Quote:
Originally Posted by bashosfrog
For instance, when I create my list of to-dos under a project, I often want to put in a "what if?" or "remember this" note in the list. IN the list, as a sort of tickler, not in the note field of the project--I just forget it's there.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LawDaddy
I take the notes in OO and then attach it to a new action item and send it to my inbox for later processing or archiving at a future date. ... But this is still an unfortunate work-around as I end up creating 'dummy' actions to hold notes as you mention.
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I'm not convinced that these kinds of actions are "dummies" or are out of place as "what if?" or "remember this" items. As log as they're phrased as actionable items and can actually come to some kind of resolution, they're just as valid as any more traditional action. And if they're not actionable, they're reference material and can be stored away in your filing system.
My OmniFocus database frequently contains actions that begin with verbs like:
"Think about..."
"Consider doing..."
"Refresh memory on..."
"Decide what to do about..."
etc.
The "Think about..." ones are probably the most ambiguous, but as along as I have some kind of subjective idea of when I can consider them to be throroughly thought out, I can check them off when done.
So these kinds of items are resolvable, they're deserving of my attention, they require concentrated effort, and they're an important step in achieving the project goals. It seems to me like they surely qualify as legitamite actions in OmniFocus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LawDaddy
This is a big deal for me as well. As you may have gathered from discussions throughout this forum, many of us are hoping for a little OmniOutliner functionality built-in to OF in the future.
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I'm a big fan of OmniOutliner too and have used it for many years. However, I'm worried that adding outliner funtionality to OmniFocus' notes fields might be too complicated.
A distinct "Note" item is an interesting idea: basically an item that behaves like an action but that has no checkbox, cannot be completed, maybe has no context, and only appears in planning mode. But I'm personally satisfied keeping all my notes in the notes fields of projects and actions - and I have quite a few notes.
Have you tried the outlining capabilities built-in to Apple's standard text view? They're not nearly as flexible as OmniOutliner, but they're surprisingly effective.
Open TextEdit and type a brief line. Then select the text, go to the Lists menu in the ruler, and choose a marker type. Now, whenever your cursor is in the new list, hitting Return will create a new item and hitting Tab will indent. Shift-Tab will outdent. Hitting Return twice will drop you out of list mode and take you to normal text editing.
The best thing about this outlining capability is that it comes for free with Apple's text view. Some other useful features in Apple's text view:
1) Columnar selections (Option-drag to select columns of text)
2) Non-contiguous selections (Command-select protions of text), which is great for applying the same style in several different place
3) Word completion from the system dictionary (type part of a word and hit Esc or F5)
OmniFocus' notes fields already support word completion (although, you have to use F5 since Esc will exit you from edit mode), but unfortunately none of the other features.
I wonder if support for Apple's text view would be easy for the OmniFocus developers to add and maybe would help alleviate some of the issues brought up in this thread.
-Dennis