[Toadling]

Originally Posted by CatOne

if you could define "smart groups" which were actually perspectives, that would be a LOT nicer for me.

If I remember correctly, the Omni Group originally considered smart folders for the initial 1.0 release of OmniFocus but ultimately settled on the perspectives concept instead. There were some advantages to perspectives that Omni Group felt would work better for the app. I can't remember what exactly those points were, but the ability to save window size and position, item selections, collapsed/expanded state, and focus seem like possible reasons. I don't think you'd get those capabilities with traditional smart folders.

Since then, however, I believe Ken Case has stated that smart folders are being considered again. I don't know if that means as a replacement or in addition to perspectives. But maybe we'll soon have the best of both worlds.

If nothing else, smart folders are at least more familiar than perspectives thanks to widespread use in Mac OS X apps.

Originally Posted by CatOne

The main issues I have with OF right now are the inflexibility...

I've always thought one of OmniFocus' greatest strengths was its flexibility! There are a gazillion ways to view your data - a lot more than most other task management apps. But too much flexibility can lead to increased complexity too. It's a thin line.

On the other hand, I agree there are areas that could be improved: like the ability to control sort direction (i.e. the option to sort ascending or descending) and use of OR operators in configuring perspective (which would presumably be handled by smart folders).

Originally Posted by CatOne

and what REALLY gets me is the fact that search misses things (because it does it in your current perspective, and it's not global).

OmniFocus takes a very flexible, straightforward approach: it searches what is currently visible. So search is global if your view is global. And this is exactly how I think it should work. Most of the time, I don't want to search the whole database. And if I do, I just switch to either the built-in "All Items" perspective or use my own custom "All" perspective.

Having said that, I believe Omni Group has mentioned that they intend to add some kind of control to toggle between "Search All" or "Search Current Perspective/Selection." Perhaps this could be implemented as a pulldown menu on the left end of the search field like iTunes uses:



Or as some kind of "search option bar" like Finder and Apple Mail use:



Either way would be an incremental improvement over having to switch to the "All Items" perspective as the end result would be pretty much the same, I think.

-Dennis