New Version of OmniFocus Web Interface [Old Thread]
 

With the [URL=http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=5142]recent announcement[/URL] that the MobileSafari interface is being quasi-dropped from OmniFocus, I decided to roll up my sleeves and fix some of the nagging bugs and interface nitpicks that have bothered me about the app. Please bear in mind that I am not a Ruby developer; I hacked away through trial and error. The changes I made may not be the most elegant, but they seem to work.

[url]http://junk.dansays.com/Web%20Interface.zip[/url]

Here are the changes I've made:

[B]Updated to latest version of iUI[/B]

The iPhone app look-and-feel is based upon [URL=http://www.joehewitt.com/iui/]Joe Hewitt's iUI[/URL] framework. I've updated iui.js to the latest and greatest. The slidey animation appears to be a lot smoother for it.

I also went through iui.css and [URL=http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/cc6bca2f7d10f837/e5a3aa3af1cd8e54]changed[/URL] all [I]box-sizing[/I] references to [I]-webkit-box-sizing[/I]. This fixes the funky behavior of the "add task" mode, where the input box sizes too wide and breaks the viewport constrictions.

[B]Tweaked styling of sub-contexts[/B]

I rely heavily on nested contexts. For example, under my "Errands" context, I have sub-contexts for "East Village," "Soho," "Midtown," etc. This relationship breaks down in the MobileSafari interface, where everything is flattened.

I played around with a number of different ways to visually represent the hierarchy (indenting, prefixing with the parent context) and settled on a simple but effective solution: sub-contexts are given a lighter font weight. It sounds like such a minor adjustment, but for me it makes all the difference in the world. (This won't help people who maintain more than two levels of structure, but then again, it won't hurt them either.)

[IMG]http://junk.dansays.com/omnifocusweb.png[/IMG]

Because of this style change, I removed the rule that restricts contexts to those who have one or more actionable tasks assigned. Empty contexts are now displayed to provide a frame of reference for sub-contexts.

Also: parent contexts now reflect an accurate task count, rather than including the tasks of their children.

[B]Task completion progress indicator[/B]

As visual feedback that a click was registered, a spinning progress indicator now displays when a task checkbox is clicked.

[B]Other minor tweaks[/B]

I added a few more minor tweaks here and there. The page title is properly vertically centered in the title bar. I changed "+" to "Add," to provide a bigger target for my fat thumb. Really minor stuff.

[B]Installation Instructions[/B]
[LIST=1][*]Back up ~/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus/Web Interface/[*]Uncompress "Web Interface.zip" to ~/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus/[*]Open ~/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus/Web Interface/config/Settings.plist and replace the placeholders with your user name, password, and hard drive name.[*]Open Activity Monitor, change "Show" to "All Processes," select the "ruby" process, and click "Quit Process" in the toolbar.[/LIST]
That's it.

[B]Going forward?[/B]

I have a million ideas for improvements to the MobileSafari app. For the time being, I'm going to sit quietly over here and wait to see what Omni decides to officially do with the feature.

If it does find its way back into the official version, Omni is welcome to incorporate my changes. I recognize that port forwarding and dyndns are likely beyond the skillz of the novice user, but I still think it's worth including. (Applications like [URL=http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/lighthouse.html]Lighthouse[/URL] dramatically simplify the process, btw.)

If Omni decides to open source the project, I'd love to play a role. Again, big disclaimer: I am not a Ruby programmer. But I can feel my way around well enough to not trip over the heavy machinery while tweaking Javascript and CSS.

Great work Dan, I will have to get this going when i get back home.

A word of caution: In the most recent builds, Omni seems to have completely removed the web app from OmniFocus, including the hidden preference pane they [URL=http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=22724&postcount=9]said they were going to leave in[/URL].

As such, step four--killing the "ruby" process in the activity monitor--no longer works. In fact, it really messes things up.

As I said repeatedly, I am not a Ruby developer. I'm sure there's a really easy shell command that will restart mongrel, or webrick, or whatever server Omni is (was) using to serve up the web app. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know. Otherwise, the safest way to register the changes is just to reboot.

At some point, I'm going to pick up a Rails book and get my bearings. Omni has been quiet thus far regarding [URL=http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=5202]speculation on a native iPhone OmniFocus companion app[/URL], and if they do go down that road, we're likely looking at mid-2008 before we have a beta. Syncing is hard. I can't live that long without reliable mobile access to my system.

Thankfully, I'm having lots of fun tinkering with this, and I have a roadmap in my head for a hybrid web app that I'm dying to explore. It involves a background process that periodically syncs a read-only iUI-based interface to Safari bookmarks as a [URL=http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=22660&postcount=2]Data URL[/URL]. This will both make the interface really fast, and accessible when connectivity is not available.

When the interface is loaded on the iPhone, an ajax call is attempted back to OmniFocus on the desktop. If it can establish a connection, it pulls down any changes since the last sync, updates tasks, and exposes additional functionality (adding tasks, marking tasks as complete, etc). If it can't, it times out, and the user can just use the read-only interface.

This approach solves a number of problems: speed, offline access and the need to have an always-on desktop connection, and most interestingly, it eliminates the need to configure dyndns, since every time the data url is synced, the current IP address can be updated.

Great work!

I apologize for taking out the preference pane. I didn't realize Michaela had told people how to turn it back on, only that Ken had mentioned how to turn off the launchd setting. My main reason for removing it is that I wanted to remove the extra (significant) space from the download and wanted to remove the whole thing in one commit so it could be rolled back easily if necessary.

I don't think we object to packaging the source and making it available for people to muck with, but we haven't had time to package it up with at least minimal instructions on how to get it running.

Can we PLEASE have some "side-build" with the Web Interface still in the package? (Please, please, please???)

Also, in the interim, can you please let us know which build was the last one with the Web Interface, and make sure that build stays available.

