Projects in Main Outline
 

Bear with me, this is a little tough to explain. In my Sidebar, I've listed my key clients as "Projects". There are times when I don't have any tasks assigned to a particular client (Project) but still want it showing in the Sidebar. When this happens, I'd rather not see the Project listed in the Main Outline window - it just takes up space and without any assigned tasks beneath, I don't really need it there. Is it possible to have my complete project list in the Sidebar but have only those projects with assigned tasks show up in the Main Outline window?

[QUOTE=tjfallis@blackrockmarketi;99025]Bear with me, this is a little tough to explain. In my Sidebar, I've listed my key clients as "Projects". There are times when I don't have any tasks assigned to a particular client (Project) but still want it showing in the Sidebar. When this happens, I'd rather not see the Project listed in the Main Outline window - it just takes up space and without any assigned tasks beneath, I don't really need it there. Is it possible to have my complete project list in the Sidebar but have only those projects with assigned tasks show up in the Main Outline window?[/QUOTE]

Not in project view; only in context view. Apparently RobTrew has posted a script which can be used to address this behavior but I haven't looked for it. I wish there was a way to hide them as well (the iPhone client doesn't show projects with no next action in the list).

Rob's script is called Where in OF, and can be found [URL="http://web.me.com/robinfrancistrew/Site/Find_in_OmniFocus_by_Query.html"]here[/URL]. A search for "projects where number of available tasks > 0" would show you all projects that have available tasks, including those on hold, in dropped folders, etc. A more tailored search would be "projects where (((status is active) and ((effectively hidden of its folder is false) or (its folder is missing value))) and (number of available tasks > 0))" which is quite a handful to type. Fortunately, the script allows you to build a library of custom searches, and has an abbreviation facility as well so that you could search for "projects where ([Active] and (number of available tasks > 0))". I just reported a bug to Rob that prevents that last abbreviated search from working properly, but no doubt he'll have a fix shortly, and the other searches I mentioned will work in the meantime.

When you run the script, it makes you a window that focuses on the projects that match the search query, so the others are completely hidden from view, even if you switch to context view. However, if you complete enough tasks to make some of the projects no longer eligible to be in the view, they will still remain until you run the search again — it doesn't update dynamically.

It's a great script, and I think the only days where I don't use it are the days where I don't use OmniFocus on the Mac!

I'll take a look tonight ...

(and, in passing, edit the script so that even AppStore-purchased copies of OmniFocus should be able to run it :-)


(application id "com.omnigroup.OmniFocus" --> application id "OFOC")

I've uploaded [URL="http://bit.ly/OF-Find2"]ver 0.739[/URL] of Where in OF, which includes a fix for the issue spotted by whpalmer4, and which has been modified so that Appstore copies of OmniFocus should now be able to run it.