Attaching images from folders
 

I love this app. It's great that you can add pictures to actions, but I take pictures and then alter them using different drawing apps. These are then stored in the camera photos by way of screen shots. I want to be able to attach those images to actions with assigned due dates in omnifocus. Right now, I can only add a photo by actually taking a photo in real time.

Is this a function I can look forward to in a future update?

I don't believe that's a feature request we have on file - please use the Send Feedback button in OmniFocus for iPhone to shoot us an email so we can properly record the idea. Thanks!

[QUOTE=Brian;51115]I don't believe that's a feature request we have on file - please use the Send Feedback button in OmniFocus for iPhone to shoot us an email so we can properly record the idea. Thanks![/QUOTE]
The ability to attach existing photos from the photos already taken is a critical feature to be added to the iphone app imho. I'm a new user and am already hitting this wall, wondering why it's not possible. I literally bought the software yesterday and am trying to add a photo I took this past weekend to an action, to no avail.

Just get yourself an iPod touch and you can have the "attach photo from photo library" functionality you desire. You just lose the ability to [b]take[/b] pictures and, uh, oh yeah, make phone calls :)

It is puzzling that they went to the trouble of adding the ability for the iPod touch to select photos from the library and yet didn't add it for the iPhone. Maybe as Dennis suggests, the API designer threw in the ability to get a photo from the library as a consolation to the iPod users and never contemplated the possibility one might want to use a photo (or screen capture) from the library instead of taking a picture.

You know, I never considered the possibility that this worked on the iPod touch. Charging up one of our test units now. (The only one I could find was out of juice.)

Oh, for the love of... um, yeah. That button not being on the iPhone is a bug. Filed. Sorry folks!

Major Upgrade and still No Access to Photo Library on iPhone!
 

[QUOTE=Brian;67088]You know, I never considered the possibility that this worked on the iPod touch. Charging up one of our test units now. (The only one I could find was out of juice.)

Oh, for the love of... um, yeah. That button not being on the iPhone is a bug. Filed. Sorry folks![/QUOTE]

Why is possible to attach pictures from my photo library to an action on an iPod Touch but not on an iPhone? I have to take dozens of pictures quickly and can only attach them to actions from my laptop not my iPhone. Brian from OmniGroup admitted this is a bug last September (see above) but it still hasn't been fixed. Is this feature scheduled to be added? It's really important to me. Thanks.

Attach Picture from Library - Bug Still Not Fixed!
 

Am I the only user who is desperate to be able to attach pictures from the camera roll? You can do this on an iPod Touch but not on the iPhone. It's been eighteen months since this bug was first notified. Any chance of a fix? Please!

[QUOTE=Brian;67088]You know, I never considered the possibility that this worked on the iPod touch. Charging up one of our test units now. (The only one I could find was out of juice.)

Oh, for the love of... um, yeah. That button not being on the iPhone is a bug. Filed. Sorry folks![/QUOTE]

I'm really sorry about this - it's something we really want to fix, but there are other changes that customers are telling us they need more urgently. Folks that do need this changed can email the [EMAIL="omnifocus-iphone@omnigroup.com"]support ninjas[/EMAIL]; changes that have more customer demand behind them tend to bubble up the priority list.

[QUOTE=Brian;77918]I'm really sorry about this - it's something we really want to fix, but there are other changes that customers are telling us they need more urgently. Folks that do need this changed can email the [EMAIL="omnifocus-iphone@omnigroup.com"]support ninjas[/EMAIL]; changes that have more customer demand behind them tend to bubble up the priority list.[/QUOTE]

Hi Brian.
Thanks for the prompt response. However, respectfully, this is unacceptable. Omnifocus is sold on the iTunes store with the stated ability to "attach" and "pick" a photograph. I would suggest that if anyone was minded to report this to the UK's Office of Fair Trading, Apple's iTunes Store would be required under EU (European Union) law to refund all purchasers who felt that the OmniFocus App was unfit for the purpose for which it was sold. I imagine similar legislation applies in the US.

Brian, I want to add that I know that feature requests 'bubble up' based on user requests, but I suppose that I am surprised that bug reports follow the same process. I expect that once a developer has confirmed a bug, then no further action is required of the users-seems like the most efficient use of the users' and the ninjas' time. Does it not seem logical that many users may not report bugs because they have read in the forums that the bugs have been acknowledged by the development team?

[QUOTE=endoftheQ;78102]However, respectfully, this is unacceptable. Omnifocus is sold on the iTunes store with the stated ability to "attach" and "pick" a photograph.[/QUOTE]

You can attach images to your task notes in the iPhone app, either by taking a picture (using the built-in button) or by copying and pasting them from another app. To copy an existing image from your photo library, go to the Photos app to find the image, touch-and-hold on that image and select Copy. (You can also use this technique to copy images from other apps which support this functionality, such as Mail and Safari.)