Thanks a million-

-J

[QUOTE=dansays;23190]I have a roadmap in my head for a hybrid web app that I'm dying to explore. It involves a background process that periodically syncs a read-only iUI-based interface to Safari bookmarks as a [URL=http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=22660&postcount=2]Data URL[/URL]. This will both make the interface really fast, and accessible when connectivity is not available.[/QUOTE]

Please take this as a very LARGE vote in favor of this idea; the biggest issue I have is not having access to even a HINT of what my action items are when mobile with iPhone available and no Mac available. Even if the data is not ultra-current, ANYTHING pre-loaded on my iPhone would be huge.

Thanks,

J

I'm new to OmniFocus, and would really like to get this Web Interface feature working, for the obvious reasons (ability to see my task list away from the computer being the main one -- even if it's over the pokey Edge network).

Unfortunately, I do not have an OmniFocus/Web Interface folder. I have to assume it's safe to replace the one that's there, but then I'm not sure what to do about the (non-existent) ruby process. I _am_ a ruby developer, so maybe someone could explain to me how this thing used to work, and I can replicate it?

James

Hmm, scratch that, having unpacked the source it's obvious that this is just a standard Rails app, configured to run WEBrick. If anyone is trying to start it up, unpack what dansays posted and you'll be able to start it easily enough from a shell by running ~/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus/Web Interface/script/server

I'm going to look through the source so I can understand how this interfaces with OmniFocus itself, will let folks know more as I work it out.

James

Aha, it's using AppScript, very cool...

Great, thanks for the info, and please do keep us posted!

The fact that this is using AppScript makes me very hopeful that it would make sense to open source the existing code, even if the Omni folks don't want to end up supporting it themselves. I say that because Omni apps are known for being scriptable, so while this is all a bit of a hack (a web server running appscript talking to the running app qualifies as a hack in my book anyway) -- it's a hack that doesn't take a lot of [extra] effort to keep working.

I'm still piecing through the code, and it references a SQLite instance in the config files, but I don't see any Rails model objects. Maybe the developer can confirm or deny that SQLite is needed?

EXCELLENT improvement on the WebInterface!
 

[QUOTE=dansays;23034]I also went through iui.css and [URL=http://groups.google.com/group/iphonewebdev/browse_thread/thread/cc6bca2f7d10f837/e5a3aa3af1cd8e54]changed[/URL] all [I]box-sizing[/I] references to [I]-webkit-box-sizing[/I]. This fixes the funky behavior of the "add task" mode, where the input box sizes too wide and breaks the viewport constrictions.[/QUOTE]

I am guessing that "viewport constrictions" is programmer-speak for "I could never get the text selection loupe to come up", since that is finally [B]fixed![/B] (small dance of joy… :-)

[B]THANK YOU!!![/B]

That said, I guess this thread is now supposed to move over to "OmniFocus Extras", since I sincerely hope that your mods will remain an active item until the fabled iPhone SDK allows Omni to get into the iPhone directly…

Even if they're able to run the app on an iPhone (may that day come soon), I can imagine a web interface would still be useful for the teaming masses who have yet to buy one.

Sub-context changes also great
 

[QUOTE=dansays;23034][B]Tweaked styling of sub-contexts[/B]

I rely heavily on nested contexts. For example, under my "Errands" context, I have sub-contexts for "East Village," "Soho," "Midtown," etc. This relationship breaks down in the MobileSafari interface, where everything is flattened.

I played around with a number of different ways to visually represent the hierarchy (indenting, prefixing with the parent context) and settled on a simple but effective solution: sub-contexts are given a lighter font weight. It sounds like such a minor adjustment, but for me it makes all the difference in the world.[/QUOTE]

…and for me as well. The next bit of magic I'd love to see you pull out of a hat (this is what you get for doing cool stuff ;-) would be some way to choose to NOT see a context that has no items (excepting, of course, empty [I]parents[/I] of contexts that [I]do[/I] have items).

While being able to turn this on/off within the interface would be VERY cool, even if this preference could be specified in the .plist that would be fine with me.

Thanks again,

J

Ok, I got the Rails webapp working... The main 'trick' is that the working directory has to be .../Web Interface, or the RAILS_HOME variable ends up not being set correctly. So, two steps:

1) cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/OmniFocus/Web\ Interface
2) ./script/server

If you've never done this before, this _won't_ work, you need to also edit Settings.plist, and minimally replace YOUR_PASSWORD and YOUR_USERNAME with the values you wish to use. None of the app is accessible without authenticating.

The bit about Settings there is a little too terse I realized, so here's more:

There's a file in the Web Interface zip that dansays posted called Settings.plist. It's located in the config directory underneath Web Interface, assuming you followed his instructions on installation.

If you edit that file (TextEdit works fine), you'll notice a number of key/string entries. Each of these is an environment variable that config/environment.rb needs present to set values that the rest of the app depends on. Actually, some of them appear not to be used, but the ones that are used are:

password -- set this to whatever password you want to use to access the app

user -- set this to whatever username you want to use to access the app

posix_path -- this must correspond to the path where OmniFocus.app lives. /Applications/OmniFocus.app is the default and should work for anyone who follows the default installation method.

The rest of the values seem to be unused, at least by ruby. That means hfs_path, port, and revision can be left alone I believe. Note that WEBrick by default starts up on port 3000, and if you want to change that there are other ways to do so, so the app will be running on port 3000 unless you configure it to run elsewhere.

Hey this is great - I finally got a chance to mess with the sneaky peek again, only to find out the web interface was dropped (which is my main selling point for the moment). Between the new version you guys posted, and how to get it to work again, it works great on my iphone. Thanks for working on this, and I hope you guys can get this packaged as a semi-official open source build.

