've been getting annoyed when OmniFocus collapses projects/subprojects/contexts/etc, seemingly at random, and I have to click on the triangle or use the menu items to show everything. For instance I will switch perspectives, add projects, etc., and some headings are collapsed, other aren't, or my project folders on the sidebar are all collapsed. Or I'll head to the inbox and it's collapsed and I think it's empty.

Does anyone regularly expand/collapse items? I suppose it might be useful to re-order or do housekeeping, etc.

(By the way, I'm not talking about notes, those need to be hidden somehow because they can be really long).

I've never needed to collapse anything, but I find myself expanding projects, folders, etc., all the time. Maybe some default in the code needs to be switched to "expanded", or maybe the functionality could be removed altogether (except for notes).

[Tim Wood]

We are still tweaking the expansion code. Having everything expanded by default might seem good, but in larger documents it degrades performance. OmniFocus goes to lengths to avoid fetching data it doesn't need, but if the rows are expanded, it has no choice (right now... I have evil plans for the future...)

That said, it should respect your expansion preferences and if it isn't, please log a bug via Help > Send Feedback. We have a few cases we know about, but the more we know about now, the more we can fix.

[OOO]

Thanks Tim. Another idea I had was a "see everything" menu item which expands everything (except notes) in both panes. That would get it into the right state quickly.

If OmniFocus starts slowing down I'll take that as a hint that I need to finish more of my tasks. :-)

[curt.clifton]

OOO,

If you're the keyboard-shortcut type, you can use Cmd-A (select all) followed by Cmd-Opt-Right Arrow to expand all. (Cmd-9 works also, but I find the arrow key easier to reach for and easier to remember.)

[Walt_Basil]

A part of me wants to say this, another part of me tells myself, hey, if ooo is using OmniFocus, then ooo probably knows about Omni's other applications. So if you do, please disregard and forgive me. ;-)

You do know about OmniOutliner (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/), right? By your question, it seemed you were asking if it had outliner capability. I wasn't sure.

[CatOne]

OOO,

If you're the keyboard-shortcut type, you can use Cmd-A (select all) followed by Cmd-Opt-Right Arrow to expand all. (Cmd-9 works also, but I find the arrow key easier to reach for and easier to remember.)

Well, I often find that when I try that, that I actually have the projects pane on the left selected and end up expanding that pane instead. So then I have to click on the tasks side and do it again. So we're talking about 6 keys :-P

[OOO]

By your question, it seemed you were asking if it had outliner capability. I wasn't sure.

My question was more along the lines of "Why does OmniFocus work like an outliner?"

Well, I often find that when I try that, that I actually have the projects pane on the left selected and end up expanding that pane instead. So then I have to click on the tasks side and do it again. So we're talking about 6 keys :-P

Yes, a single "expand everything everywhere" shortcut would help.

[rmathes]

might be missing the core point here (if so, my apologies), but what I'd like to see is persistence.

If I expand some things and collapse others, if I navigate to a different view and return to the original one, I'd like my selections to be intact and not have to re-make them.

[curt.clifton]

might be missing the core point here (if so, my apologies), but what I'd like to see is persistence.

If I expand some things and collapse others, if I navigate to a different view and return to the original one, I'd like my selections to be intact and not have to re-make them.

That's exactly what Tim meant when he said "it should respect your expansion preferences and if it isn't, please log a bug via Help > Send Feedback."

[rmathes]

so to be clear, if I'm in the context view and I click on all contexts and create a view sorted by due date, then collapse every category other than ‘today’ and anything prior to today, then click on an individual context, then back to all contexts, are we saying that if it still doesn’t only have ‘today’ and prior to today expanded with all else collapsed that this is a bug?

If so, I fully agree and will submit a bug report. Just trying to be clear on what behavior we’re talking about.

[curt.clifton]

That's my understanding. I think that every project, context, and group heading should retain its expand/collapse state, ideally on a per-perspective basis. (Though the perspective part gets expensive to implement I would think.)