Context settings
 

Could someone explain to me the intended (or unintended but practical) use of inactive contexts vs contexts that do not allow next actions?

I think I sort of understand the [I]idea[/I] of inactive contexts. You might have an action "Photograph the Grand Canyon" with a context @Vacation. If vacation doesn't start for another month, you might want to mark @Vacation as inactive to get it out of the way until then. The problem is that if @Vacation is inactive, then you can't assign an action to it. So if you remember that you also want to photograph Zion, you have to change the status of @Vacation back to active to assign this new action.

So there is something I'm not getting here.

And then what are contexts that don't allow next actions for? Actions that are assigned to a context that doesn't allow next actions appear in the context view if your filter is "All" or "Remaining", but not "Next" or "Available". But how is that useful?

Please clue me in. Thanks.

There's some discussion on your first question [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=3544"]here[/URL].

For your second, I have a "waitingfor" context for which the "doesn't allow next actions" setting works beautifully. I don't want to see those actions when I'm looking at what I can do next (Next or Available), and yet I want the context available when planning projects or adding new actions.

[QUOTE=Craig]There's some discussion on your first question [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=3544"]here[/URL].

For your second, I have a "waitingfor" context for which the "doesn't allow next actions" setting works beautifully. I don't want to see those actions when I'm looking at what I can do next (Next or Available), and yet I want the context available when planning projects or adding new actions.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the pointer to the other thread. The comment about making contexts inactive as a sort of archive thing (e.g. if you change jobs, makes [I]some[/I] sense, but doesn't seem hugely useful. The discussion about constantly activating-deactivating contexts (home vs work) seems crazy-busy to me. I just [B]select[/B] the contexts that are appropriate at any given time. (And when the 'perspectives' feature comes on line, selection-groups will be even easier/quicker).

And I still don't quite get the 'allow next actions' thing. If you don't want to see those actions when you are looking at what you can do next, then just de-select that context. When planning projects, you are probably working projects view, so the context setting is irrelevant.

I guess what I don't understand is what functionality do these settings provide that you can't replicate faster and more simply by just adjusting your context selection state?

I agree that the usefulness of the inactive context seems pretty marginal. Between you and me, I think the programmers had figured out how to make *projects* active or inactive and just figured, since they had the code worked out, they might as well apply it to contexts too...

On the allow next actions question, I do like being able to click below my context lists (deselecting them and thereby selecting all) as a quick way to get all of my actions, but you're right that there are other ways this could be done. But when viewing projects, I do find it very helpful to have my waitingfors formatted differently (grayed and italicized by default) as a way to distinguish them from actions that are truly mine, and that comes from this setting.