[QUOTE=jwaldrop;23296]The fact that this is using AppScript makes me very hopeful that it would make sense to open source the existing code, even if the Omni folks don't want to end up supporting it themselves. I say that because Omni apps are known for being scriptable, so while this is all a bit of a hack (a web server running appscript talking to the running app qualifies as a hack in my book anyway) -- it's a hack that doesn't take a lot of [extra] effort to keep working.[/quote]

Truly, a hack, but a fun one =)

[QUOTE=jwaldrop;23296]I'm still piecing through the code, and it references a SQLite instance in the config files, but I don't see any Rails model objects. Maybe the developer can confirm or deny that SQLite is needed?[/QUOTE]

That's just part of the template rails project that we didn't trim out. All the data is stored in OmniFocus with rb-appscript being used to get at it from rails.

I agree this is great, and it cool someone took the time to do it. What I would love, since I don't have an iphone, is for some brainy soul to do what needs to be done to get this thing working over https, so it's a bit more secure to check it remotely over wifi from my laptop or ipaq.

I also wish the pages rendered correctly in firefox, but I could live with the present rendering behavior if I could connect securely to the lists.

Being able to direct new tasks to a context when you enter them would also be cool. But isn't essential.

As it stands, it's barebones, but certainly gets the job done, except for the security.

[QUOTE=kingsinger;23339]I agree this is great, and it cool someone took the time to do it. What I would love, since I don't have an iphone, is for some brainy soul to do what needs to be done to get this thing working over https, so it's a bit more secure to check it remotely over wifi from my laptop or ipaq.

I also wish the pages rendered correctly in firefox, but I could live with the present rendering behavior if I could connect securely to the lists.

Being able to direct new tasks to a context when you enter them would also be cool. But isn't essential.
[/QUOTE]

I'm not enough of a browser scripting guy to know how to get stuff rendering correctly in Firefox, but the rest of that is something I would like to see working as well, so it will probably happen sooner rather than later.

As a default implementation, my thinking was that if you're looking at a context, and hit Add, the item that you add should go to that context, not to the Inbox. Does anyone see a reason that wouldn't work? I'll have to figure out how to do that from the AppScript side, but I'd be surprised if it isn't just that easy.

As far as HTTPS goes, not something I've done with WEBrick since it's not usually used in production, but that is definitely something I've setup before with Apache and mongrel. Since MacOS comes with Apache and mongrel is just a rubygem away it's quite possible to take that approach, but I also see that WEBrick has some SSL configuration options, so I'll take a stab at enabling it there first. KISS.

James

Ok, to enable SSL in WEBrick, you must get the environment variable USE_SSL set to something ("true" works fine). There are multiple ways to skin this cat, but the simplest in my opinion would be to edit the file script/server and add this line after the first line which specifies the ruby interpreter:

ENV["USE_SSL"] = "true"

So, the file then looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/ruby
ENV["USE_SSL"] = "true"
require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../config/boot'
require 'commands/server'


The reason this works is because environment.rb will dynamically redefine the initialize method for the HTTP server to force SSL as long as ENV["USE_SSL"] evaluates to something.

Note that this will _still_ start WEBrick up on port 3000, and it is not a mixed-mode server, it will only support HTTPS at that point. Also it's using a locally-generated certificate, which your browser may require you to jump through some hoops to trust. Another thing, assuming you are port-forwarding, the host name of your NAT device and the hostname of your OmniFocus box are not likely to be the same. This means your browser will additionally complain about a name mismatch in the cert. You can fix this by changing a line near the end of config/environment.rb:

:SSLCertName => [ [ "CN", WEBrick::Utils::getservername ] ]

Replace the WEBrick::Utils::getservername bit with the DNS of your NAT device and this warning should go away.

If all of that is too complicated, you don't have to do it, just edit script/server as described at the top of this post and you'll probably be fine.

James

Btw, if you end up doing this, the first time you restart WEBrick you're likely to get an error the next time you hit the site that says the certificate it's presenting uses the same serial number as another certificate from the same authority. This is due to a bug in WEBrick -- certificate serial numbers are meant to be a unique positive number, but WEBrick's ssl.rb has the following line:

cert.serial = 0

This means every time it runs, it creates a new certificate (this is fine given that you're not giving it a real certificate to use) -- but it generates the new certificate with the same serial number every time, and a solid SSL implementation will declare the new certificate invalid at the client side (Firefox definitely does this).

The solution is to patch WEBrick, so you have to go and find it's ssl.rb -- on my system it's in /opt/local/lib/ruby/1.8/webrick, but it's likely to be elsewhere for most people. For me that line is 54, but it should be easy to find regardless. You can change it to this:

cert.serial = Time.now.to_i

That means it will get a new serial number every time you restart the server, provided you don't restart extremely rapidly. ;)

So... how do I make it work?
 

I am very much looking forward to installing the web-app. I read through the complete post, and I am unsure as to whether the original instructions still do the trick.

If anyone can summarize how to install and how to access the taks in the iPhone (or how to publish to the web) that would be great. I joined OmniFocus app after the web support was eliminated so I kind of lack the context.

I would really appreciate it! Thanks.

Here's instructions that will work as long as you are comfortable with working in a shell:

1) Download the zip dansays posted

2) Unpack it. It doesn't really matter where, or what you name it, but make sure you can get back there

3) cd into the new directory (by default named Web Interface)

4) Edit config/Settings.plist, as described in my post on the subject, you'll need to put a username and password in at the bare minimum

5) from a shell, run: script/server

6) from a browser, connect to localhost:3000, you should be prompted for a username and password to login, which will be the ones you set in Settings.plist.

7) If you want to access this site from the public Internet, ie when you're travelling, you must have a valid public IP address that you control and can either directly run OmniFocus on (ie, it's a Mac that is on the public net for whatever reason) or port forward from a NAT device to the Mac on your internal network that is running OmniFocus. I'm not going to attempt to explain this in any more detail than that, your network device will have documentation on how to setup port forwarding.

If any of this doesn't work, freel free to post here.