Now open OmniFocus, and open an action (or create a new one) and scroll down to Attachments. Touch and hold on the word "Attachments", then select Paste. Your image will now be attached to your task.

Hope this helps!

[QUOTE=Ken Case;78105]You can attach images to your task notes in the iPhone app, either by taking a picture (using the built-in button) or by copying and pasting them from another app. To copy an existing image from your photo library, go to the Photos app to find the image, touch-and-hold on that image and select Copy. (You can also use this technique to copy images from other apps which support this functionality, such as Mail and Safari.)

Now open OmniFocus, and open an action (or create a new one) and scroll down to Attachments. Touch and hold on the word "Attachments", then select Paste. Your image will now be attached to your task.

Hope this helps![/QUOTE]

Nice... !!! If only someone had bothered to tell us this 18-months ago... !!!

Ken,
A group of us are all jumping up-and-down with glee thanks to your timely response. Just discovered you can even attach multiple pics. from the photo library to a single action. How fantastic is that?! However, in the next update, this facility needs to be flagged as no-one, not even your own Ninjas, appear to have known to click on the greyed-out word "Attachments". Now, a feature request, can you support copy-and-paste OUT of OmniFocus "Attachments" for the poor suckers who only have PC's and can't export photos taken within the App? OK, I'll shut up. Thanks a mil. You've made our team well happy. Have a great weekend!

When the documentation next gets updated, not only should this be added, but also language explaining how to attach photos on the iPod touch should be added, as the current text in the manual makes it sound like one cannot do so. Not a hindrance for those of us who don't read the manual, of course :)

[QUOTE=Greg Jones;78104]Brian, I want to add that I know that feature requests 'bubble up' based on user requests, but I suppose that I am surprised that bug reports follow the same process.[/QUOTE]

(Please keep in mind that we're speaking in very broad generalities at this point.)

Bug fixes will tend to get more attention, but something being a bug can't trump every other consideration. One of the realities of software development is that a project of meaningful size will pretty much always have more things you could be working on than you have time to do your work.

If the project matters, you'll probably never be "done", in other words. So, you have to prioritize. You spend the scarce resource of developer time and brainpower making the changes that the largest number of your customers find valuable.

Sometimes those changes are adding features, and sometimes they're fixing bugs. There are many ways to get the balance between the two wrong, of course, and customers often disagree about what's most important, which can also be fun. :-)

[QUOTE=Greg Jones;78104]Does it not seem logical that many users may not report bugs because they have read in the forums that the bugs have been acknowledged by the development team?[/QUOTE]

This assumption does seem pretty natural; I handle that by posting many, many reminders about emailing the ninjas when they want something changed. I want every forum visitor to have the best chance of helping us make the right choices as we plan and work on our projects.

Side note: while there are undoubtedly folks that want something changed and don't let us know directly, I haven't seen any evidence that this skews stuff badly. Personally, I'd bet things are skewed slightly in favor of bug fixes. People are motivated more strongly to act on things they don't like. If a forum visitor sees that a something is a popular feature request, I bet they're a little less likely to email us.

Brian, I can appreciate what you say, but I still find it curious. While it is a common practice to see the 'Contact the ninjas with a change request' posts, I don't recall ever seeing a 'Yes, that's a bug that we are aware of, contact the ninjas if you want to request that it be fixed' post.

At some level, allowing the customers to drive the decisions concerning development and maintenance of the product can be a detriment to a quality, integrated product. Conceptually, yes I can see it and I appreciate the fact that Omni does take the opinions of the customers seriously. But at some point, a developer needs to step back and ask the question 'Does this look, feel, and function as intended?'

[QUOTE=Greg Jones;78104]Brian, I want to add that I know that feature requests 'bubble up' based on user requests, but I suppose that I am surprised that bug reports follow the same process. I expect that once a developer has confirmed a bug, then no further action is required of the users-seems like the most efficient use of the users' and the ninjas' time. [/QUOTE]

Greg, there are bugs, and then there are bugs :) Consider it fortunate that they spend time doing things other than fixing all the obscure bugs I've reported over the last few years, or there wouldn't any time left for development! While certainly Omni developers are going to do some amount of self-prioritization (for example, "we need to fix this, even though only one report has come in, because looking at the report, it is clearly going to affect others, even if they won't necessarily immediately realize it", and anything that can cause the program to crash probably gets a priority), in my opinion it is not unreasonable to use customer feedback to assess the urgency of getting other bugs fixed, and to help balance the effort between fixing bugs and developing new features. It's definitely a refreshing change from some software vendors who respond to detailed reports of just how their software is broken by insisting that it isn't rather than thanking one for caring enough about improving their product to submit the report!

