Turn auto-sync off!
 

Can I please have the option, in my $40 professional grade app, to disable auto-sync?

When I'm at work, auto-sync goes and tries to access my home webdav server (which it can't).

It totally gets in my way whenever I bring my iPad to work and try to use OF to record my Actions and the pop-up comes up telling me it can't sync.

Yeah, I know you can't sync here, if I had my way, you wouldn't try to sync every time I open you.

I've posted a [URL="http://people.omnigroup.com/bcovey/DEBUG-LongSync.html"]web page on our site[/URL] with links that will toggle these intervals between their minimum and maximum settings. I'd recommend adding that to your Safari bookmarks so you can access it easily on your devices.

Between the Mac and iPad apps, it looks like three customers have requested a control that does this. We recognize that folks who want this feature feel strongly about it, but we try to avoid adding controls that the vast majority of customers won't want or need. Doing so complicates the UI of the app and makes it more confusing for them.

That said, if other folks out there do want this feature, please email the [EMAIL="omnifocus-ipad@omnigroup.com"]support ninjas[/EMAIL] and let us know you need it. We can certainly add folks to the existing feature requests and consider this again in the future if things change.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Brian. Those links help and a simpler than the previous support response I received.

As far as having the switch or not. I agree with your approach in general, but can't make sense of why your version with the most limited screen space - OF iPhone - has the switch, but your mobile version with the most screen space doesn't. Seems arbitrary to me.

Seems like your syncing library already has the preference built into it, so it's just a matter of adding a button. I know that takes more testing.

But, if I'm only 1 in 3 people in the OF world who would get fired for syncing company info on random WedDav servers out in the cloud, then maybe I'm the crazy one.

Thanks for the help.

I don't think you're crazy at all! Just part of a small group of customers with unique needs.

If you look at OmniFocus for Mac, and then OmniFocus for iPhone, and then OmniFocus for iPad, one of the things you're seeing is an evolution in our thinking.

We started out with a fairly "everything and the kitchen sink, just in case we need it" approach, and from the feedback we've been getting since then, it looks like customers prefer a more thoughtful approach. It's really common for folks to tell us that they want OmniFocus for Mac to be more like the iPad app, for example.

We still want to make our apps powerful and let folks with unique needs tweak them if they need to, but we also want to avoid confusing or distracting them with controls they don't care about. If you can get what you need with an approach that's invisible to the folks that don't, that's a win in our book. :-)

(Oh, and we filed a bug on the bit where the app interrupts your work with an error dialog, as well. If auto-sync is on, we should just let those syncs fail and try again later, rather than bothering you. Sorry I forgot to mention that!)

Also, the auto-sync control for the iPhone/iPod touch app came at a time when the sync code wasn't nearly as well-behaved as it is now. Some of the subsequent improvements, and just generally more experience with how the product fares in the "real world", likely contributed to the developers not having the auto-sync control on the checklist of features needed in OmniFocus for iPad.

I don't know-I could be wrong, but I would expect that if the auto-sync switch goes away on the iPhone, you'll hear more complaints about its absence. The real world also includes many rural areas still serviced by an EDGE network and syncing is unbearable over EDGE or on a 3G network with a weak signal. I appreciate the ability to flip the sync off in remote areas and back on when I have better service. This has not been a problem for me with the iPad as I don't use it anywhere and everywhere like I do my phone.

Brian, it seems the HTML code no longer works? I get a message that it's changing the interval (I set it to 15 years with no AutoSync), but my test still shows items added from each of the three platforms...?

UPDATE: actually, seems to work on the iPAD, but not the iPHONE.

That's not a setting that gets synced; did you invoke it on the iPhone?

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;120733]That's not a setting that gets synced; did you invoke it on the iPhone?[/QUOTE]

Yep, invoked on both.

And you set both options to the 15 year setting?