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Quote:
Originally Posted by mitchellzone View Post
It would be nice if OF had some way of providing a "portal" into related email folders or Finder folders, so I could view everything in a single place when I went to focus on a project.
Isn't that essentially what you have when you link in various items to the notes field of a project? The items could be anywhere on your hard drive (or even on a server if you have remote access to it) and still all be accessible from the project in OmniFocus.

This is exactly how I work, using OmniFocus as a sort of front-end for organizing and managing virtually everything I do.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mitchellzone View Post
I guess it would help me a lot of OF did not simply link to email-based attachments and instead imported them right into the OF database. That would solve half my problem.
By holding down the option key when dragging files/folders to a note field, OmniFocus will embed a copy of the file in your database. There's a similar option in the dialog that appears when you select Edit -> Attach File from the menu bar.

But be warned that there are trade-offs with embedding files in the OmniFocus database. First of all, the database will obviously grow significantly larger depending on the number and types of files you embed. This may or may not be a problem depending on whether you plan to sync your data (particularly to an iPhone).

Another thing to consider is that many embedded file types will not be available for access on an iPhone simply because the iPhone doesn't support those document formats (e.g. an embedded OmniOutliner file obviously won't open on an iPhone). In fact, I believe OmniFocus for iPhone currently only displays audio and picture attachments that originated from the iPhone itself.

Thirdly, once you embed a file, the copy of the file in the database essentially becomes read-only. If you open the embedded file from OmniFocus, make changes, and then save it again, the saved file gets written to a hidden temp folder, not back to the OmniFocus database! This may be less than ideal but simply underscores the fact that OmniFocus was not designed as a repository for reference material. I think the expectation is that most users will keep reference material somewhere else (usually in the filesystem or one of many existing apps designed for such tasks: DevonThink Pro, Yojimbo, Journler, Eagle Filer, etc.).

Hope this helps,
Dennis

Last edited by Toadling; 2008-08-08 at 04:40 PM..