Am I on the right track? Tags workaround.
 

Hello all. Just bought OF and am working on implementing GTD in my life. Great forum you have here! My question is whether or not I'm on the right track with my problem/solution discussed below regarding multiple contexts and tagging.

I know OF doesn't currently support tagging or multiple contexts, but it seems that you can get similar functionality using the notes field and search or perspectives. Like many here, I want to be able to assign an action or project to a context (required resource, etc.), but also to a broader category (e.g. - one or more descriptive tags common among similar items). What I'm doing is using the notes field to "tag" items (actions or projects) by typing something like @finance. I also set the context for each item depending on the required resource, for example Errands-bank, At Computer, etc. When I want to review all of my finance items, I select library in Project mode and then do a search for @finance. This brings up everything. I then seem to be able to save that view as a new perspective that I label "Finance". In the future, when I want to see finance items, I can just click the new Finance perspective and it all pops right back up again. I preserve contexts, but also am able to effectively tag (or multiply tag) items. The only downside I see to this is having to remember and type in my tags each time I add an action or project. But this seems pretty trivial for what I gain in terms of organizational flexibility.

Apologies for the long post, but I'd like people's opinions on my solution here. Is this viable, does it scale, or is there something I'm missing here? Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks!

You're on the right track - I don't use this approach myself, so I can't answer your deeper workflow questions, but I do know that some folks use this approach. Hope that helps at least a little bit. :-)

That's interesting — will the new perspective return a dynamic search, i.e. will it include new entries that you "tagged" [I]after[/I] creating the perspective?

I hope this doesn't come across as too negative, but I have to say this approach reminds me of the way people were trying to do filesystem tagging via "Spotlight Comments" before OpenMeta was developed, i.e. a bit of a kludge. I hope the Omni guys are still working on true tagging (and if it supports OpenMeta I'll be in org Nirvana!).

Not that OpenMeta itself is entirely free of kludginess, but it's a lot more robust than tagging via comments.

[QUOTE=eurobubba;86890]That's interesting — will the new perspective return a dynamic search, i.e. will it include new entries that you "tagged" [I]after[/I] creating the perspective?
[/quote]
perspectives created with saved search strings save the search, not the result, so it works as you would want. Pretty useless otherwise, no?
[quote]

I hope this doesn't come across as too negative, but I have to say this approach reminds me of the way people were trying to do filesystem tagging via "Spotlight Comments" before OpenMeta was developed, i.e. a bit of a kludge. I hope the Omni guys are still working on true tagging (and if it supports OpenMeta I'll be in org Nirvana!).

Not that OpenMeta itself is entirely free of kludginess, but it's a lot more robust than tagging via comments.[/QUOTE]
careful, I don't believe they have ever said they are working on tagging, specifically, just that they would like to build some sort of metadata column which you could populate. It may not be fundamentally different than tagging with comments, except for having a special place to store them and some more integration in the UI.

[QUOTE=Penguin;86866]but it seems that you can get similar functionality using the notes field[/QUOTE]

Hi Penguin,

Just a note (pun unintended!) of caution, and possibly of no interest to you, but if you are thinking of running OmniFocus on an iPhone or iPad, the search function within those Apps does not find anything in the notes field. The technique you are thinking of implementing will only work on the desktop.

One limitation that I have run into with this method of 'tags' is that with OF Mac, a saved, search on note field, context perspective will include 'tagged' tasks in the Inbox while OF on the iPhone will not.

[QUOTE=endoftheQ;86894]The technique you are thinking of implementing will only work on the desktop.[/QUOTE]

If the search is a saved perspective, it will work on the iOS with the limitation I posted above.

[QUOTE=Greg Jones;86896]One limitation that I have run into with this method of 'tags' is that with OF Mac, a saved, search on note field, context perspective will include 'tagged' tasks in the Inbox while OF on the iPhone will not.[/QUOTE]

Greg,

I just made a test perspective and found that my 'tagged' tasks in the Inbox show up on iPhone and iPad, just like they do on the Mac. Perhaps this behavior has changed recently? It would make a certain amount of sense, as Inbox actions now show up in the No Contexts bin, for example, as they are considered actionable by default.

Many thanks all for the considered responses. I confess that just as I was feeling good about my workaround, I went to my iPad and my iPhone and was shocked to realize that I could not search the notes field in items on these devices. What a glaring omission in an otherwise stellar app!

It seems that some of you, however, Greg and whpalmer, are doing something to get perspectives or something else working on these mobile devices to make this system work. How are you doing this?

When I go to perspectives on my iPad, I only see default perspectives and not the new ones on my Mac. I've synced to the DB and still no change in iPad perspectives to mirror the desktop. And I can't even find perspectives or anything to do this with on my iPhone. Is there any way to make this work on mobile devices or some other workaround I should be using?

Many thanks again!

[QUOTE=Penguin;86915]Many thanks all for the considered responses. I confess that just as I was feeling good about my workaround, I went to my iPad and my iPhone and was shocked to realize that I could not search the notes field in items on these devices. What a glaring omission in an otherwise stellar app!

It seems that some of you, however, Greg and whpalmer, are doing something to get perspectives or something else working on these mobile devices to make this system work. How are you doing this?

When I go to perspectives on my iPad, I only see default perspectives and not the new ones on my Mac. I've synced to the DB and still no change in iPad perspectives to mirror the desktop. And I can't even find perspectives or anything to do this with on my iPhone. Is there any way to make this work on mobile devices or some other workaround I should be using?

Many thanks again![/QUOTE]

Hey Penguin!

It may be that you have 'project' based perspectives whereas only 'context' based perspectives get sync'd to iDevices.

I found that 'tagging' in notes without the ability to search those notes within the Apps was a major flaw. I needed to aggregate actions based on notes tags and found the lack of search and the inability to create perspectives on iDevices a serious drawback to kludging 'tags' in notes.