[whpalmer4]

Hi Brad! Sorry I didn't get a chance to answer this earlier.

Originally Posted by likethesky

I'm having this problem and I don't understand this part of Jameson's instructions:

In particular, that "paste any missing info into your main document on the Mac" ...
(1) What is the 'main document' ?

Your regular database. You'll still have a window open for that (unless you closed them all) in addition to the window for the iPhone database gotten by double-clicking on the email attachment. OF will let you have more than one database open at a time, though it will only sync the "main" one which lives in ~/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus.ofocus.

(2) And how do we determine what is missing ?

Ah, well, that's the tricky bit, eh? :)

However, there's a simplifying assumption here which is that you were successfully syncing at one point, so it is only the most recent changes made on your iPhone that weren't synced to your desktop -- the ones since you last successfully synced. You can go to the iPhone database window, do a context mode view and group by last changed and hopefully quickly spot the most recently changed items that need to be copied. Also do last added to catch newly added stuff, and you'll want to check both completed and remaining actions.

I'm also confused by the ", and run a sync. Then, run a sync on your iPhone."
(3) Do you mean run a sync twice ?

Both devices need to do a sync.

(4) Or are you talking about an iPhone Sync with iTunes vs. an OmniFocus database sync and you mean for us to do both?

No, just that you have to do a sync on the desktop OmniFocus and one on the iPhone OmniFocus. Remember, the sync database just sits there in the middle, and whenever you do a sync from a device, OmniFocus retrieves new changes from the sync database and adds changes from the device's local database. So, to get the updated data (the complete database from your desktop after you've added in the "missing" stuff from the iPhone by hand) to the iPhone, you need to first sync the desktop, which puts those changes into the central sync database, and then sync the iPhone, which retrieves those changes. At that point, everyone will be on the same page.

Finally, the last part of the last sentence, "run a sync on the iPhone before you quit the app, without making any edits."
(5) Does this mean when running the Mac version, sync it to your iPhone before quitting?
(6) But what does 'without making any edits' mean? To the iPhone version? Obviously you have to make 'edits' (add tasks, projects, review, check off items, etc.) on both versions at different times, in order to use them...
(7) It doesn't mean to sync to the Mac when finished running the iPhone version, that you have to sync before quitting the iPhone version, does it? That would be hard (I'd have to lug around my Mac everywhere my iPhone goes)! ;)

I think all he is saying is that you should do a sync on the iPhone and then quit, which will have the effect of always flushing out any changes you might have made so that you don't have to repeat this process. And if anything new has come into the database in the mean time (like via the email processing setup), those new changes will be up to date on the iPhone as well. Think of it as reflexively clicking the Save button before exiting the editor :)

Hope that helps!