Column Resizing Behavior is Non-Standard
 

Resizing the columns in Omnifocus makes the entire WINDOW resize horizontally.

Other applications don't behave this way, and I much prefer their behavior.

That sounds a little snarky actually - but everytime I upgrade it forgets my column settings and I have to reset them which takes much longer when I have to take into acccount the windows size as well.

prater

Hello,

We did it this way to avoid ever having a horizontal scroll bar. Most other apps don't mind having a horizontal scroller, but with the controls on the far right of OmniFocus's rows, we found this way to be less of a pain to use.

Of course, if enough people find it disconcerting, we can reconsider it for a future version. Personally I wish more apps worked this way. :D

Another vote from someone who hates the current behavior. OF shouldn't go resizing my window. It especially shouldn't make my window [I]smaller[/I]. That's what's really irritating.

I actually like this behavior a lot, because in most apps I never know for sure what's going to happen when I resize a column. I know that some other column or columns will resize, but which? In OmniFocus I know that none of them will.

It feels a little odd, but I find it more pleasant.

Here's another vote for the current behavior. It freaked me out at first, but now that I'm used to it I wish it was the new standard for most apps.

I hate it. I want my window to be a certain size, and I want to adjust my columns to fit within that window. If I want to change my window size, I'll change my window size.

Try this: open a new window. Make it wide to your desired size the "normal" way. It expands one of the columns (the name column in my case). Make the name column narrower, because you need less space for it, and more space for Contexts. Your window shrinks too. Now expand the context column wider. Your window expands too. You need to play around with the column widths to get your window width right.

Try the same thing with another Mac app, say Mail. Open a new viewer window, and make it wide the "normal" way. It expands one of the columns (From, in my case). Make the From column narrower; you window remains at your set width, and the last column expands (Attachments in my case). Now that my window is set, I can change my column widths as I see fit.

In Leopard (at least), you can't make the columns so wide as to push other columns off the edge, so your window width is the size you have for each of your columns, and Mail is smart enough to keep you within that width.

Another vote against it.

Jennifer

While I don't have strong feelings either way, I slightly prefer the standard behavior as well, if for no other reason than it's what I'm used to.

It seems to me that if you're going to go with non-standard window behavior, there should be a very good reason, and I don't see it here.

Also, (and I should send this as feedback) the current implementation is inconsistent. Showing/hiding columns (due/start dates, for example) doesn't change the window size, it resizes the existing columns (Name). Why does manually resizing columns change the window size, but hiding/showing columns preserve window size?

Another vote against. One of the great things that has always differentiated the Mac is convention in the UI.

The dvorak keyboard layout may be "Better" than qwerty, but who would cheer if OF required us to use it.

I would prefer standard window resizing with regard to column resizing.

At least if you want to try something innovative, don't make my window NARROWER, perhaps a hybrid approach where if I have the screen space, make it wider when I widen a column, but not the reverse.

-P

I don't like it either - and there is more: OF will forget settings in 'View > Columns >" I made in Context Mode whenever I switch back to Planning.
Annoying!

don't like it either...
 

Another vote against!

And I would REALLY like the column width settings I make to persist between opening and closing the document. EVERY time I startup again, I have to re-size the Name/Project/Start/Due columns - this is particularly annoying when I am showing the hierarchy of each task in Context mode - I get 8 lines taken up for each task to accommodate the 'Project' when I could show the complete hierarchy in 2 lines at most. The list scrolling way off the page makes it very hard to quickly scope through tasks.

I think it's good. Having a horizontal scroll bar is exceptionally annoying. In some applications it makes sense, where there are a million columns, but there are only so many columns here. Having them all visible is desirable, and in those cases I think the window adjusting to the column sizes is a very nice feature. Saves the step that I would have to do anyone.

I don't like it either - I prefer all my apps to work in the same way.

[QUOTE=chidmf;30621]This is particularly annoying when I am showing the hierarchy of each task in Context mode - I get 8 lines taken up for each task to accommodate the 'Project' when I could show the complete hierarchy in 2 lines at most. [/QUOTE]

I sent feedback a long time ago to adopt the finder's Long name...truncated method of chopping out the middle.

At least as a pref, I also prefer to have shorter rows (one line if possible).

-P

I'd prefer a more standard approach too. I'm frustrated every time I want to resize a column.

[QUOTE=ptone;30653]I sent feedback a long time ago to adopt the finder's Long name...truncated method of chopping out the middle.

At least as a pref, I also prefer to have shorter rows (one line if possible).[/QUOTE]

I'm fine with that kind of truncation for the sidebar, but I wouldn't like it for the content area. The fact that OF does not truncate any item in the content area was one of the determining factors for me choosing the app. Please don't change it!

So, I only vote "yes" if it's done with a preference setting for the content area. :)

I love it. I hate horizontal scrollbars.

I have sent Apple feedback to add this feature!

Whatever happened to HIG? Pretty awful for those of us that have our Windows sized a certain way. LOTS more work. Bah! Please stick to the standards for goodness sake.

[QUOTE=kcmac;30801]I love it. I hate horizontal scrollbars. [/QUOTE]

I'm with kcmac on this one. I hope OF doesn't change this.

I love it too.

Omni, any chance you could release the code to this for other devs to use?