If it is seriously a question of voting - whether on a change, feature request, or bug fix - I would find it extremely helpful if there was a sticky thread that allowed users to cast their vote. I've seen this on other boards, where you have the ability to vote on a item, so wouldn't it be possible to list say the current top 20 requests with a vote button beside each one? It would mean that end-users wouldn't have to trawl through 1000's of postings to see what might have already been discussed before deciding whether they need to raise it as an issue and vote for it and perhaps it would help the Ninjas who wouldn't have to log emails against requests. Just a thought!

[QUOTE=endoftheQ;78130]If it is seriously a question of voting - whether on a change, feature request, or bug fix - I would find it extremely helpful if there was a sticky thread that allowed users to cast their vote. I've seen this on other boards, where you have the ability to vote on a item, so wouldn't it be possible to list say the current top 20 requests with a vote button beside each one? It would mean that end-users wouldn't have to trawl through 1000's of postings to see what might have already been discussed before deciding whether they need to raise it as an issue and vote for it and perhaps it would help the Ninjas who wouldn't have to log emails against requests. Just a thought![/QUOTE]
Arguably, the top 20 items don't need representation -- they already have many votes and Omni knows they are important to people. It is the items further down with only a few votes where more clarity might be achieved. Having to actually send an email instead of just clicking a button encourages a bit of investment, if you will, in a way that simply tapping a button or posting "me too" or "+1" doesn't. How important can something really be if one isn't willing to write a sentence or two in an email requesting it? It is like sending a kid into a candy store with some money -- give him 50 cents and he is going to buy what is most important to him. Give him 50 dollars and he is probably going to buy a whole bunch of stuff just because he can ("gimme one of everything!")

I think it is pretty simple -- if you encounter something that matters to you, whether a bug that needs fixing, or a feature that needs implementing, send in a vote. Maybe even start a forum thread to sell other users on your idea and encourage them to send in a vote.

Remember also that what you see on the forum may not be totally representative of the whole user community. People who contact Omni directly by phone or email/Help->Send Feedback may never contribute to the forum regarding their issue(s). I suspect that many new user issues, particularly from users new to Omni products and unaware of the forum's existence, may tend to go that way. Looking at forum posts one might say that tagging/metadata is the most popular request, but the support ninjas may say that the bulk of the calls they get are from new users trying to understand why new items in the inbox don't appear somewhere else, or other typical getting started questions. Watching the release notes, I'm often struck by the number of changes that didn't seem to me to have been driven by forum traffic, but are accommodations to users who aren't coming from a hard-core GTD background.

Interesting! I suppose I'm relating it only to my own experience. Our team had a meeting a couple of weeks back about abandoning OmniFocus because of it's inability to attach pictures from within the App. The 20+ people who attended felt, with good cause, that the product had been mis-sold. It would have been easiest, from my point-of-view, to tell them they should post 1-star reviews on the App store and demand their money back from Apple, which although justifiable would probably have had a negative impact on bug fixes, development and future sales. Instead, I decided to take the time to come on the board, explain my problem and get people to email the Ninjas. Having done that, and felt that I was getting nowhere, I threw my toys out of the pram, mentioned mis-selling, and "hey bingo" we get an immediate work-around. I appreciate that you've been following this discussion, so you can see that even voting by email or posting threads in the past didn't help me and the other members for whom this was a problem. I feel that voting buttons would at least let all the board users see what things everyone is concerned with, albeit that they may not be typical end-users. For example, if I'd seen that 'Pick Photo bug to be fixed' was no.1, I'd have at least known there was a good chance it would be sorted in the near future. OK, I'm now off to find out what metadata is, and whether there's anything in it for us!

[QUOTE=endoftheQ;78136]Interesting! I suppose I'm relating it only to my own experience. Our team had a meeting a couple of weeks back about abandoning OmniFocus because of it's inability to attach pictures from within the App. The 20+ people who attended felt, with good cause, that the product had been mis-sold. It would have been easiest, from my point-of-view, to tell them they should post 1-star reviews on the App store and demand their money back from Apple, which although justifiable would probably have had a negative impact on bug fixes, development and future sales. Instead, I decided to take the time to come on the board, explain my problem and get people to email the Ninjas. Having done that, and felt that I was getting nowhere, I threw my toys out of the pram, mentioned mis-selling, and "hey bingo" we get an immediate work-around. I appreciate that you've been following this discussion, so you can see that even voting by email or posting threads in the past didn't help me and the other members for whom this was a problem. I feel that voting buttons would at least let all the board users see what things everyone is concerned with, albeit that they may not be typical end-users. For example, if I'd seen that 'Pick Photo bug to be fixed' was no.1, I'd have at least known there was a good chance it would be sorted in the near future. OK, I'm now off to find out what metadata is, and whether there's anything in it for us![/QUOTE]

Well, a couple of comments, and remember that I don't work for Omni and thus don't have perfect knowledge of the situation, just observations on what I've seen as a customer over many years.

