Questions on OF
 

I am currently testing OF and would like to make the following questions, in an effort to better understand its functionality.
[LIST=1][*]Are Contextes the equivalent to Tags ? [*]If yes, can I assign more than one Context to a Task / Project ?[*]Can I give a project a Context and have it auto placed in all of its tasks ?[*]Can I have subtasks ? These would be minor task steps.[*]Is there integration with Contacts ?[*]If yes, can I assign a contact(s) to a task ?[*]Can I have Seq/Parallel assigned to Tasks and not overal to the project ?[/LIST]
Thank You for your support ...

[QUOTE=vballas;55636]Are Contextes the equivalent to Tags ?[/QUOTE]
No. A context is a location or environment which contains the tools you need to get an action done.

[QUOTE=vballas;55636]If yes, can I assign more than one Context to a Task / Project ?[/QUOTE]
Projects themselves do not have contexts: only actions have contexts, and each action can have only one context.

[QUOTE=vballas;55636]Can I give a project a Context and have it auto placed in all of its tasks ?[/QUOTE]
Yes. You can set the Default Context for a project in several ways, including right-clicking on the project and selecting the pop-up menu in the project Inspector.

[QUOTE=vballas;55636]Can I have subtasks ? These would be minor task steps.[/QUOTE]
Yes. These are called action groups.

[QUOTE=vballas;55636]Is there integration with Contacts ?
If yes, can I assign a contact(s) to a task ?[/QUOTE]
I believe that there is no integration with AddressBook, but you can assign an action to a person. There are two ways to do this:

1) If the action will be done by the other person (i.e. you're giving the task to someone else but you want to keep track of it), then you can set the context to "Waiting for". If you create a context called "Waiting for" and put the entire context on hold (this can be done in context view, in the inspector), then the project will be halted until you check off that waiting-for step (if it's the first action in the project). You should review these stalled projects daily.

2) If you'll be the one performing the action, but it involves another person, you can set the action's context to that person. Basically, your contact becomes a context.

[QUOTE=vballas;55636]
Can I have Seq/Parallel assigned to Tasks and not overal to the project ?
[/QUOTE]
Not to individual actions, but an action group can have its own sequential or parallel attribute.

OmniFocus can be confusing at first. You can find helpful resources in the [URL="http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/"]OmniFocus page[/URL] and the [URL="http://www.omnigroup.com/ftp/pub/software/MacOSX/Manuals/OmniFocus-1.5-Manual.pdf"]Omnifocus Manual[/URL].

A few additions to abh19's excellent comments:

[QUOTE=abh19;55642]No. A context is a location or environment which contains the tools you need to get an action done.[/QUOTE]

Contexts are perhaps a [I]subset[/I] of the keywords one might use for tagging. As abh19 explained, a context is the required person, place, or thing to perform a task. How exactly you define your contexts depends a lot on how you work and how specific you want to be. You should certainly read David Allen's book to help get a better understanding of the concept. Browsing these forums will also provide some insight (there's a lot of variation in how people use contexts).

The Omni Group has mentioned before that they eventually intend to add support for custom metadata columns as well, which would presumably allow for free-format tagging, priorities, etc. in addition to existing metadata (contexts, durations, start and due dates, etc.).

[QUOTE=abh19;55642]I believe that there is no integration with AddressBook, but you can assign an action to a person.[/QUOTE]

You can also drag vcards from Address Book and drop them into an action's note field to get a link to that person in Address Book.

[QUOTE=abh19;55642][QUOTE=vballas;55636]Can I have Seq/Parallel assigned to Tasks and not overal to the project ?[/QUOTE]Not to individual actions, but an action group can have its own sequential or parallel attribute.[/QUOTE]

The sequential/parallel setting doesn't really apply on an individual action basis because it is an indication of how tasks are to be executed [I]relative to other actions[/I]. So it only really makes sense to control that option on [I]groups[/I] of actions.

As abh19 pointed out, you can set projects and arbitrary action groups to be sequential or parallel. But there is no such setting for individual actions.

-Dennis