Manual sync button seems far away
 

More than once I've entered an item into OmniFocus-iPad and an hour or two later noticed it had not synched to OF on my computer. So I go into the iPad app and manually get it to sync.

There might be a simpler way to do this, but it seems to me that to get the OF iPad app to sync I have to hit the OmniFocus button in the upper left, then hit the little round gear in the upper right of that menu window, then hit Sync Setup, then hit Sync with MobileMe, then hit the Sync button in the upper right of that menu. Five buttons to manually sync.

Is there a simpler way to manually start synching? And if not, shouldn't there be?

And while I'm asking questions ... how come it doesn't automatically sync sometimes? Honestly, there are times when hours pass and some items haven't shown up on the computer from the iPad.

[QUOTE=rogbar;85787]More than once I've entered an item into OmniFocus-iPad and an hour or two later noticed it had not synched to OF on my computer. So I go into the iPad app and manually get it to sync.
[/quote]
Two syncs have to happen; the iPad has to sync the change to the central repository, and the Mac has to do a sync to pick up that change.

One obvious question is whether the iPad was connected to the network when it tried to sync (normally 1 minute after you make a change).
[quote]
There might be a simpler way to do this, but it seems to me that to get the OF iPad app to sync I have to hit the OmniFocus button in the upper left, then hit the little round gear in the upper right of that menu window, then hit Sync Setup, then hit Sync with MobileMe, then hit the Sync button in the upper right of that menu. Five buttons to manually sync.

Is there a simpler way to manually start synching? And if not, shouldn't there be?
[/quote]
If you are in landscape orientation, tap the sync indicator button at the very upper left corner, above the Quick Entry button. If in portrait orientation, tap OmniFocus, then the sync indicator button just below the OmniFocus button.
[quote]
And while I'm asking questions ... how come it doesn't automatically sync sometimes? Honestly, there are times when hours pass and some items haven't shown up on the computer from the iPad.[/QUOTE]
Most likely that the iPad isn't connected to the internet, in my experience.

[QUOTE=rogbar;85787]
And while I'm asking questions ... how come it doesn't automatically sync sometimes? Honestly, there are times when hours pass and some items haven't shown up on the computer from the iPad.[/QUOTE]

Besides Bill's suggestion, the other thing I've seen is that I'll mark on item complete in OF iPad, then switch immediately to another app. The app can't sync the change to the master database if it isn't running. I understand that conceptually, but it still doesn't stop me from occasionally wondering why that checked off task isn't checked off on the desktop.

One minute between a change and auto synch seems like a very long time. I use so many other apps which synch much faster (iCal, as one example) that it's really easy to forget I need to ALWAYS manually synch OF-iPad. Why? Because there are just too many times I make a change and switch to another app -- forgetting that I'd either need to hang around in OF for a minute or manually synch before switching. So it just makes sense to default to always doing a manual synch before leaving OF. Which I don't always remember anyway.

Hopefully, when iOS 4.2 with multi-tasking comes out synching will be done in the background. Then this would be a moot point.

If you visit [url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/971671/Sites/OmniFocus/Fast%20autosync.html[/url] you'll find a link to set the value of TimeFromFirstEditToSync to 5 seconds and one to reset it to the normal 60 seconds. You have to do this on the device whose behavior you want to change, as it isn't a synchronized setting.

As a followup to that suggestion: you may need to restart OmniFocus for this change to take effect, although anyone who needs it because they quit too quickly after making changes by definition will probably do so in short order :)

Awesome...it works...and, yes, you do need to restart for it to take effect. Thanks!

I was under the impression that OF on iPhone 4 would continue to sync in the background. Just now I tried testing that and it didn't seem to do that.

I think that one of the iOS 4 background APIs could be used by OF to actually trigger a sync when you moved it to the background, but I'm not positive. I would be very happy to see them implement that by November when 4.2 hits the general public.

[QUOTE=gopi;85924]I was under the impression that OF on iPhone 4 would continue to sync in the background. Just now I tried testing that and it didn't seem to do that.
[/quote]
No, what it can do in the background is some of the data processing that happens after a sync, but not the part of the sync where data flows over the network.
[quote]
I think that one of the iOS 4 background APIs could be used by OF to actually trigger a sync when you moved it to the background, but I'm not positive. I would be very happy to see them implement that by November when 4.2 hits the general public.[/QUOTE]
I'm sure they would be happy to do it, too :) The issue as I understand it has been that they've been unable to get useful network access working once in the background.