[Toadling]

Originally Posted by MacBerry

Ah, no. This is on a 15 inch MacBook screen, so to make the most of the main window I'd have it full screen if I could. BUT, to accommodate the inspector without having it appear over the top of the main window (with the resultant need to move it about all the time), I have to give it space to the right of the main window.

So although it reduces in height depending on the info in it, all that does is reveal what's behind it. The wasted space is created by the width, not the height.

Hmm, I don't agree with that assertion. The space below the inspector and to the right of your main window is not wasted, even on a small screen (I'm on a 15-inch MBP too). The fact that I can see my desktop and the icons through that relatively small opening is very handy, particularly for dragging files into note fields. It also gives me easy access to other windows behind my OmniFocus window (yes, I know there are other ways to access those windows, but having more paths to my goal almost always makes things easier).

And you don't need to move the inspector window around all the time. Just toggle it with the handy key shortcut (Command-Shift-I). In that respect, it functions very similarly to the inline info approach you mentioned earlier, except that the inspector can operate on multiple records at once and allows you to see more info than could be shown inline without pushing the rest of your contents down and offscreen.

I don't mean to imply that inline info is bad. It'd be nice to have as much as possible inline. Cultured Code's Things does that pretty well. But that additional info should be completely collapsible because it can waste a lot of space by displaying too much detail. I'm not interested in seeing those bits of data most of the time, which is one of the reasons I think the Things interface feels clunky. I really don't like to have the rest of my content moved around or pushed offscreen by the huge amount of space the selected action consumes. Incidentally, a right-hand drawer/sidebar also suffers from the drawback of reducing space in the main content area (relative to the size of the main window) and even shifts content around if the drawer/sidebar is toggled when your main window is set to full screen.

Originally Posted by MacBerry

I don't do mass changes, and I could be wrong but I doubt many people do.

It's the ability to perform an operation on multiple records simultaneously that makes the inspector particularly useful, I think. Perhaps you don't use this capability much, but I do, and I suspect there are others. It's very useful.

Originally Posted by curt.clifton

I click the inspector button in the tool bar, edit the fields, and close the inspector. But practically speaking, I almost never need to edit the fields in the inspector.

I work exactly the same way as Curt: open inspector, make my changes, close inspector. The fact that I don't need to access it very often is what keeps that routine from getting tedious.

I think all of the proposed solutions have their pros and cons. But, IMHO, the inspector windows is still the best (least troublesome?) approach, despite its drawbacks.

-Dennis