Sorting Preferences for Due Soon, etc.

[wolfneuralnet]

Love the new app for iPhone. Syncing well for me so far.

One thing that I have not been able to figure out is how to get the sorting of the items to do something reasonable for "Due Soon", "Projects", etc.

Whenever I select "flagged" for example, it mixes in stuff from 3 weeks from now with the items that are "due soon".

Whenever I select a project, things are also in no apparent order.

It would be really great if we could sort based on due dates or flag state.

If anyone can tell me what it is currently using as the sort order that would be helpful, since I can't make any sense of it, and seem to have 30 items in every view jumbled up.

Let me know if this needs to go in as a feature request, or if its already there.

Thanks!

[danvtim]

As far as I can see, there is no way to sort in projects.

Also, context sorting is still the bizzare method items are sorted based on how their projects are sorted. So, if projects are sorted project C, project B, project A within contexts the C stuff will be first than the B stuff and then the C stuff.

It is the same bizarre method that the desktop version uses. Sadly, OF 1.1 does this same thing which makes programs like Things look appealing.

I have asked for context sorting going back to 1.0 betas and Omni Group just does not seem to want to allow people to sort things within context. It is bizarre. So, give them feed back and maybe they'll do something about it.

[Ken Case]

I have asked for context sorting going back to 1.0 betas and Omni Group just does not seem to want to allow people to sort things within context.

It's not that we don't want to allow this; I've been wanting this myself for over a year now. We just haven't yet figured out a good way to do this efficiently: we currently store the order of actions within their project so that reordering items only involves updating the other actions within that same project (hopefully at most a few dozen actions). If we had to touch every other item in the database instead, that would become prohibitively slow on devices like the iPhone.

But we've been thinking about this quite a bit over the last year, and definitely plan to fix it. It just wasn't as important as shipping 1.0 in the first place, or adding support for synchronization in 1.1.

[Ken Case]

If anyone can tell me what it is currently using as the sort order that would be helpful, since I can't make any sense of it, and seem to have 30 items in every view jumbled up.

Oh, sorry that this isn't more clear! In project mode, we always preserve the order you've entered your actions in, since their order is often significant. (For example, I have to fix a bug, verify the fix, commit the fix, and post a new build in that order.)

You can reorder your actions by clicking the Edit button and dragging them into your preferred order. If you'd like the ability to sort the whole list by due date or some other criteria (like you can do on the desktop), please let us know by sending feedback to omnifocus-iphone@omnigroup.com.

And if you have suggestions for better default sort orders in the smart groups (Flagged, Due Soon, Overdue), we'd love to hear from you about that as well.

Thanks!

[wolfneuralnet]

Oh, sorry that this isn't more clear! In project mode, we always preserve the order you've entered your actions in, since their order is often significant. (For example, I have to fix a bug, verify the fix, commit the fix, and post a new build in that order.)

You can reorder your actions by clicking the Edit button and dragging them into your preferred order. If you'd like the ability to sort the whole list by due date or some other criteria (like you can do on the desktop), please let us know by sending feedback to omnifocus-iphone@omnigroup.com.

And if you have suggestions for better default sort orders in the smart groups (Flagged, Due Soon, Overdue), we'd love to hear from you about that as well.

Thanks!

Hi Ken,

Thanks for asking for input about this - I will send this along to the email address above as well, but wanted to copy it here so that others could chime in if they had an opinion.

I understand that the sorting inside projects is done manually - it was the others (contexts, and the smart groups) that made no sense to me.

My preferences would be:

Inside a context: Sort first by Due Date, and then Flagged if on the same day - don't you want to see either of these first rather than some item in context that doesn't have a Due Date or isn't flagged?

Inside Flagged: Sort by Due Date, then project. I have flagged items that are due three weeks from now showing up before items that are due tomorrow.

Let me know if these don't make sense, or if there is some other way to do this.

Thanks as always for the prompt replies!

John

[JPD123]

John,

I have been struggling with this exact issue - probably because I am so used to using perspectives in the desktop app.

That said, I also think it is totally necessary to have some way to group and sort the actions. Within a "context," I think it makes sense to sort (by due or by project or by both). For example, if I am at the office and I look at my office context and had a quick preference to sort it. Likewise, if I am in one of the smart folders (i.e., due soon, overdue, flagged), I think it makes sense to be able to group them (by date or by project or by context).

This is on top of the wish list with the ability to turn actions into projects.

From an implementation standpoint, I could see a preference in the settings area for "Sorting Order" where you select an order of priority. A "mini" implementation of the view bar in OF for iPhone :)

Regardless, it would be extremely useful to mirror the hierarchy that is displayed in the Project Pane on OF desktop app. For example, if you had two folders: Professional and Personal, I would expect to see the Professional projects first and then the Personal.

Cheers.

Peter

[digitalfilm]

Just wanted to cast my vote for sorting actions by due date both within projects and contexts. Understand that v1.1 and the iPhone app were a priority, but this feature would really make for a huge improvement in usability.

[DavidFL]

Add me to the list who wants sorting by due date.

Additionally....am I being stupid, or is there no way to even VIEW the due date on the iPhone lists? The only way I can find is to actually go in to edit the action.

I wish that in looking at the list (either by context or by project) that the due date appeared with the action. Since each item is taking up two lines, it looks to me like there is space to put the due date. :)

I'm new to OF...so be gentle if I have missed something!

[pslade]

I use nearby to manage my actions by location. However, the actions that are due soon, or overdue are not sorted within the list. Is it possible to set the sort preference for Nearby actions? If not, can you please add a feature request for me?

Thanks

Pete.

[Lizard]

Feature requests for seeing the due date in lists and sorting "Nearby" contexts by due data have been created.

[Yogi Jivanandanatha]

I would like the actions in the context mode to be sorted in the order the projects appear, as in the desktop application. Without this, clicking on the context (which I use all the time on the desktop version) isn't very helpful, as my actions are all jumbled around.

[cahir]

The view I find most useful in OF (desktop) is a Focus on work or home and then the context view without any context selected. This creates a list of due today, due tomorrow, etc etc up through a month, and then items without a due date.

Even if perspectives won't be supported on the iPhone, that view is probably what many people would want since it focuses you on nearest deadlines. There's room on the home screen for another view in the iPhone, that would be my vote. Even better if you can limit it by some kind of focus (like work vs home)

[sabeke]

I would like to be able to just show Due Today. That doesn't seem possible. Am I missing something?

[Brian]

This is a feature we've gotten some requests for - right now, you can set the 'Due Soon' interval in Settings to 24 hours, and use that view to get close to what you're probably looking for.

If you'd like to see an explicit due today category in addition to that, please email us using the "Send Feedback" button in the Settings screen so we can record the request properly.

[sabeke]

This is a feature we've gotten some requests for - right now, you can set the 'Due Soon' interval in Settings to 24 hours, and use that view to get close to what you're probably looking for.

If you'd like to see an explicit due today category in addition to that, please email us using the "Send Feedback" button in the Settings screen so we can record the request properly.

Due Soon, with interval set to 24 hours, shows the next 24 hours worth of tasks. I want Today's tasks, not some of today's and some of tomorrow's.

I'll send feedback as well.

Thanks.

[kingsinger]

I'd like to have a smart group that is starts soon (i.e., filtering by start date. I often don't assign due dates to things. So I organize more by start dates, so it would be nice to be able to see what is coming up.