OmniFocus a hopeless muddle?

[coconino]

At this moment my answer is a resounding “yes”. Right now I’m thoroughly fed up with it and the constantly shifting orientation. I so want it to work for me and to be a successful product for OmniGroup, but right now OmniFocus is driving me crazy with frustration and I'm deeply regretting investing such a huge amount of my precious time in both filling it with my data and testing more than one hundred betas.

[pvonk]

Aside from "constantly shifting orientation" and "driving me crazy with frustration", you haven't offered any insights as to your displeasure with what has been until recently an alpha product. What have you expected from OF during its alpha and beta stages? What frustrates you? Give details!

[ksrhee]

At this moment my answer is a resounding “yes”. Right now I’m thoroughly fed up with it and the constantly shifting orientation. I so want it to work for me and to be a successful product for OmniGroup, but right now OmniFocus is driving me crazy with frustration and I'm deeply regretting investing such a huge amount of my precious time in both filling it with my data and testing more than one hundred betas.

I'm sorry that you feel this way, but nobody forced you to try out alpha and beta versions. If you weren't going to tolerate shifting features and bugs in the alpha and beta versions, you should have waited till 1/8/2008 where the official 1.0 release will be.

[coconino]

A) I know perfectly well when the release will be

B) don't patronise me

C) if you had bothered to read my post you will have realised that I'm not talking about bugs.

[ksrhee]

I will try to ignore your previous post given the holiday spirit and not respond in kind.

However, please act civil if you could.

[Ken Case]

Could you tell us some specific changes which are bothering you?

I know the initial update to the inspectors frustrated you, but are you still frustrated with them after the latest changes that automatically select the appropriate inspector as you select different items? We're planning to update the repeat inspector to make its options clearer (which should help address some of the confusion we've seen around that inspector), is that a change that would also bother you?

At the moment, I'm not sure exactly what you're wanting us to do differently (other than to finish making changes to the interface, which is a goal that we're trying to reach as quickly as possible).

[Mark Millard]

Just my 2¢, as a beta tester I think that overall, OmniFocus features and development is going great. Compared to its Kinkless predecessor, the team has made huge gains. OF is rapidly becoming a great product.

[brianogilvie]

However, please act civil if you could.

<sarcasm>Hmm...someone whose avatar is a pair of Daleks might not be inclined to act civil.</sarcasm>

But maybe it's just a coincidence.

[ext555]

OF rocks ! at this point I wouldn't use anything else to manage my tasks and projects .. this app has fixed so many holes in my GTD workflow .. it's great : )

[SpiralOcean]

I have had some minor frustrations with OF... and I do mean minor.

Small things that I would like to see it interacting to the way I 'think' it 'should' act.

Putting aside those minor annoyances... The way the beta has rolled out should be put in textbooks.

I never once lost any data (that I am aware of)

And I have enjoyed being able to get in on the changes as they happen.

I'm hooked on OF. It is a beautifully designed & programmed application and worth every penny.

Thank you Omni!

[SpiralOcean]

Not to mention that the amount of beautiful things in OF heavily outweighs the amount of things I would do differently. :-)

[SpiralOcean]

Also not to mention... the number of things I never thought of that are beautiful. Like the red & orange numbers!

[nggalai]

Hi coconino, hi everybody,

out of interest, could you point out to me what the “constantly shifting orientation” would be? I’ve only used OF since the Beta went public, but I haven’t encountered any changed paradigms or radical changes of direction [1]. Was OF a lot different in the early, closed Betas?

Cheers,
-Sascha

[1] Okay, the Inspectors changed quite radically, but that change hasn’t been finished yet so I’m waiting for the final outcome. In short, it doesn’t really bother me enough to call OF a “hopeless muddle”. -.rb

[gg42]

A) I know perfectly well when the release will be

B) don't patronise me

C) if you had bothered to read my post you will have realised that I'm not talking about bugs.

... this kind of response says it all ...

[VicDiesel]

Hi coconino, hi everybody,

out of interest, could you point out to me what the “constantly shifting orientation” would be?

I think he's exaggerating. There's been a lot of tinkering, but the basic ideas have stayed the same for as long as I've been testing, which is 4 months now.

Victor.

[akelley]

I have had some minor frustrations with OF... and I do mean minor.

Small things that I would like to see it interacting to the way I 'think' it 'should' act.

Putting aside those minor annoyances... The way the beta has rolled out should be put in textbooks.

I never once lost any data (that I am aware of)

And I have enjoyed being able to get in on the changes as they happen.

I'm hooked on OF. It is a beautifully designed & programmed application and worth every penny.

Thank you Omni!
I work in the software industry (3D Computer Graphics) and from my experience in rolling out beta programs I believe Omni has developed a best practice that will hopefully be adopted by more companies in the future. I too never lost any data, and the daily builds (for the most part) were quickly downloaded and installed. Finally I believe Omni listens to its beta users by the sheer number of improvements that have been implemented through suggestions from the userbase. Way to go!