FWIW, it should be relatively easy to write an installer that will install all of this and set it up so that it will run in daemon mode every time you restart the server. I think doing that should wait for official word from Omni as to whether or not they're going to maintain this in the long run.

It's really a seperate component, though, except for the fact that OmniFocus needs to be running for it to work. It could just as easily start OmniFocus as OmniFocus could start it.

I'm also not going to personally be making major changes to the codebase until I know what's going to happen to it, since managing multiple sets of patches without a versioning system is painful, and putting it under something like Rubyforge would have to be approved by Omni, since they own the copyright on the current code. It could be replicated of course, if necessary, but I don't see why that would be desirable.

Thanks SO much. I appreciate it. I might wait a bit to see if eventually and installer is made. I am quite new in the mac platform, and many of the things you mention I am not yet quite comfrotable with. I'll follow this topics to see what happens. Thanks a lot.

Submitting this to rubyforge (or some other open source repository) sounds great. Here's the (MIT-esque) copyright we'd like to see on that code:

[QUOTE]
Copyright 2007 Omni Development, Inc. All rights reserved.

OPEN PERMISSION TO USE AND REPRODUCE OMNI SOURCE CODE SOFTWARE

Omni Source Code software is available from The Omni Group on their web
site at [url]www.omnigroup.com[/url].

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

Any original copyright notices and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
[/QUOTE]

I'm sorry we haven't had much time to move forward with this (applying the copyright, publishing it somewhere); if anyone would like to help us with this, we welcome your assistance!

[QUOTE=Ken Case;23479]I'm sorry we haven't had much time to move forward with this (applying the copyright, publishing it somewhere); if anyone would like to help us with this, we welcome your assistance![/QUOTE]What would be needed in terms of publishing it? I have enough bandwidth to spare. Do we need something like a CMS? Or just a web page with a download?

Jim

No need for bandwidth, we mostly just need permission to go forth and make it prosper. Sounds like we have that (thanks Ken Case!), so we should put it on ruby-forge. It could go elsewhere, but given that it's a Rails app, that's its most natural home.

At any rate, definitely need to move this discussion to the third party forum now. :)

James

Is it working with Leopard?

I can not start up the server anymore.

I just upgraded to Leopard, will let you know when I have some time to try it out. FWIW, I don't know why it wouldn't work, Leopard updated the version of Ruby I think, but it should be fine.

[QUOTE=jwaldrop;23743]I just upgraded to Leopard, will let you know when I have some time to try it out. FWIW, I don't know why it wouldn't work, Leopard updated the version of Ruby I think, but it should be fine.[/QUOTE]

Well this is interesting. Two things changed... first of all, the script is now starting Mongrel instead of WEBrick. I assume that's because Leopard included Mongrel, but I'll have to dig more to make sure that's why it's happening.

Second thing is a little more problematic:

CommandError
OSERROR: -1728
MESSAGE: Can't get reference.
COMMAND: app("/Applications/OmniFocus.app").documents.ID("aQ-DsLkWvvI").contexts.ID("k8oMhgMt74x").container.name.get()

Anyone else getting this sort of a message after they authenticate?

James

[QUOTE]Is it working with Leopard?

I can not start up the server anymore.[/QUOTE]

It stopped working for me after my Leopard upgrade, as well. The breakage seems to be related to a change in the Applescript interpreter. I hacked my way around it; it's not the most elegant of solutions, but it works.

As a bonus, you get some of the other tweaks I've made since I originally posted: an animated progress spinner when tasks are checked/unchecked, and some stylesheet adjustments.

[url]http://junk.dansays.com/web%20interface.zip[/url]

Great work, Dan! All I need now is an iPhone..

Thanks,

Not only does this now look great on my iPhone, but its also perfectly usable in Safari on the Mac, and its viewable in Internet Explorer on the PC for those of us that have to use it at work- I'll have to try Safari on the PC as well and see if I can check tasks off in it too.

Simon

web interface on Treo?
 

If I'm brave enough to try the install, will the web interface be usable on my Treo?

Dan and jwaldrop, thank you so much for keeping this thing alive. I am also a Rails developer and am interested in contributing to this project. Even with just the two of you, some sort of SCM would be hugely beneficial, and exponentially so as more people get involved.

This is just great work, thanks! You saved my butt tonight.

Does this application support off-line viewing?
 

I recall someone was working on a version the web interface that would be synched as a favorite through iTunes and could be viewed off line. Is this such application? If not, does anyone know if the attempt to do so resulted in an application that's available? I would love such functionality. EDGE is so slow that even web access when I am away and on the road does not quite cut it. Off line viewing would be awesome. Thanks a lot. Martin.

When I try to run the server, I get the following error:

Last login: Tue Nov 13 00:03:54 on ttys001
/Users/G5/Library/Application\ Support/OmniFocus/Web\ Interface/script/server ; exit;
g5s-power-mac-g5:~ G5$ /Users/G5/Library/Application\ Support/OmniFocus/Web\ Interface/script/server ; exit;
=> Booting Mongrel (use 'script/server webrick' to force WEBrick)
=> Rails application starting on [url]http://0.0.0.0:3000[/url]
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
** Ruby version is up-to-date; cgi_multipart_eof_fix was not loaded
!!! Path to log file not valid: log/mongrel.log
mongrel::start reported an error. Use mongrel_rails mongrel::start -h to get help.
Exiting
logout

[Process completed]

I have little terminal experience, so if you reply, please use simple instructions. Thank you very much for your help.

I can't get this to function any more. It worked fine, I logged out and logged back in, and now it's broken. When I try to load the page, the following appears in my Console log:

launchd[321]: com.omnigroup.omnifocus.web_interface: exited abnormally: Abort trap
launchd[321]: com.omnigroup.omnifocus.web_interface: 9 more failures without living at least 60 seconds will cause job removal


If I keep trying ruby eventually quits and restarts for some reason.
It prompted me for my password one when I restarted it, but now it just dies every time. I'm guessing the OF people broke it somehow.

