Reordering Actions
 

Page 14 of the user manual states...

[QUOTE]To reorder your actions, touch and hold an action then use the handle on the right to drag.
[/QUOTE]

I see no handle when I do that, so I can't drag. What a drag!

What am I missing?

-Steve

[quote]
What am I missing?
[/quote]
The part where the Omni Group properly updates their documentation on the website and in the program after changing the user interface...

The documentation in the app has that same sentence elided from the section where you saw it ("Managing Actions and Projects") but failed to remove it from "Adding Projects and Actions" and both documents seem to omit any description of the most effective way to do this operation as of Sep. 2010 (if not earlier). We had a discussion of this very flaw in the documentation in April/May of this year (in the thread called "[URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=17063"]Moving stuff is a mess[/URL]"), and despite more than one Omni staffer agreeing that the documentation needed fixing, I see no difference, half a year later. Erroneous content still present, missing content still missing. Disappointing, but quality word-smithing takes time!

While you wait, you can read my brief description of how to use drag and drop editing in this post: [url]http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=96377&postcount=44[/url]

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;104774]The part where the Omni Group properly updates their documentation on the website and in the program after changing the user interface...[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the reply. The obvious question (to OG) then becomes, why? What's the rationale behind having to click a button in order to drag items? And of all things a button that says "Edit" when in fact you're not editing anything. I don't get it.

As a new [B]iPad[/B] owner and new [B]OF for iPad[/B] user, I will be posting some comments and questions about the app. The lack of drag and drop functionality is one of the things I don't understand.

While parts of the UI are attractive and well laid out, I find some of the functionality quite awkward and non-intuitive, requiring too much cognition and becoming a distraction when wanting to perform a simple operation. It seems I fight the UI more than I should have to.

Anyway, more to come when I get the time.

-Steve

You're editing the placement of the actions in this case, although you can also delete actions as well.

There [b]is[/b] drag and drop functionality there, and I use it nearly every day. You just have to tap the Edit button first. It's very fluid after that point, and I'd rather tap the Edit button and get into a mode where I can quickly drag things around than to have to tap and hold for a while before I could move each action. Immediate response to drag and drop without some such safeguard would result in a lot of accidental changes, I think. The major annoyance for me with the current implementation is that you can't drag directly something to be the last item in a group, because the program can't tell if I wanted it to be the new last item in the group, or the first item following the group.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;104774]We had a discussion of this very flaw in the documentation in April/May of this year (in the thread called "[URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=17063"]Moving stuff is a mess[/URL]")[/QUOTE]

I glanced over that thread, and I must say that it's heartening to learn that I'm not alone in some of my thoughts about the UI. Opening a dialog, pressing a tab, and then clicking a button called "Move" just to relocate an item?

I'm looking directly at the item I want to move on the right, and I can see exactly where I want to put it in the left sidebar. Why in the name of Steve Jobs can't I drag the darn thing and drop it?! Argh!

Ok, I'll simmah don nah.

:-)

-Steve

Ah, I see what you want to do, you want to drag actions from the right into containers on the left. No, that's not supported, and frankly, I'm skeptical that it would work very well, in general. Once you have more projects or contexts than fit in the sidebar at once, you are better off using the smart match feature in the popup editor. You just type a few characters (not necessarily contiguous ones, the first character of each word often works well) and the list is rapidly winnowed down. I've got > 600 active projects, but can rapidly get to any of them with 2-6 characters.

Dragging and dropping into the sidebar would be a nightmare for me — I don't even do it on the Mac with OF occupying all of a 27" screen. If everything is going to the same place then it might not be so bad for a more typical database, but I rarely find that to be the case except when I'm initially creating the project, and in that case, it is even more efficient to just create the project, then populate the actions with the + from inside the project, which saves the step of specifying the project.

There's still plenty of room for improvement, but a number of these choices that seem counter-intuitive at first actually wear pretty well. In my opinion, there are plenty of task managers which look pretty but aren't suited to large workloads; OmniFocus may not win the 5 minute beauty contest, but scales much better. It's worth convincing yourself of its suitability early on, as they offer a 30-day money back guarantee (yes, even though you bought it through the App Store) if ultimately you decide it isn't going to work for you.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;104786]Ah, I see what you want to do, you want to drag actions from the right into containers on the left.[/QUOTE]

That's but ONE of the ways d&d would be useful.

[QUOTE]No, that's not supported[/QUOTE]

Obviously.

[QUOTE]I'm skeptical that it would work very well, in general.[/QUOTE]

I know it would work great for me.

[QUOTE]you are better off using the smart match feature in the popup editor.[/QUOTE]

No, I don't think I am. And who says it has to be one or the other. As I already described, if I can see what I want to drag and I can see where I want to drag it, it's just silly to jump through hoops to perform such a simple operation.

[QUOTE]You just type a few characters...[/QUOTE]

I don't want to type. I just want to put "this" in "there". How difficult should it be!

[QUOTE]Dragging and dropping into the sidebar would be a nightmare for me[/QUOTE]

Then you shouldn't do it. For me, it would be a dream (if well implemented).

[QUOTE]There's still plenty of room for improvement[/QUOTE]

Yes, ample. I'd also like to make multiple discontinuous selections and drag them all at once into a container.

And why are folders and projects styled [I]identically[/I] in the sidebar? And especially if a folder is empty, there's no way to visually discriminate between an empty folder and a project at a glance.

:-/

-Steve