Looking back at the timeline for this particular issue, we see that in Nov 2008, keb152 pointed out the inability to attach images from the photo library on the iPhone. I certainly hadn't noticed -- I didn't get an iPod until the following April, and still don't use an iPhone. It may not have occurred to anyone at Omni to try attaching an image from the library instead of the camera, I don't know. 10 months later, someone else asked for the ability to attach images, I saw the post, went off to see what happens on the iPod, and discovered that iPod users weren't affected by the problem, which appears to be the point at which Omni noticed that there was a bug here. Somewhere around that time Apple rolled out copy/paste support for iPhone OS, and at some unknown time someone hitched it up to OmniFocus' attachment support, perhaps Ken. It appears that no mention of this made it into the release notes, unless I missed it in my search yesterday, and the manual hasn't been revised since March 2009, so there's no mention of it there either. There is mention of copy/paste support for things like text and actions in the release notes for OmniFocus iPhone 1.5-1.5.3.

So, you came along and squawked (not unreasonably) about this bug not being fixed, and someone from Omni who knew how to work around it posted a response (it does appear that they think that you should be able to pick images directly from the library without leaving OmniFocus, even though it can be accomplished via copy/paste). Expecting Omni to have gone through every post (or bug in the database) and determined whether or not it had been fixed by implementation of this feature and the new iPhone OS version is pretty unrealistic, I hope you'll agree. What is the difference between your latest post (where you tossed your toys out of the pram, as you put it) and the original one back in January? Almost certainly the difference is that your first one didn't happen to get read by someone who knew about the copy/paste trick and realized that it could be used to address this, and the second one did! (*) It is important to remember/realize that the forum isn't an official support channel where every message is guaranteed to be seen by an Omni staffer working on the relevant product and a response delivered -- it's rather intended as a place where users can help each other, with Omni staffers reading and responding on an as-available basis. If you really need a response, you need to be sure to contact the support ninjas, who have the tools (and responsibility) to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks. Contacting the forum in addition is fine, and probably much faster on the weekends and holidays when the Omni folks are outside enjoying the ever-present Seattle sunshine :)

I doubt the threat of forcing a refund of $400 had much to do with your getting a response. Omni is after all the only 3rd party developer I am aware of offering no questions asked refunds through the iTunes App store, even though that means refunding the 30% of the purchase price kept by Apple! See here: [url]http://www.omnigroup.com/blog/entry/30_day_guarantee[/url]
If you called them up and told them sincerely that the software wasn't meeting your needs, my expectation is that they would first work with you to make sure your needs couldn't be met, and then cheerfully refund your money rather than having an unhappy customer. In this case, your problem was easily solved, and everyone is reasonably happy, no?

(*) Even someone who knew about the copy/paste support might not have realized that it would work for images, too. I knew that you could do copy/paste of actions and text, but didn't know about images as attachments.

I'd agree with you, whpalmer4, except myself and others have been emailing the Ninja's about this, and regularly getting responses that they were aware of it and it was logged. I expected this to be fixed in the release before last, or worse case the last update, and it just didn't happen. So, instead of getting Pick Photo sorted, Omni gives me a whole new feature, Perspectives. I don't find this acceptable. I emailed, after each App update, asking why, and just kept getting the reply "sorry, we know about it, it's logged".

The OmniFocus App was sold (and is still being sold!) on the App store as being with the Pick Photo feature (see image). Nowhere does it say, "on the iPod Touch only". OK, we now have a lengthy workaround (copy-and-paste) thanks to Ken but I still expect the next release to have the Pick Photo feature included. I consider it generous of me to spend months trying to get them to sort this out instead of just taking more direct action. OK, you're right, a $400 buck refund isn't going to hurt Omni. However, it might be a bit different if a dozen 1-star reviews appeared on the UK and US App Stores, along with a complaint to the relevant authorities that the product was 'mis-sold' and a few emails to news groups and app reviewers such as MacWorld and TUAW stating we were asking for refunds because an advertised feature was not included. That could well do a lot more damage to Omni than refunding $400 bucks. I also imagine a lot of casual purchasers might ask for refunds even if the Pick Photo feature was of no interest to them just because they could.

I like Omni. I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't. However, I expect goods that I purchase to actually have the features that are shown at the point-of-sale and feel aggrieved about being continually fobbed off with "its logged" excuses month-after-month, release-after-release. I consider my restraint - up to this point - admirable!