I rebooted and it fixed things. I'd love to know why. Rebooting is a PITA but if it works, great. I need my mobile contexts! Maybe I am foolish to rely on software for on-the-road urgent updates -- I'm going to have to start printing things just in case. Maybe printing is a better method anyway, but the web interface is very cool.

I have a strange bug - Web Interface forgets my login/password after a few days of use (maybe after reboot?), when I enter URL of web interface it just asks me password and even if I use correct one it asks again and again. Each time I have to roll back my Date Settings install older OF to Stop and Start Web Interface, set new password and change Date/OF version back to current - so please save my soul - let me know why it forgets my password.

Are you using the latest web interface? It sounds like you are not. [url]http://junk.dansays.com/web%20interface.zip[/url]

Having just bought a license for OmniFocus, I wanted to say thank you for your work on this. This makes OF infinitely better for me, as it allows me to access my lists through a web browser on Windows at work, and on my iPhone when I am away from my computers.

So thanks so much!

I just downloaded a copy of Omnifocus today and would love to get the Web Interface running since I am an iPhone user and away from my Mac during most of the day.

With the new version of the web interface still included, what steps do I need to follow in order to set this up? Has some sort of guide been written?

Thanks.

I likewise just want to say "thank you" ... the utility of OF skyrockets with this.

Problem with non English input while adding to Inbox:
entering something in Russian like [QUOTE]"проверка"[/QUOTE] from FireFox, Safari, iPhone i get it messed up in my Inbox like this: [QUOTE]%u043F %u0440 %u043E %u0432 %u0435 %u0440 %u043A %u0430


[/QUOTE] (I added spaces so it doesn't convert codes)

Any ideas how to fix it?


2 wealthychef : Thanks for advice!

[QUOTE=Andrew Petrov;24535]When I try to run the server, I get the following error:

Last login: Tue Nov 13 00:03:54 on ttys001
/Users/G5/Library/Application\ Support/OmniFocus/Web\ Interface/script/server ; exit;
g5s-power-mac-g5:~ G5$ /Users/G5/Library/Application\ Support/OmniFocus/Web\ Interface/script/server ; exit;
=> Booting Mongrel (use 'script/server webrick' to force WEBrick)
=> Rails application starting on [url]http://0.0.0.0:3000[/url]
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
** Ruby version is up-to-date; cgi_multipart_eof_fix was not loaded
!!! Path to log file not valid: log/mongrel.log
mongrel::start reported an error. Use mongrel_rails mongrel::start -h to get help.
Exiting
logout

[Process completed]

I have little terminal experience, so if you reply, please use simple instructions. Thank you very much for your help.[/QUOTE]

Andrew, you just need to switch to the "Web Interface" directory and then call "scripts/server". The Web Interface directory is the home for the rails app, and you have to start the execution from there--or the rails app can't find its bits and pieces to bootstrap itself.

Oh wow.
 

I just downloaded the web interface package, changed the configurations, and then tried it from my local network. Wow. Thanks for all the hard work!

I'm so glad I didn't go through with my own GTD app. I had planned to do something almost exactly like this after hearing about all the cool Leopard APIs. Boy, would this have been a rude surprise ;-)

So, does anyone have a way to hide this all behind some SSL or security? I'm not too wild about letting the Web Interface be visible to the whole wild world of the internet.

Yes: use ssh tunneling, and block the OF port with your router or firewall.

I am new both to omnifocus and the mac but I have kind of got this working. I am now to the point where if I open terminal and enter the following it works...

cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/OmniFocus/Web\ Interface
./script/server

this then runs something (sorry this is where my ignorance comes in)
and as long as the terminal window is open I can surf to my local
machine and access my omnifocus tasks via port 3000.

It works really well but I have two problems with it...

1. I have to remember to launch this every time I reboot my mac.
2. I have a terminal window constantly open.

Is there a way to...

1. run these commands on startup.
2. Hide or remove the need for the terminal window.

Any help would be much appreciated. I am still getting my head around
the way of the mac :)

Please include the iPhone as a 1.x upgrade
 

I have already purchased omnifocus through the presale, but I will be upset if Omni tries to "upgrade" me to a 2.0 version to get iPhone integration. It seems rather obvious that the whole idea of GTD is context dependent action, which requires that Omnifocus is present in every context.

How about a 1.2 version come February, once the iPhone SDK come out?

[QUOTE=boagworld;26154]I am new both to omnifocus and the mac...
(snip)
Is there a way to...

1. run these commands on startup.
2. Hide or remove the need for the terminal window.

Any help would be much appreciated. I am still getting my head around
the way of the mac :)[/QUOTE]

You have two choices: "StartupItems" or "launchd". I find launchd to be confusing and too abstract, a frequent flaw with Apple APIs, but they are more "elegant."

[url]http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/10/21/startup.html[/url]
[url]http://www.courseforum.com/howto_startupitem.html[/url]

there are many more articles out there. BTW, you might want to bookmark osxhints.com.

how do I access the interface on my iPhone
 

This certianly is a newbie question, but I have to ask.

How do I view the web interface on the iPhone. I had success back in July or August with the earlier alpha versions, but I have since misplaced and/or forgotten how to do this.

I can see the interface on my browser at [url]http://0.0.0.0:3000/#_home[/url], but do not know how to setup my system/iphone to view this on the iPhone remotely?

Can anyone point to a thread or give me a quick refresher in simple steps??

Thanks

[QUOTE=doctorscott;26201]
I can see the interface on my browser at [url]http://0.0.0.0:3000/#_home[/url], but do not know how to setup my system/iphone to view this on the iPhone remotely?

Can anyone point to a thread or give me a quick refresher in simple steps??

Thanks[/QUOTE]

You shouldn't have to do anything more. YOu need to know the IP address of your computer (or router if you are behind a router). You have to be able to see your computer from the internet. Google "setting up a web server on OS X" if you don't know what I'm talking about. Then just go to that IP address on your iPhone, port 3000. It works for me.