[mihnat]

I notice the original person hasn't been back to check on their issues. Perhaps they were a ringer for the 67293 other GTD programs out their or perhaps we were too patronizing. ..and I didn't even get to ask them if they kick their dog if it barks at the postman....dang!

[jasong]

I notice the original person hasn't been back to check on their issues. Perhaps they were a ringer for the 67293 other GTD programs out their or perhaps we were too patronizing. ..and I didn't even get to ask them if they kick their dog if it barks at the postman....dang!

The original poster, coconino, has been a member of this forum for over a year, and has posted dozens of times. A quick look at coconino's profile will give you a link to those dozens of posts.

As much as I like OmniFocus, it is a muddled application in a few ways:

* columns constantly shift around when you jump between views

* the projects list is unwieldy once you get to more than a couple (because you've been living in it for six months, not six weeks, say).

* searching for stuff is difficult because it's dependent on what's selected

* it feels like an outliner, which, I know, it started life as; the pedigree is still clear in some ways (especially compared to other GTD apps which started life as GTD apps)

There's more I could complain about, but none of it is a showstopper; for a 1.0 beta, it's great. If the original poster had given some details, I'm sure we'd never be piling on, but let's be fair: OF continues to need polish, which I have no doubt it will receive.

[VicDiesel]

* the projects list is unwieldy once you get to more than a couple (because you've been living in it for six months, not six weeks, say).


I'd be interested to know precisely what bothers you here. My gripe is this: I'm looking at a task; the project is listed, but not the hierarchy of folders that it is in. If I think that two projects shoudl be merged, it's near impossible to find where they are in the folder hierarchy you create.

Victor.

[Tim Wood]

We have the option of showing a flat list of projects w/o folder hierarchy so that you can sort of group projects by some relevant criteria. If you want to find a folder for a project you can group by folder or ... bah. I see we forgot to add the 'Reveal in Sidebar' menu option (or at least I can't find it). <bug://bugs/43983> (Reveal in Sidebar menu item)

[Toadling]

As much as I like OmniFocus, it is a muddled application in a few ways:

* columns constantly shift around when you jump between views

* the projects list is unwieldy once you get to more than a couple (because you've been living in it for six months, not six weeks, say).

* searching for stuff is difficult because it's dependent on what's selected

* it feels like an outliner, which, I know, it started life as; the pedigree is still clear in some ways (especially compared to other GTD apps which started life as GTD apps)

Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, and it looks like there's quite a range just on these forums. But I personally don't have any problems with the points listed here.

(1) Columns shifting: Wasn't it decided that each view should be able to have its own set of columns and widths? This is a good thing, or at least that's what seems to have been decided in these forums, and I agree. I don't think we can have it both ways. Either each view is independent and we gain flexibility and power, or they're not and we gain some consistency.

(2) Unwieldy project list: I assume jasong means the project list in the sidebar, and I agree that it can get quite long and out of control if you're not careful. But I find folders to be invaluable for bringing my list under control again. By carefully breaking up the list and collapsing as necessary (or focusing), I manage hundreds of projects in my sidebar with ease. There can be a lot of data in there, but OG has given us good tools to handle it.

(3) Searching for stuff dependent on selection: Isn't this the way it works in most, if not all, Mac OS X applications? Narrowing a search by selecting item(s) from the sidebar seems to be fairly standard and feels natural to me. If I want to search across the whole database, I just select the Library folder.

(4) Feels like an outliner: Yes, I agree completely on this one, it does feel like an outliner. But I see that as a good thing. In fact, it's one of the reasons I chose OF over several competitors. OF's outlining capabilities help me think and allow me to go into as much detail as I want without cluttering my view. In my mind, any good "to do list" is essentially an outline.

[al_f]

I don't think there's been much of a change of direction with the app either and I've been alpha/beta testing since June. I've never lost any data either and responses to any queries I've sent to Omni have been quick and efficient.

re: the sidebar, the only thing I would like is an option to have automatic alphabetical sorting of projects/contexts in there. I did think that was coming, but it looks like it might not make it into 1.0.

[bigcloits]

The only thing close to a real frustration I’ve had with OF in my first week of usage has been the fairly routine experience of “losing” projects. They are there, but somehow they have become not see-able, and I have to thrash around a bit with filters and selections before — phew — my data is once again visible.

On the one hand, I assume the product is in beta and I still have a learning curve to climb and soon I will quickly, deftly be able to reveal anything I please. On the other hand, why should I ever have to think, “WHERE are my $!%@!!$ PROJECTS?”

I do think there needs to be a way to see everything NOW.

[Ken Case]

I do think there needs to be a way to see everything NOW.

You can see everything by selecting All Items from the Perspectives menu.