Neat way to Archive projects and create Templates
 

I've been experimenting with how to Archive Projects so that the primary OF database remains clean, but I can quickly review and retrieve other (customer) projects I've done in the past. Here's what I've come up with. First of all prepare the Archive:

1. From the File menu select Export, then select the OmniFocus Document file format, and call it Archive. Create it where it's convenient for you. This is basically a complete clone of your current OmniFocus projects.

2. Double-click on the new Archive file. This opens it in a new OF window.

3. One by one, click on and delete all the Projects in the Archive window until it's Library is empty. You can close it at this point if you wish.

From now on any time you're done with a project and want to archive it, just open up your Archive document, select the project you're done with, and drag it into the Archive library. Note, you [B]must[/B] drop it directly onto the Archive library or it won't do the copy. After it's copied you can close it and then delete the project from your main window.

If you decide at some point later on you want to restore that project, you can just drag 'n drop it in the other direction.

Come to think of it, this would be a good way to do Templates too. Copy the empty Archive doc to a Templates doc. Create any templates you need in there, and then drag them in to your main library when you need them.

That's a neat idea. I do something similar but keep everything in the same file. I have a "Dropped" folder at the top level of my library called "Archive". When I'm done with a project, or even an entire folder of projects, I just drag it into my dropped "Archive" folder. I have a perspective that opens my Archive in a new, smaller window to make this even easier.

The things in my Archive don't show up in any of my normal views but can still be found with the proper view bar settings. As for performance, my impression is that the speed of OmniFocus is largely dependent on what is currently visible. Items not appearing in the current view don't seem to have an impact, at least not that I've noticed. So I don't think there's much of a downside to just keeping everything in a single file.

Of course, that single file library will grow large over time (but mine is still less than 1 MB). And I'm guessing that an initial sync with an iPhone would take a bit longer. But as long as you're not frequently changing those archived projects, it shouldn't affect syncing after that.

It's nice that OmniFocus allows you to do this in a single file or in multiple files - whichever suits your workflow best.

-Dennis