Date Selector not functioning correctly
 

Why is it that when you pick the Start or Due Date for a task that you are stuck there. I think this is a problem. When you select a date in a Windows application, then the specific date is selected and the date box closes and the cursor jumps out of the date box.
This not the case in OF. Why?

Click on the little calendar icon in the date field that got you there and it will close the date entry widget. Or hit the escape key (might only work in 1.5 and later, I don't recall for certain).

That is what I currently do or I click anywhere outside the date picker. But that is not how it is supposed to work. Coming from from a Windows environment I am not used to small things like this working so awkward. I expected better from the OSX and the OF development team.

I agree, this behavior didn't seem intuitive when I first used it, but it works this way because there are two things to do in the calendar inspector: pick a date and set a time. It would certainly be annoying if the box closed after clicking on a date without letting you set the time.

You have three ways of closing the box: double-click on the date square you want to select, press escape, or click on the calendar icon.

If this is how it is suppose to work - then it is fine. I will do it this way. But it is so backwards giving the impression that the developers don't have a way to sort this out. It is such a minor thing.

Even if you do a Calendar entry on Outlook - smooth. The time picker is next to the date picker after making your pick- each one closes.

It is just frustrating that a super OSX and a world class OF development team doesn't pay enough attention to this or is unable to come up with a better solution.

My understanding (I'm not a developer, so I may be wrong) is that we're using a standard Mac OS X control there.

Microsoft have likely implemented their own version of a date picker - that has some advantages, but also means that we're spending time producing our own version of the tools that Apple gives us, rather than adding features to our own code.

If Apple improves the standard control in future versions of the OS, we have to yank out our own version of the control, and in the meantime, we have more code to maintain. What you're requesting is possible, but there are tradeoffs involved.

[QUOTE=Danny;50057]Even if you do a Calendar entry on Outlook - smooth. The time picker is next to the date picker after making your pick- each one closes[/QUOTE]
As someone who is creating events in Outlook (2003) several times a day, smooth is a very, very poor description of the way this works. To set times for events you first have to tab forward from the date fields and deselect the 'all day' checkbox (which is always checked by default), then you have to shift-tab [I]three times[/I] to go [I]back[/I] to the start time entry field [I]via[/I] both the end time field and the end date field, then tab [I]forward twice[/I] again to set your end time. You can't go from start date> end date> start time> end time in one smooth action at all. Drives me fricking bonkers... and it isn't a minor thing - it's a complete lack of knowledge on the part of the developers of how people will and do use the tool and it isn't fixed in Outlook 2007 either.

That isn't to say that the calendar in OmniFocus is great (or even good - it isn't), but I would rather have the OmniFocus calendar than what I currently have to suffer through with Outlook.
<end rant>

If you make an appointment in Outlook 2003 - what is your impression of the date and time picker functions? I was not referring to creating events.

Well I never, it works as it should with the all day unchecked... why doesn't it do this by default when you double-click the calendar area?

However, I'm not sure that this interface would work for OmniFocus as it is too cluttered. You can't have five boxes to click for date and time entry in OmniFocus as they wouldn't fit very well on a single line, and a substantial number of people don't bother with time entry. It might be better for the inspector though.