Firstly, do remember this is an alpha release. If you've never worked closely with a developer before, this is probably a
few steps before what you are used to; even if you have tried public betas (which are usually closer to release candidates than anything else). Here, there are parts of the interface that simply do nothing yet. Other parts that do things, but only in a very temporary "get it good enough to work" fashion. It is a work in progress, not a product yet. :)
1) I am sure that this whole bit is just an alpha quirk. You already
can add actions directly to a context--just by doing it differently than you are. At the moment, the easiest way to do it (I think) is set filter to group by Context, and then select the context header in the main area (not the shelf), and press enter. Works for me.
2) Probably another alpha thing, there are a lot of quirks in this particular area of the application at the moment. The ability to even have actions without projects was programmed in last
week, give them some slack here. :)
3) Not really sure what you are getting at here. Since I use the keyboard for everything (hate mousing around), I really have no opinion on what you are talking about. The keyboard shortcuts work splendid for me.
4) Yeah, I have issues with clean up too, but not the same issues. There are two tasks that it does that I know of. One is moving Inbox stuff to appropriate locations. This should definitely be manual. Why would you want OF to move everything out of the Inbox before you've had a chance to look at it and classify it? My problem with it is that it also functions as a way to clear out items that
should be filtered from the view, but are not. If I have a filter set that excludes me adding new actions to a project, OF will temporarily show these new actions as I add them. Rather than hiding them instantly. This is good. When you are done though, hitting Clean Up will restore your view, removing the new actions that do not match the filter. BUT, better hope your Inbox was all ready to clean up, too! Otherwise you might have a dozen actions scattered who knows where, that you may not even really remember enough of what they were to search for them.
5) Processing is informal at the moment.
6) Fully agree on six. I don't like drawers or palettes.
Quote:
|
Simple steps, such as adding a new book to @reading or turning an accidentally-created Project into a single-time Action, are needlessly complicated and continually remind one that they are interfacing with a COMPUTER.
|
Anyway. I don't share your pain with adding actions. I found the process to be quite simple. Quick Entry works just how I need it to. And organising and adding tasks to projects feels just like working in an outliner. That's the way I think. You keep tapping enter to make new tasks below the current one, and using short-cuts to indent/outdent if necessary.
How to change a project into an action? Just drag it down into the appropriate project, or into the Inbox if you want. Same goes for actions that should be projects--just drag them into the shelf. What is so complicated about that?
I tried iGTD and couldn't stand it, honestly. Philosophy differences with how it is designed. I feel tasks should be simple things, and way way too much of the UI is devoted to adding bulk to tasks. It just didn't feel very fluid to me, and that is important to me. I don't plan much. Things change as I work, constantly, and the outliner philosophy works much better for that.