Thanks
 

The step I forgot of course was substituting my IP address for the 0.0.0.0 part. It works now, thanks.

Big picture comment
 

I'm not using an iPhone(yet) or have the specific need to remotely view OmniFocus via a browser(yet), but I admire the work each of you have done on this so far. Might I suggest a big picture view of how to refine this solution? Yeah, I know, I'm not really asking permission... :)

Mostly I wanted to recommend that instead of running a web server on your personal computer that has OF installed that you consider "syndicating" the content of OF on a well maintained server service. Hint: some of you may have your own Web 2.0 business venture in such a service! I believe these Omni guys are pretty good at outputting XML and it may be that the web interface you dream of actually becomes an XML feed. You can publish your context/project that either gets saved locally or submitted by http(s) to your syndicate server. Your iPhone/gPhone/BEOS toy can subscribe to the feed and have the latest working copy. I wouldn't imagine most people would be making many more changes than perhaps marking items as complete so syncing in reverse would probably be trivial.

I recently reviewed Google's documentation on gdata and the Atom Publishing Protocol and got a sense of where they think interactive web programming is going. From what I understood Google Gears is a big part of making everyone's apps communicate together, especially with Google(of course!). The great thing is that they make it possible for anyone to use their technology even if it doesn't involve and benefit Google directly! Might as well take advantage of that generosity if it make sense to!

Does the Web Interface require login?
 

A couple of questions (some issues touched on above):

a) Can the Web Interface script be run without being logged in?

b) Does it require the OmniFocus app to be running at the same time (this appears to be the case since I see it startup)? If so, can OmniFocus be run as a startup item?

c) Has anyone configured a setup so that the OmniFocus Web Interface is served from a computer that is on, but no user logged in?

d) Has anyone written the required launchd configuration files and, if so, could they be shared with us?

I'm trying to work out how to maintain access to OmniFocus data on my office computer (which is always on, but logged out at night) from both my laptop at home and from an iPhone. (I'd like to sync my home laptop to the data, too, but that looks like it will be a separate issue.)

If this can be made to work, I'm running out to buy my iPhone (woohoo!). If not... well I'm stuck with my Treo until next year, I guess.

Thanks for any insights.

first of all, thanks to everyone for making/keeping this available. it's great as a proof of concept and confirms one of my conclusions: OmniFocus is great for planning and when working with or near the computer, but i need access to my contexts on my mobile device. having access wherever i am? priceless.

it would be great if the data lived in the cloud, accessible by my computers and my iPhone. i vote for a server version of OF.

[QUOTE=chidmf;26489]A couple of questions (some issues touched on above):

a) Can the Web Interface script be run without being logged in?

[/QUOTE]

Tried to restart this last night after a remote reboot, and the answer to this one is: NO.

The web interface is amazing. Thank you to all for your hard work.

I hope to be able to carry my context lists with me on my iPhone, but I only connect when near wifi. Is there some way to take my lists with me? e.g. is it possible for the lists to be exported for use when away from the server connection?

[QUOTE=j2blue;26297]I'm not using an iPhone(yet) or have the specific need to remotely view OmniFocus via a browser(yet), but I admire the work each of you have done on this so far. Might I suggest a big picture view of how to refine this solution? Yeah, I know, I'm not really asking permission... :)

Mostly I wanted to recommend that instead of running a web server on your personal computer that has OF installed that you consider "syndicating" the content of OF on a well maintained server service. ...[/QUOTE]

My question to this is: why? As you make clear, this approach means that you have to add a sync step. The big advantage to your running your own server is that it immediately applies your changes to the actual copy of Omnifocus that you are using. I don't see any upside to running it somewhere else.

My startup item for running the web interface
 

[QUOTE=chidmf;26489]A couple of questions (some issues touched on above):

a) Can the Web Interface script be run without being logged in?

b) Does it require the OmniFocus app to be running at the same time (this appears to be the case since I see it startup)? If so, can OmniFocus be run as a startup item?

c) Has anyone configured a setup so that the OmniFocus Web Interface is served from a computer that is on, but no user logged in?

d) Has anyone written the required launchd configuration files and, if so, could they be shared with us?

I'm trying to work out how to maintain access to OmniFocus data on my office computer (which is always on, but logged out at night) from both my laptop at home and from an iPhone. (I'd like to sync my home laptop to the data, too, but that looks like it will be a separate issue.)

Thanks for any insights.
[/QUOTE]

I have attached my Startup Item, which you put into /Library/Startup Items to make work, with absolutely no guarantee that it does anything useful for you. You must be logged in with OmniFocus running for the whole thing to work, because Omnifocus AFAIK requires you to be logged in to run.
It assumes that the web interface is installed at "/Users/rcook/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus/Web Interface/script/server". You obviously need to change this for your computer. I don't know if the webrick argument works on Tiger.

[QUOTE=Forward Thinker;27185]The web interface is amazing. Thank you to all for your hard work.

I hope to be able to carry my context lists with me on my iPhone, but I only connect when near wifi. Is there some way to take my lists with me? e.g. is it possible for the lists to be exported for use when away from the server connection?[/QUOTE]

No. The case you are asking about is the justification they used for canning this project in the first place. I heard OmniGroup are planning to make a mobile version of OF when apple releases their SDK.

Well, when I'm away from mac, and even out of range of wifi, I still create emails to myself with any new tasks that pop into my mind. When I get back to wifi, they get sent and show up in Inbox.

I don't really need a mobile version of OF yet (but wouldn't that be wonderful!!), but I would like to see the errands and phone lists, for example. In the past I've printed to PDF and emailed it to myself. Any other workflows out there?

