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I was thinking of using OF to list the items for which I have appointments, e.g. "visit such-and-such location", which has a specific time and date.

OF doesn't handle this right now, and a few things on the forum lead me to believe it's a philosophical choice: items in OF aren't "appointments", so they sync to iCal as To Do Items rather than Events.

Anyone have thoughts on this? I think it would be useful to use OF as my single capture tool for these items, so I don't have to switch to iCal to input them.
 
But what's the point of recording them if you're not putting them where it can be assessed if they fit your schedule, where your scheduled commitments can be easily reviewed, etc., all of which can be much more easily done with some kind of calendar than with OF?
 
I tend to agree with the Omni Group's thinking on this topic:

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost...3&postcount=49

-Dennis
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig View Post
But what's the point of recording them if you're not putting them where it can be assessed if they fit your schedule, where your scheduled commitments can be easily reviewed, etc., all of which can be much more easily done with some kind of calendar than with OF?
Sorry, I don't understand.

At some point I determined that this is the time/date I'm doing something, either because I decided that somehow, or it was imposed upon me. Regardless, it's the time/date that it's happening, and:

1. I'd like to add it where I'm managing my project commitments

2. I'd like it to show up on my calendar with all my other events so I don't schedule something over it.

When I'm in OF and I'm adding items, it makes sense to me in my workflow to add "visit foobar", enter a date and time that's "due", and have it show up on my calendar as an event.

That way, after the event happens, and I'm back in OF, I can check off that action item as "done" and determine my next steps.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toadling View Post
I tend to agree with the Omni Group's thinking on this topic:

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost...3&postcount=49

-Dennis
An understandable position Omni has taken. I'll have to read that entire thread; it's quite long!

This hasn't been an issue until recently; I've usually just added events to the calendar, and actionable stuff to OF, but I'm now involved in a project where events *are* actionable stuff.

It's an odd feeling.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jasong View Post
This hasn't been an issue until recently; I've usually just added events to the calendar, and actionable stuff to OF, but I'm now involved in a project where events *are* actionable stuff.
Could you give us an example? I sometimes have projects where I can't move forward until I've had a meeting, but I just put the meeting in my calendar and then do one of the following:

1) Set the start date & time on the next action to be at the end of the meeting (especially useful for a sequential project), or

2) Create an action such as "Note decision taken at meeting and proceed accordingly"--also with a start date & time at the end of the meeting.

It works well for me. Part of my morning routine is to scan my calendar for the next week so I'm aware of upcoming meetings and can add any related actions that aren't in OF to my db (usually as items due at or before the meeting time, naturally).
 
I do something a little bit off the best practices beaten path for "optional" calendar events -- I like to keep my calendar clear of anything that isn't definitely going to happen, so I can easily see if I've got any hard conflicts in my schedule. The "optional" events I'll toss into OF with a start and due date corresponding to the start and finish time of the event, and so I'll see them in the morning as I look at my "tickler" perspective. At that point I can pitch it, or work it into my plans for the day, or let it slide for a few hours and see how the day plays out. I think of them as "someday/maybe" calendar events. I get an unobtrusive reminder that it is Free Tuesday at the museum, or family night at the drive-in theater, or any similar "might be fun if we've got the time and the energy" sort of event and the minimal clutter it contributes to OF seems to be much less objectionable than putting it on the calendar where it would force me to look at it more carefully. Your mileage may vary.

I do not do this because I want OF to have a built-in calendar, just to be clear!
 
I would like to see the ability to create an iCal event from Omnifocus i.e.

You select a task, ctrl-click, create ical event. You can then schedule an event in ical with the details for the task pre-populated.

This would be great for scheduling tasks and forward planning. e.g. You have a must do task in OF and want to schedule time to do it. At the beginning of your planning cycle you can block some time in your calendar for the task and fit in your must do tasks around appointments and other events. The task would remain unfinished in OF as you may want to schedule a second session to finish the task.

The iCal sync looks too complicated to me. I like to keep my tasks in OF and just keep fixed scheduled events in ical (including any time critical tasks)

You can create ical events from email messages in this way and that is very useful for scheduling events you hear about via email that are no ical invites. This would work in a similar way.

Last edited by ak56; 2009-10-15 at 05:49 AM..
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ak56 View Post
I would like to see the ability to create an iCal event from Omnifocus...
There is a script in the Extras forum that will do most of what you want-I believe it is 'tasks to iCal'. The script takes a selected task and creates a task in iCal. There is an additional step required in that you have to go to iCal and drag the task on to the calendar to change the task to an event. This solution works well for me for the times I need to create an event from OmniFocus.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Jones View Post
There is a script in the Extras forum that will do most of what you want-I believe it is 'tasks to iCal'.
Thanks for this information. I have tried the script and it works well at getting the tasks into the ical tasks list.

It would be nice to see a method to create an ical event, and some options for what info fields are copied over. But I will definitely work with this script as it goes a long way to making ical integration work better.

Thanks again.
 
 


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