[m.wrenn]

I don't quite follow your point about nested tags. Could you explain a little more, please?

As I mentioned, the system is not perfect. However, it is a good half measure to keep us happy until this feature is added.

On the spelling issue, saving the search result as a Perspective prevents you from even having to type in the search field. You just select the Perspective. Also, I have difficulty misspelling "$".

In this proposed work around, the reason for avoiding actual words with real meaning is that those words might appear in a different sentence context. This causes undesirable search results. If you find yourself making a task with something like, "Borrow 5$ from Ed", then a slightly different system would help. For example "A$" as your tag marker.

One critical flaw that makes me still want proper tags is, I don't think you can search on multiple tags with this workaround. Does the OF search function support boolean operations?

[paulduv]

Multiple contexts would be a big benefit for me. No-one can claim, I don't think, that an action with multiple possible contexts doesn't happen in the real world, so why not have that reflected in OF?

Multiple context would be even more beneficial on OF for iPhone. There's a huge amount of functionality that would be available to me in my usage of OF if it handled multiple contexts. I could get into it, but it's been talked about a lot in this tread. (And isn't the length of this thread a clue to how much people want it?)

Seems like the only areas of argument left, then, are around how confusing this would be, or how difficult it would be to add. The former is an interface issue, is it not, and the latter, well, the OF team doesn't have to do anything! I know I'd be putting it at the bottom of the priority list.

There are, what fourteen pages so far of comments? To the OF team, maybe you could come down on the issue either way? If you say, "Nope, ain't doing it. Increases complexity in the software way too much", or "We've heard the arguments, and we're persuaded that multiple contexts is bad for your GTD health", at least then I could move on to the Acceptance stage! :)

[paulduv]

Oh. Nineteen pages of discussion. :)

[Toadling]

Originally Posted by paulduv

To the OF team, maybe you could come down on the issue either way?

I think they have, at least to a certain degree: metadata columns.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost...&postcount=155

-Dennis

[paulduv]

Originally Posted by Toadling

I think they have, at least to a certain degree: metadata columns.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost...&postcount=155

-Dennis

I would think that's as good a system to accomplish some of the same things as multiple categories.

Ultimately, the main impetus for me is to use OF iPhone for location stuff:

Context for actions:
• buy screws
• buy shelves
• ask about drywall

Isn't "Hardware", it's

• Hardware store 1
• Hardware store 2
• Hardware store 3

That's been totally unnecessary up to now: of course I can just decide to check my hardware location from any of those! But, the location-based functions on the iPhone, which would be so awesome for me if it was useable, can't make that decision.

The "Business Search" doesn't seem to be reliable enough, by the way. If it was, or if I could choose, instead of "Current location", multiple locations, that would work to, while avoiding another layer of multiple locations, or tags...

So yeah... If I could attach locations to tags, that'll be great, but there may be other ways to skin that cat.

Thanks for pointing that out... If tags happen, I bet that'll spawn a lot of interesting tricks!

[joelande]

Did you know that you can use boolean searches in the location field?

Such as:
"Ace Hardware" OR "L & M Hardware" OR "True Value Hardware"

[Rauchbier]

Originally Posted by m.wrenn

I don't quite follow your point about nested tags. Could you explain a little more, please?

Just a sample:

You could have a tag "errands" with sub tags "hardware store" and "grocery store".

You could have a tag "People IT department" with sub tags "Jack" and "Joe".

If I have "Jack" on the phone I just select the "Jack" tag and see all the tasks and projects which are related to him.
If I am in a meeting with the IT department I select the "People IT department" tag and I see all the tasks and projects of interest to all of the people I am meeting, including "Jack" and "Joe".

Why is this not possible with contexts? Because for me a context is a place or a work condition like "office", "home" or "phone". But what about "Jack"? I could meet him in the office or call him on the phone. It does not make sense to me to have different office:Jack and phone:Jack contexts since it often does not matter if I speak to him on the phone or in the office.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Rauchbier

Why is this not possible with contexts? Because for me a context is a place or a work condition like "office", "home" or "phone". But what about "Jack"? I could meet him in the office or call him on the phone. It does not make sense to me to have different office:Jack and phone:Jack contexts since it often does not matter if I speak to him on the phone or in the office.

I wouldn't do it that way, either - 99% of the time, the method I'm using to have the conversation is irrelevant. In the rare cases where there's something that I want to discuss in person, I note that in the action.

My setup works like this: I have an "omni" parent context; one of the subcontexts is 'people', with each of the folks I work with underneath. Ditto for friends and other the other high-level context categories I use.

Tasks relating to a given person get filed to the person's context; I check that context when I'm talking to them regardless of the method I'm using.

My 'phone' context doesn't have any subcontexts - it's only used for calls to relatively anonymous folks, businesses, etcetera. Things I'm extremely unlikely to accomplish in person.

[jdh]

I do things much the same way... In fact, to take it one step further, I note the individual things I have to talk to a person about in that person's context (under a parent context called "People"). If I need to make an action item to call a person to drive something forward, then that becomes an item in the Calls context.

In other words, my "Calls" context is a list of calls I need to initiate, not merely a list of things I have to talk about when I'm making calls.

I speak with most of the people I work with on a regular enough basis, however, that there's very rarely any need to put an item both under "People" and "Calls"

[sirvivian]

Originally Posted by Brian

My 'phone' context doesn't have any subcontexts - it's only used for calls to relatively anonymous folks, businesses, etcetera. Things I'm extremely unlikely to accomplish in person.

@Brian thanks for clearing this up. This has been a sticking point for me in my GTD setup. I have long called for the ability to assign tags and multiple contexts in OF, but now I see it's just my understanding of the program and concepts of GTD that needed to change.