I'm starting a new thread so that the "Best and Worst" thread doesn't get completely derailed. There are a lot of strong feelings on this topic, but let's try to keep things constructive. I'm hoping this will be a brainstorming thread, trying to uncover good ideas, rather than competing requests for Omni to implement.
There are many things to like about the View bar (formerly Filter bar) -- but can it be improved? If so, how -- if not, why not?
For now, let's address the terminology.
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Originally Posted by MEP
My vote is for leaving the view bar exactly as it is and making the name "filter bar" again like it used to be.
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I'm not sure "filter" is really the right name for it, given the grouping and sorting options. On the other hand the distinction between "View" and "Perspective" isn't obvious. (I understand what the difference is, but their names don't help.) And why wouldn't the Search bar be part of "filtering" (since that's what it does)? So, on to the first question:
What are folks trying to accomplish when they use the filter/view bar?
The answer to this might help us get at the best name.
It does seem like it's being used to select and arrange the visible tasks. "Select" is too overloaded a term to be useful here, and "arranging" doesn't really include the notion of selecting/filtering.
So what part of your work flow is it? Is it part of your review? Part of your planning? Part of your acting? All of the above?
It does seem like the purpose of this bar is distinct from searching, even if the functionality (i.e. filtering the results) overlaps. When you're searching, you're trying to find something (although I wonder if this means searching should ignore the filters in the view bar...but I'll leave further exploration of functionality to a subsequent post).
The next related question is:
How do people use "Perspectives?"
Again, this might lead us to a name that's more intuitively distinct from "view".
Where does it fit into your work flow? It seems (to me) like this is where I would encapsulate the different GTD stages: immediate actions, daily review, weekly review, planning, etc. Does "perspective" best describe this?
I expect the answers to these questions will eventually contribute to our understanding of the UI, function, and interaction of searching vs. filtering vs. arranging vs. perspectives.