I guess your other option is the iCal route. If you get in the habit of syncing regularly, it works ok. I did it with my Palm Treo and iCal for a long time, before I discovered GTD.

wealthychef: Thanks for posting the web interface startup app! Strangely, I can't access your attachment even though I'm registered. It keeps asking for my login credentials. Would you mind posting it to a web site instead?

If you give me a login somewhere and agree to share it publicly, I'll post it on your site, but I don't want to get slashdotted. :-) Or point me to some third party hosting service?

Hello,

I've seen someone asking about exporting...
I've just tried 1Password a few days ago, and they do export to iPhone using a technique I know nothing about : Safari bookmarks. It seems you can have special types of bookmarks that do encapsulate webpages so you can view them locally.
Some explanations here :
[url]http://switchersblog.com/2007/10/05/iphone-password-manager.html[/url]

This could be some way of doing this.
No way to "edit" the information, but at least a way to read it.

What do you think ? Anybody here knows about this ?

OmniFocus Web Interface and Tiger?
 

Does the OmniFocus Web Interface work with Tiger?

Where is the most recent version of it to be found?

If you add a task on the iPhone using OmniFocus Web Interface will it then show up in OF on the Mac?

And can notes that are connected with a task in OF be viewed on the iPhone?

[QUOTE=LeBenoist;27723]Hello,

I've seen someone asking about exporting...
I've just tried 1Password a few days ago, and they do export to iPhone using a technique I know nothing about : Safari bookmarks. It seems you can have special types of bookmarks that do encapsulate webpages so you can view them locally.
Some explanations here :
[url]http://switchersblog.com/2007/10/05/iphone-password-manager.html[/url]

This could be some way of doing this.
No way to "edit" the information, but at least a way to read it.

What do you think ? Anybody here knows about this ?[/QUOTE]

You might want to check this post: [url]http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=26621#post26621[/url]

There is a script that Martin created that allow precisly this.

Thanks ! I'll try it as soon as possible...

How to contribute changes to the code base?
 

I too am a Rails developer and have made some changes to the source: mostly cleanup of the context code and added support for an arbitrary number of sub-contexts. I use indentation to denote the nesting.

Next I'll be looking at supporting a Projects view.

I'd like to contribute my changes and also coordinate work with anyone else who is modifying the code base. Is anyone coordinating this?

Martin

is this working with current builds? If so, is there a current and straightforward guide to installing and using it? I’d LOVE to be able to even just see my tasks for selected contexts (especially ‘ERRANDS’) on my iPhone like I could with iGTD (and it’s sync to .Mac functionality).

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Hoping to bring in some bigger guns
 

I'm a Ruby programmer for a day job, have done some Rails work, and also know a bunch of Ruby and perhaps some Rails devs, also GTD'ers likely buying OF, who will also be excited about this.

This web app may grow up pretty quickly. :D

Of course, this will likely be a totally moot point come February. ;-) Who knows? Perhaps Omni already has a pre-release of the official iPhone SDK. :D

Can anyone Omni comment on the license associated with this web app? For instance, as the source is obviously available, would their be any issue in turning it into, say, a RubyForge project and lining up a bunch of Ruby and Rails devs behind it?

I'm psyched already. If I didn't have work tomorrow morning, I'd fire this puppy up and start hacking away right now!!!! =D

[QUOTE=Evan Light;29042]Can anyone Omni comment on the license associated with this web app? For instance, as the source is obviously available, would their be any issue in turning it into, say, a RubyForge project and lining up a bunch of Ruby and Rails devs behind it?[/QUOTE]

See [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=23479&postcount=27"]my earlier post[/URL] above: we'd be happy to see it posted to rubyforge (or some other open source repository) under our MIT-derived [URL="http://www.omnigroup.com/developer/sourcelicense/"]Omni Source Code License[/URL]. Please feel free to do so!

God, I love you guys!!

I know what I'm doing for the next several nights...

Project submitted to RubyForge. Bed time...

[QUOTE=Evan Light;29045]Project submitted to RubyForge. Bed time...[/QUOTE]
Could you please give the name of the project and maybe a URL? Can mere mortals download and use it yet? thanks

can y’all guess what I'm asking Santa for right about now?

[QUOTE=wealthychef;29064]Could you please give the name of the project and maybe a URL? Can mere mortals download and use it yet? thanks[/QUOTE]

Sorry, not yet. I caught ill just after I posted. I've only just started poking through the code but fortunately it looks fairly simple. :D

The RubyForge project is located at: [url]http://rubyforge.org/projects/omnifocus-ui/[/url]

There are no files to release yet. Hell, I haven't checked the code base into SVN. However, there are certainly a few things to do early on:

- Consider migrating to RubyOSA -- RB-AppScript drives me crazy (sorry, Has).
- Remove the HTML from the controllers. Icky icky!

As for making it usable by "mere mortals", I'm concerned by the exclusion of the user interface for launching the web app from OmniFocus. I can certainly provide instructions for launching it from the command line. Hell, I can probably even write an install script -- but, in the mean time, it would mean that you may have to drop down into the terminal.

Sadly, I'm far more of a Ruby and Rails guy than a Mac programmer. I'll look at that later. Maybe someone else will later be able to help me clean up the installation and launching processes to make them more accessable to the non-coder.

Just got it exposed through a DynamicDNS and working. [B]That will be no simple task for an ordinary Mac user under any circumstances, unfortunately.[/B]

I see that viewing Actions by Context works. It sure would be nice to be able to provide some filtering on those contexts though. Personally, I use the hell out of flags. I'll have to look into that soon.

Ken, have you (Omni) considered having OmniFocus optionally create a VPN to a server maintained by Omni? If you did such, folks could access their OmniFocus data through your network. I realize that would potentially be ugly.

Or are you going to try to provide support/instructions to set folks up with Dynamic DNS? Trying to tell people how to set up port forwarding on their cable modems/routers generically would suck....