Amorya

What I don't understand is what this has to do with horizontal scrollbars. I can't, as far as I can tell, get a horizontal scrollbar in Mail.app, and it doesn't exhibit this weird resizing behavior.

Yeah, well, if you do it Mail.app it just hides your columns. You can scroll horizontally to see them, but there's no indication that they're actually there.

If it's a choice between THAT behavior and OF's behavior, I'll take OF's.

prater

[QUOTE=Prater;30833]Yeah, well, if you do it Mail.app it just hides your columns. You can scroll horizontally to see them, but there's no indication that they're actually there.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps on Tiger, but on leopard there is a "minimum" column width. There is no way to hide a column by shrinking the window, never a horizontal scrollbar. Columns grow and shrink proportionately to the window size.

I'd say Mail.app (at least in Leopard) is EXACTLY how column resizing should be done.

-P

As the owner of a 24" monitor, I'll vote for OF's current behavior. :-)

But seriously, I like it a lot, now that I'm used to it.

I can't stand the current behavior. I'm go back and forth between two very different displays, one 20" display at work and the built-in 15" MacBook Pro display at home. Thus the window size I need for OmniFocus varies a lot from use to use. Resizing this window and the various columns is driving me crazy. Please separate the resizing of columns from the resizing of windows, as most apps do. Or perhaps include a preference so users can choose the resizing behavior.

Thanks.

Another 24-incher who likes it.

What _is_ driving me crazy is the way Start, Due, and Time columns disappear on me in the latest build.

another vote against. Its disconcerting to have non-standard column behaviors. If it was an apple standard, we'd all get used to it, but OF is only one app amongst many I use during the day.

Vote Against
 

Vote against. Non-standard. At the very least, provide a preference setting.

What I hate about the standard HIG Apple way of doing things is not only that you need to do two steps to adjust a column (adjust the column and then the window), but you can't get the window perfectly adjusted. You always seem to have to make it a few pixels too wide to get the horizontal scroll bar to disappear. Being a neatness freak, I hate that sliver of unwanted space there!

I think this forum has a large percentage of interface geeks in it who pride themselves at noticing this stuff and exhibiting their superiority by complaining about it -- the sort who spaz out at the semitransparent Leopard menu bar.

Your average users like the current behavior, I think.

While you're at it, can you stop using those stupid HIG standard Apple font and color palettes in other Omni products, and just put them in the inspectors where they belong?

[QUOTE=Frosty Crunch;31727]What I hate about the standard HIG Apple way of doing things is not only that you need to do two steps to adjust a column (adjust the column and then the window), but you can't get the window perfectly adjusted. You always seem to have to make it a few pixels too wide to get the horizontal scroll bar to disappear. Being a neatness freak, I hate that sliver of unwanted space there!
[/QUOTE]

You must be referring to Tiger as this is no longer the case in Leopard (or at least it doesn't have to be). As ptone mentioned [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=30837#post30837"]earlier in this thread[/URL], Apple Mail's implementation (at least in Leopard) is EXACTLY how column resizing should work. It's pretty much perfect.

[QUOTE=Frosty Crunch;31727]
Your average users like the current behavior, I think.
[/QUOTE]

Well, that's a gross generalization. I can't believe you have any kind of evidence to back up that claim other than gut feeling. And my gut feeling tells me that the "average user" would probably prefer the standard behavior, if for no other reason than that's the way nearly [I]all other apps[/I] behave.

[QUOTE=Frosty Crunch;31727]I think this forum has a large percentage of interface geeks in it who pride themselves at noticing this stuff and exhibiting their superiority by complaining about it -- the sort who spaz out at the semitransparent Leopard menu bar.[/QUOTE]

Surely, you are among that group as well? FWIW, I don't have any issues with Leopard's transparent menu bar, although I may be guilty of the other accusations. ;-)

I also dislike the current behavior. I thought it was a bug at first.

[QUOTE=Toadling;31736]You must be referring to Tiger as this is no longer the case in Leopard (or at least it doesn't have to be). As ptone mentioned [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=30837#post30837"]earlier in this thread[/URL], Apple Mail's implementation (at least in Leopard) is EXACTLY how column resizing should work. It's pretty much perfect.[/QUOTE]

Nailed. I switched from Mail to Google Apps Gmail shortly after buying a new iMac with Leopard because I was traveling and I had switched my personal and business domains there anyway. I ended up never switching back, but just now I opened Mail.app, and the columns are handled much more nicely than before.

So I'm agnostic at this point.

I'm another one in the really don't like it camp I'm afraid.

I size my windows to suit my preferred workspace and I don't want the application to start changing size or position unless I specificaly change it myself.

The way mail handles columns is fine for me thanks.

If you do not like the current approach (and I count myself among you), please use the "Help - send feedback" menu item in OmniFocus to let them know.

This thread should probably be locked at this point, its not supposed to be a poll.

-P

[QUOTE=ptone;31784]This thread should probably be locked at this point, its not supposed to be a poll.
[/QUOTE]

The man speaks truth.

One last thought related to the horizontal scroll bars and windows - with OS X window behavior, my understanding is that they implement extra, empty columns so that the window doesn't change size when you change the column width. (Check out Finder, iTunes, etc.) Part of the reason we'd rather not is because OmniFocus is about eliminating distraction and extra columns would be distracting!

(That said, your feedback is noted.) :-)