Can't see Perspectives in sidebar
 

I was excited to read here about perspectives being available in the sidebar. Then, I tried to see them there...no luck whatsoever. After a little research, I thought it was because I was syncing via MobileMe (though MobileMe syncing should store perspective information: hint-hint), so I changed my syncing to OmniFocus for Mac. After performing that sync a couple of times, there's still no Perspectives on my sidebar.

To clarify: I don't see an item labeled Perspective on my sidebar at all.

What am I missing?

The sync mechanism (whether MobileMe or whatever) has nothing to do with it. Do you have any context-mode perspectives set up in OF on the Mac? Only context mode perspectives can be used on the iPad. Are you at the top level in the sidebar?

I have a context mode perspective set up on the Mac. I'm at the top level of the sidebar: it shows Projects, Contexts, Map, Forecast, Flagged and Review

UPDATE: That was weird: I went in and clicked on each perspective on the Mac. The next sync pulled the perspectives onto the iPad. I'll chalk it up to a bit of syncing weirdness for now.

I had similar weirdness. Although I already had context mode perspectives set up on the Mac version, I had to create a new perspective and then sync before Perspectives showed up in my sidebar. Possible bug?

[QUOTE=pmdf;82034]I had similar weirdness. Although I already had context mode perspectives set up on the Mac version, I had to create a new perspective and then sync before Perspectives showed up in my sidebar. Possible bug?[/QUOTE]

Definitely sounds like it. Be sure to use Contact Omni in the gear menu to report it. (It will be a challenging bug to track down, since most people aren't seeing it. So anyone who has seen it should definitely report it.)

Have notified OG as advised.

Do most of you see Perspectives in the sidebar right from the initial installation or first sync then?

I just wiped my database off the iPad and set up a dummy database in a new user on my Mac (the default "Welcome to OmniFocus on the Mac" database). When I configured the iPad to sync with the Mac, it synced fine, collected the Mac's database as directed, but did not show the Perspectives item in the sidebar. I then created a new perspective in context mode, synced the Mac, synced the iPad, and the Perspectives item showed up in the sidebar without a hitch, containing perspectives named Contexts, Due, Flagged, Completed, and Tickler (the last one being the one I created).

Wiping the database again, then syncing my standard database (which does have context mode perspectives that I created) caused it to work properly from the initial sync.

It seems like creating a new context mode perspective on the Mac and syncing should get things rolling. I was able to delete that new perspective, sync again, and retain the stock perspectives.

Perhaps there is some initialization hiccup that causes no perspectives to be synced to a fresh copy of OmniFocus for iPad if you only have the factory perspectives, or only have project mode perspectives in addition to the factory set.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;82093]I just wiped my database off the iPad and set up a dummy database in a new user on my Mac (the default "Welcome to OmniFocus on the Mac" database). When I configured the iPad to sync with the Mac, it synced fine, collected the Mac's database as directed, but did not show the Perspectives item in the sidebar. I then created a new perspective in context mode, synced the Mac, synced the iPad, and the Perspectives item showed up in the sidebar without a hitch, containing perspectives named Contexts, Due, Flagged, Completed, and Tickler (the last one being the one I created).

Wiping the database again, then syncing my standard database (which does have context mode perspectives that I created) caused it to work properly from the initial sync.

It seems like creating a new context mode perspective on the Mac and syncing should get things rolling. I was able to delete that new perspective, sync again, and retain the stock perspectives.

Perhaps there is some initialization hiccup that causes no perspectives to be synced to a fresh copy of OmniFocus for iPad if you only have the factory perspectives, or only have project mode perspectives in addition to the factory set.[/QUOTE]
What about those of us that do not have Omnifocus for Mac? Are we not able to have perspectives on the iPad?

I want to add that I saw this same behavior. I had a Perspective on the Mac and it did not show up on the iPad app but it did in the iPhone app so I knew it *should* show up. Omni ninja said to do a reset (didn't help) but then I decided to create a 2nd perspective and that did the trick. Both showed up on the next sync. Must be a bug.

On the iPad, the perspectives sidebar item will only show up if you create a custom context mode perspective on the Mac. There are context mode perspectives in the default database on the Mac but those will not appear on the iPad unless a custom one is created as for the most part they're all duplicates of built-in sidebar items. So this could explain your need to create a new perspective first.