Evan, we've considered both these angles (storing other folks' data for them, or walking everyone through setting up dynamic DNS), and they're reasons why we're not doing any more work on the web interface. We're hoping the iPhone SDK gives us better options.

Figured as much. And I wish you guys luck! I'd love to have my OF data on my iPhone instead. In the meantime, I'll keep plugging along on the web app. You've guys already made my dreams come true (ok, some of my dreams are exceedingly lame) in having (1) a proper GTD system and (2) one that I can access on my iPhone right now.

But I definitely need to get this puppy playing with HTTPS soon. ;)

[QUOTE=Evan Light;29298]
- Consider migrating to RubyOSA -- RB-AppScript drives me crazy (sorry, Has).[/QUOTE]

rb-appscript actually worked, in my experience. RubyOSA had a bunch of holes that I kept running into; I started with RubyOSA and actually switched to rb-appscript and had much more fun.

I'm an end user, not a tech guy, but could an interim solution be done via .mac? iGTD has functionality where it will sync with .Mac, then there’s an iPhone app that allows you to see your tasks via that sync. No two way updating, but at least you can see them.

I realize the SDK will probably provide the direction for the ultimate solution here, but I'd think best case we’re looking at late 2nd quarter 2008 before getting a solid app out. In the meantime, sure would be nice to have SOMETHING that at least allows us to see our tasks.

It’s something I already miss from iGTD.

[QUOTE=Tim Wood;29321]rb-appscript actually worked, in my experience. RubyOSA had a bunch of holes that I kept running into; I started with RubyOSA and actually switched to rb-appscript and had much more fun.[/QUOTE]

I've experienced some of those wholes too, Tim. For one thing, RubyOSA is dependent upon the scripting definition of Cocoa apps whereas RB-AppScript isn't, evidentally. However, AppScript seemed a little less OO to me than RubyOSA. Not being an AppleScript geek in the least, Has, the AppScript author, explained to me that AppleScript is not all that OO either and that attempting to make it such, i.e., RubyOSA, results in somewhat of an impedance mismatch.

Anyhoo, switching out RB-AppScript is going to rank fairly low on my list.

I hope to have a good chunk of a week of hacking over the holidays. This will be fun. Thanks again, Omni.

[QUOTE=rmathes;29322]I'm an end user, not a tech guy, but could an interim solution be done via .mac? iGTD has functionality where it will sync with .Mac, then there’s an iPhone app that allows you to see your tasks via that sync. No [/QUOTE]

I don't know about you but even with an iPhone native client, I expect that I will still have some use for a web client. This may turn out to be a long term project for me.

In any event, .Mac may be an answer. Unfortunately, I can't say with much certainty as I don't have a .Mac account.

If .Mac prevented two-way syncing, that would severely limit functionality. The web app would become little more than a Context Action list reader. That solutions does not sit well with me.

How do I get your iPhone app?
 

I can't access your server when I click on the link you provided. I would love to have a copy of your updated mobileSafari app.

John Sheehan

[QUOTE=jsheehan;29378]I can't access your server when I click on the link you provided. I would love to have a copy of your updated mobileSafari app.

John Sheehan[/QUOTE]

I'll try to have a release out sometime this weekend including:
- instructions on firing up the server (I'm not doing it through the preferences pane for OmniFocus)
- some tips on setting up port forwarding
- some tips on setting up dynamic DNS.

This will initially just be the currently released version without any mods.

I expect that I will have some releases with extra features and minor bug fixes sometime early next week.

Add Due Date and Sort By
 

Great app! Thanks for you continued work on this application. Once again Apple has updated the iPhone without addressing to-do's. Puzzling.

I have figured out how to show the remaining vs. available tasks however how would I go about adding a due date to each task and sorting by due date under each task?

I get there and I will be good to go until someone develops a native app.

[QUOTE=kirkwoodman;31287]
I get there and I will be good to go until someone develops a native app.[/QUOTE]

I suspect that Omni will develop a native app -- once the iPhone SDK is in the wild hypothetically next month. ;)

Even so, I'll likely keep working on the web app. Unfortunately, there are places where I can get internet access but cannot bring my iPhone. :-(

[QUOTE=Evan Light;31288]Even so, I'll likely keep working on the web app. Unfortunately, there are places where I can get internet access but cannot bring my iPhone. :-([/QUOTE]

Please do continue the work. It is a great app and I access it via my MacBook Pro and remotely from work. My Dell Laptop on the company network is still faster than iPhone on Edge....

I would like to have both the web and a native app available.

Thanks again. Any direction on the sorting?

[QUOTE=Evan Light;31288]I suspect that Omni will develop a native app -- once the iPhone SDK is in the wild hypothetically next month. ;)
Even so, I'll likely keep working on the web app. [/QUOTE]

I think the SDK is a lock for next month, late is what I hear, but yeah, keep up the work, I use the app every day of my stinking life. :-)

[QUOTE=Evan Light;31288] Unfortunately, there are places where I can get internet access but cannot bring my iPhone. :-([/QUOTE]

What about EDGE? I mean, shouldn't you basically have internet everywhere? Slowish, but there...

[QUOTE=Evan Light]Unfortunately, there are places where I can get internet access but cannot bring my iPhone. :-([QUOTE=wealthychef;31349]What about EDGE? I mean, shouldn't you basically have internet everywhere? Slowish, but there...[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]I think you misunderstood. There are places that Evan can't take his iPhone (I'm guessing due to the fact that it's a camera phone), but once he's inside those places he can get on the Internet and access OmniFocus via this web application.

people are already using the web app? I didn’t think it was available.

If it is, can anyone provide or point me to directions on how to use it?

[QUOTE=rmathes;31407]people are already using the web app? I didn’t think it was available.

If it is, can anyone provide or point me to directions on how to use it?[/QUOTE]

See page 1 of [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=6443"]this thread[/URL].

[QUOTE=Brian;31426]See page 1 of this thread.[/QUOTE]

404 Page not found.

Is the link dead?