[Brian]

Here's the response I ended up sending, split into two posts due to size.

Thanks very much for the review! I had a couple thoughts, wanted to offer a bit of help, and had a few corrections.

unfortunately, there is no outline column for the completion date, which means that you can't easily learn what actions you completed on a certain date.

We've got a feature request open on this - I'll add you to the list of users that would like to see it added.

when you check off a repeating action as completed, it simply reappears unchecked, ready for the next repetition, and unless you consult the inspector, you don't understand why.

One thing that might make OmniFocus make a bit more sense with respect to repeating actions:
Select View -> Columns -> Start Date (and/or Due Date)
that'll add the respective columns to the content outline. Now when you complete an action, you'll see the next one appear, but at least the dates will be different.

We were worried about folks finding the app too visually confusing when they first started it up. I think we may have overcompensated for that, though, and are hiding some things that would actually be useful.

After years of futility, Omni finally did what they should have done all along: they hired Ethan to write a full-fledged GTD application

I would question the 'futility' bit - it's not like Ethan sent us a resume on day one, and until we saw the size of the response to kGTD, it wasn't obvious that there was support for a full-fledged app there. You have an engaging writing style, but just because something is obvious in hindsight doesn't mean it was always obvious.

One additional correction: we brought Ethan on board, but in Marketing - he's not actually a developer on OmniFocus.

unfortunately, there is no outline column for the completion date, which means that you can't easily learn what actions you completed on a certain date. Even worse, there is no indication in the outline that a repeating action is repeating;

Completion date column, and visual indication of repeating tasks are both on our feature request list, as well. Adding votes for those features on your behalf.

some sort of reminder alert system

We actually support Growl, so if you have that installed, you'll get notifications when your actions become available/overdue, etc.

OmniFocus can sync with iCal, but actions become iCal To Do Items, not Events, so they don't appear on iCal's calendar; syncing is thus fairly pointless.

We don't sync actions to iCal as events because we didn't think folks wanted an action that starts on Monday and ends on Friday to cover up their entire week. I'm waging a quiet campaign to get that changed in a future version, though. Thoughts about how you'd like this handled would be welcomed; I haven't used In Control.

I tried creating an "Unfeasible" project; but its actions showed up inappropriately among do-able actions. My workaround is to mark the "Unfeasible" project as being "On Hold".

Yep, this is our suggested solution for items like this - I'll double-check that we have a feature request open on adding at least one project in that state to the default configuration as a breadcrumb that it's possible. If we don't, I'll create one. Thanks!

To me, actions in the Inbox are actions; but OmniFocus doesn't agree. For example, I might assign an Inbox action a context, but then leave it untouched, uncertain what more to do with it. In Context mode, such an action is not displayed at all. That seems wrong, somehow.

This is a perfect example of why we behave the way we do, actually - we want to keep your context view full of items that you are sure what to do with, so you can spend time getting things done. We don't want to interrupt you with implicit 'figure out what I need to do with this' actions for the stuff in the inbox...

We wanted to give you the ability to work along in another app, have a thought, and stick it in quick entry without needing to fully think it through. If we treated items in the inbox the same as items in your projects, you could clutter up whatever project you're working on with half-thought-out notes.

This way, when you get to a good stopping point, you can come back to the inbox, fill out the rest of the info on your inbox items, clean up, and everything will show up where you want.

For a parallel project, you see just the first action. (Why, if the actions are parallel?)

Re: next actions - according to David Allen, all projects have exactly 1 next action - that's why parallel projects behave that way. You discovered the workaround, but yeah, this does confuse folks at first. We're chewing it over; this pops up regularly on our user forums, so you're not alone in your thinking.

But for a parallel group, you see all its actions. (Fine, but why this difference from a project?)

I'm not actually able to duplicate this behavior - we only show the first action in the group on my machine. If you're still seeing this, can you send me a screenshot or screencast so I can try to figure out what's going on? It sounds like a bug.

I worry still more that users won't even realize they are viewing a filtered version of the outline.

Yep, this has definitely been proven to be a problem; we're chewing over this one, as well. Adding your suggestions to the item we have open on this in our development database.

So, then, wouldn't you expect that when you've checked off all actions in a group, the group would automatically be checked, and that when you've checked off all groups and actions in a project, the project would automatically be marked Complete?

Completing all the actions in a group or project doesn't automatically imply that the parent item is complete. There's an implicit last step there that we're enforcing - 'think about everything I've done and make sure it's actually done'. In addition to helping you *do* more, we want OmniFocus to help you *plan better*; that's the 'do regular reviews' bit that DA talks about.

There is no way to find groups or projects all of whose actions are completed, so how on earth are you supposed to know?

View -> Sidebar Filter -> Stalled does what you're looking for here.

But in that case, what's the point of having a computer? A pencil and a notebook would be a more helpful interface.

You can't sort pen and paper as easily as you can software data. Short of folding the page, you can't really filter all that well, either.

After a moment of heart-stopping panic, I realize that for some inexplicable reason, Context mode has appeared with all the context headers collapsed

It can be a bit confusing, but it's something folks learn their way through. Given that we have to compute the state of the tree on the fly, defaulting to closed gives you much better performance, and still lets you drill down to the actions you care about. With a couple hundred actions visible in your context view, you'd have a different opinion if the app worked the other way. ;-)

The online help is poorly presented, with inadequate navigation, and without "breadcrumbs" to show you where you are; the style is unnecessarily snarky ("click the kinda arrowy-looking button").

I'll definitely write up the suggestions for better navigation and breadcrumbs. We've had folks thank us for making the help content more approachable/entertaining to read; I'm sorry that came across as snarky to you. Other users disagree.