Some User Controlled Preferences I would Like to See
 

I'd like to see much more user control across the board in Omni Focus. Some of the areas of highest priority include:
[LIST][*]Default Time
[*]Pane Color
[*]Parallel vs. Sequential Projects [*] [*]Time Grouping Units (I'd like to add 'Due within next three days' )
[*]Finer control of which Grouping units expand and which don't [I want today, tomorrow, and next three days (if it existed!) to always expand; I'd want within the next week to not expand ... ]
[*]Badge Color
[*]User Defined Duration Filters ( currently hardwired choices are 5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, > 1 hour, plus 'any' and 'unestimated' -- I'd like to fine tune these to my own liking, notably to add distinctions at the high end).[/LIST]

- Art

[QUOTE=otter;29131]I'd like to see much more user control across the board in Omni Focus. Some of the areas of highest priority include:
[LIST][*]Default Time
[*]Pane Color
[*]Parallel vs. Sequential Projects [*] [*]Time Grouping Units (I'd like to add 'Due within next three days' )
[*]Finer control of which Grouping units expand and which don't [I want today, tomorrow, and next three days (if it existed!) to always expand; I'd want within the next week to not expand ... ]
[*]Badge Color
[*]User Defined Duration Filters ( currently hardwired choices are 5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, > 1 hour, plus 'any' and 'unestimated' -- I'd like to fine tune these to my own liking, notably to add distinctions at the high end).[/LIST]

- Art[/QUOTE]

Ditto on Default (Start and Due) Times and Default Parallel/Sequential. I'd like to see group expand/collapse state saved with the perspective, since I tend to want different states for the same groups in different perspectives.

I like all of these

but tops would be

Parallel vs. Sequential Projects

[QUOTE=curt.clifton;29139]I'd like to see group expand/collapse state saved with the perspective, since I tend to want different states for the same groups in different perspectives.[/QUOTE]

This would add tremendous power to the app IMO.

One additional that I forgot:

I'd like a preference not to open any additional windows. I like using OF as a single window app -- but invariably I find myself accidentally opening additional windows and then wasting additional time closing them.

parallel vs sequential projects as a user preference? Does that mean that the default project would always start out as one or the other? I don't know guys. I use action groups extensively within most if my projects, to permit lots of nested tasks, solely so I can be switching between both parallel and sequential. Let's not encourage OmniGroup to turn "elegant OmniFocus" into "OmniBloated-cus". I hope there's somebody presiding over there at Omnigroup that carefully evaluating the myriad of suggestions that come up in these forums so that the application doesn't get so feature-laden that it becomes good at lots of things, but no longer great at GTD.

[QUOTE=Forward Thinker;29152]parallel vs sequential projects as a user preference? Does that mean that the default project would always start out as one or the other? I don't know guys. I use action groups extensively within most if my projects, to permit lots of nested tasks, solely so I can be switching between both parallel and sequential. Let's not encourage OmniGroup to turn "elegant OmniFocus" into "OmniBloated-cus". I hope there's somebody presiding over there at Omnigroup that carefully evaluating the myriad of suggestions that come up in these forums so that the application doesn't get so feature-laden that it becomes good at lots of things, but no longer great at GTD.[/QUOTE]

Right now projects (at the moment of their creation) are created by default as sequential.

I want to have the option to make them created by default as parallel (otherwise I have to remember to change them manually -- I don't like sequential projects).

In no way would this request negatively affect your ability to do whatever-it-is you-are-talking-about. You would still have the ability to switch back and forth between parallel and sequential as often as desired -- the preference would only affect which of these two states a new project is initially given -- when they are first created.

The reason this is important to me is that the consequence of forgetting to change a project from sequential to parallel is that actions that should show up (if parallel is set) often fail to show up in sequential mode -- and unfortunately this happens a lot. All of these unfortunate occasions could easily be be eliminated with a preference setting.

There certainly is some programing time required in establishing preferences, so OG should absolutely evaluate all such requests carefully. But I fail to see how adding even a large number of preferences will cause the program to bloat.

On the other hand, OG's recent decision to move some preferences from the preference panes into the menu structure has definitely added to the software's bloat. (The view menu is definitely getting out of hand ... ). Hopefully they will not do much more of that.

Otter, i do not disagree with what you are saying. I suspect I am reacting to a fear that, given the sheer number of new feature requests that crop up everyday on this forum, that OG will be lead off track. I also agree with you assessment of the current view menu, and I also, in another thread, advocated for preference-based in lieu of menu- or key-based font control.

[QUOTE=otter;29155] I don't like sequential projects).
[/QUOTE]

I don't think it's a matter of liking or not - they're either needed or not depending on the situation.

But I'm being way too critical here, I understand your thesis. A parallel project by default displays all tasks in context mode, which would become obvious to the user if he forgot to set it otherwise. Sequential projects (now the default) show one task in context mode and it may not be obvious to the user if he forgot to set it back to parallel. Thus one could argue that making parallel the default would be advantageous. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if sequential were used more often.

A preference here would definitely help.