[Brian]

Just for the record, the issue the original poster found will be fixed in OmniPlan 1.1.1; there's a release candidate of that version available on the OmniPlan download page.

Originally Posted by kazar

Importing custom columns simply does not work. For example, I have a column in OO called "System Integration" with a combobox list: MAS-90, mail server, ADP Payroll, etc. Upon import I select the choice to import custom data, and OP creates the column but NO DATA IS IMPORTED.

OmniPlan's import of pop-up list columns in Outliner documents is currently broken. We've got a bug open on this, and I've attached your post to that item in the bug database so the development team knows this affects you. I did the same for the bug you found with checkbox columns, as well.

However, the custom data importer does support data from every other column type that OmniOutliner offers.

Originally Posted by kazar

In the Effort column in OP into which the Estimate was imported, any cell that was blank in the Estimate column in OO was populated wtih "8h" in OP.

I can see that this wasn't what you expected, but it isn't a bug. I'll explain.

Open a new OmniPlan document. Add tasks to the document. Just hit the return key a couple of times; don't edit anything else. You'll see that those new tasks are created with a default duration of 8 hours.

Now make a new document in OmniOutliner. Add a duration column. In the duration cell of the first row, enter "0". Add a second row, but don't touch the duration cell for that row. Save the document and import it into OmniPlan. You'll see that the two rows get treated differently. The first row becomes a milestone - a task with no duration - because you explicitly entered a value.

The second row had no value whatsoever, so OmniPlan treated those tasks the same way it treats a task that you create with the enter key; the behavior may not be what you wanted, but it's not random.

In any case, we can probably make this less confusing. I'll add a feature request to give the user some control over how rows with no value should be handled.

Originally Posted by kazar

I find it amazing that OO was not made into a data server for OP. I do a very significant piece of work in OO and then have to go through contortions to correct & tweak the results of an import, and then if I make changes in OO **I NEED ALSO TO MAKE THEM IN OP**.

Each of our applications has an individual file format that's tailored to the needs of that application. OmniPlan can open OmniOutliner documents, and it will work with that data; in that respect, OmniOutliner is a 'data server' for OmniPlan.

What you seem to be asking for, though, is beyond that; you want to open a document in either app, make edits, and have 'the right thing' happen in either one.

We've all seen those news stories about the guy that takes a car and turns it into an airplane. It's an impressive technical feat. But should everyone that wants to get to work in the morning buy an aircar, even if they're not a pilot? Does the aircar get the mileage of a Prius, or perform as well as a Porsche?

In short, purpose-built devices are generally better than all-in-one devices.

Do OmniPlan and OmniOutliner have some features in common? Yes. Should they work well together, where it makes sense to do so? Yes.

But the folks that do script writing in Outliner could care less about gantt charts. And OmniPlan customers don't care nearly as much about text formatting as OmniOutliner customers do. Neither groups should have to pay for features they will never use.

Originally Posted by kazar

OP populated every cell in my "Not Estimated" checkbox column with the number 1!![/i] I could see if my checkboxes were translated into a binary 0-for-unchecked, 1-for-checked, but *EVERY* cell is a 1.

In this case, OmniPlan appears to be doing a "does this cell have a value assigned?" check; both checked and unchecked rows are set to "1".

Written up as a bug.

Originally Posted by kazar

Even more odd, the summary row for the Not Estimate column in OP displays a zero even though its children each has a one in that column. How do 3 ones total zero??

Open an OmniOutliner document. Create one parent row with two children. Give the document a checkbox column, and set the summary pop-up to "State". Check one row, but not the other.

Now switch that column to either "Number" or "Rich Text". You'll note that the summary cell doesn't have anything in it. OmniOutliner doesn't store values for summary cells when the doc gets saved to disk. Since the leaf node values are stored on disk, we read those in when we load the document and display the data in the appropriate place on screen.

OmniPlan can't import data that's not in the file that you're importing. That's what you're seeing.

Originally Posted by kazar

I would basically have to double-maintain everything in OP that I put into OO, which calls into question why I should not just get Merlin2??

It sounds as if you really like OmniOutliner, and it does some of what you want from a project planning app. It doesn't do everything, or you would have no need to export your data at all. Exporting from OmniOutliner out to some other app that does have the project management features that you need is the way we're going to approach this, for the reasons I stated above.

Obviously we'd prefer if that planning app was OmniPlan. We have some bugs that are tripping you up at the moment. We'll get those fixed. But converting a document from one format to another is always going to require you to be mindful. Outliner can save documents to the PDF format, too; that doesn't mean that we should read in any PDF document you throw at it and try to make it into an Outliner file.