In fact, how do you turn this OFF? Wow you can easily accidentally complete an entire project with NO feedback.

First one that comes to mind. HAve project selected, press command-space for spotlight, but kinda miss the command key, and if you are looking up at the spotlight corner, nothing happens, you shrug, press it again, oh good, spotlight, then 2 days later, "what the heck happened to my project!"

[QUOTE=gumby;38295]If I don't get around to doing one of the items (say, "empty /~Downloads folder") then I won't get prompted, which is arguably the wrong thing for Weekly review, 10K review etc.

I can't make a good case for changing it though. Thanks for following up on all this.[/QUOTE]

We've got a feature request in our development database for the option to make actions behave this way. No idea when/if it'll be implemented, but this is something that's on our radar screen.

[QUOTE=sriggins;38328]Spacebar? Who knew. That is not intuitive.[/QUOTE]

As often as possible, you want to make things intuitive, but you can't do it for everything; in those cases, you shoot for learnable.

The "Marking a project complete" and "Marking Actions Complete" sections of the help menu material both mention this. It's also mentioned in the corresponding sections of the manual.

[QUOTE=sriggins;38329]In fact, how do you turn this OFF? Wow you can easily accidentally complete an entire project with NO feedback.

First one that comes to mind. HAve project selected, press command-space for spotlight, but kinda miss the command key, and if you are looking up at the spotlight corner, nothing happens, you shrug, press it again, oh good, spotlight, then 2 days later, "what the heck happened to my project!"[/QUOTE]

This is theoretically possible, but OmniOutliner and OmniFocus both use this mechanism, and in my years of using both apps, I don't think this has ever actually happened.

You have to be in row-selection-but-not-editing mode for it to happen; otherwise you'll just get a space character in whatever cell you're editing.
For the project to disappear, you'd have to be using the 'Active' projects filter selected - with the 'Remaining' filter, the project will get a strikethrough style applied but remain visible.

Ultimately, you're correct - in a very specific set of circumstances, the feature could cause unintended behavior. I'm not sure there's an easy solution, though: removing the feature is a no-go, and notifying the user every time they mark something complete is going to annoy more folks than it helps.

Theoretically, we could make a preference for this, but do that across the board and you end up with preference panes as numerous/complex as Eudora. Which is not a good thing, in my personal opinion. ;-)

[QUOTE=Brian;38344] Theoretically, we could make a preference for this, but do that across the board and you end up with preference panes as numerous/complex as Eudora. Which is not a good thing, in my personal opinion. ;-)[/QUOTE]

Agreed! However, defaults write com.omnigroup.omnifocus warnOnSpaceCompletion YES might work. If I have to read the documentation anyway that is :)

[QUOTE=gumby;38326]I think it's inconvenient to have the "empty voice mail" task reappear as soon as I mark it completed (if I understand Toadling's point above) if I missed one or several.[/QUOTE]

If you set the repeating start date so that it starts again a few hours (or days or whatever) after you complete it, it won't reappear until then.

[QUOTE=Brian;38344]I'm not sure there's an easy solution, though: removing the feature is a no-go, and notifying the user every time they mark something complete is going to annoy more folks than it helps.[/QUOTE]

We can solve this confusion with better interface feedback, such as animating the completion (and disappearance) or playing a nice satisfying "checked off" sound effect or both. We just didn't have time to do that for the initial 1.0 release.

[QUOTE=Ken Case;38361]If you set the repeating start date so that it starts again a few hours (or days or whatever) after you complete it, it won't reappear until then.[/QUOTE]

And to avoid a backlog building up when you miss multiple repeats, set the item to repeat on completion rather than on an assigned date. That way the new repeat interval is only begun once you've completed the previous instance of the item.

-Dennis


PS - Oops, looks like Ken already mentioned this [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=38313&postcount=8"]yesterday[/URL].