[Leila]

Hi,

I have a college age son who would like to learn to use Omnifocus for the summer while is here living at home.

(If he likes it, I think it will help convince him to replace his broken PC with a Mac before he goes back to school in the fall and then get his own copy of OF.)

Anyway, could you please tell me how we could both use OF on the same machine without having to have separate "user accounts" on the computer? It's my computer and I really prefer to only have one "user." I have a few questions.

1) I believe that I can create another data file... but I'm wondering if someone could answer with any specifics I need. I think I can find the .ofocus file, but I'm wondering if there are any rules about the naming of the second file.

2) Should the second file be stored in the same folder as the first one?

3) How do we switch to his data (and then back) when he wants to get on my computer and access his data?

Thanks so much,
Leila

[Patrix]

Leila,

there is no easy way to accomplish this. On the other hand your son might be interested in doing more with your computer then just using OmniFocus (e.g. surfing, staying in touch with his friends via Facebook etc.). Adding a new user account for him would make things easier (and also block him from accessing your personal stuff). After summer his account can be easily deleted again if necessary.

[Leila]

Actually, we see him using my computer while I help him get his projects set up and organized. Then he'll probably migrate over to the "kid computer" in our household.

This morning I copied my data file over to my desktop and renamed it with his name in it. We deleted all my tasks, projects, and contexts so that he could start fresh. So far so good.

I went back to my file to insure all was intact.

Back to my son's file. This time I showed him how perspectives work and we modified one of mine to better suit his needs. However, when I went back to my file... that change was made in my file as well.

Is it possible to have 2 sets of preferences?

Thanks,
Leila

[whpalmer4]

There's a straightforward, effective way to do this. Set up a separate user account! Turn on Fast User Switching and the whole affair causes very little pain, especially compared to putting things back "just so" after someone else uses your computer, or you make a hash of things trying to work around the behavior of an application that expects to find its data in a specific spot.

If, however, you prefer hammering square pegs into round holes and using chisels as screwdrivers, you could continue along your current path. OmniFocus stores your preferences in ~/Library/Preferences/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus (.plist), and the database (which includes the perspectives) in ~/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus/OmniFocus.ofocus. When you thought you were working only on your demonstration copy, what you were actually doing was opening your own database and your demonstration copy, and any changes to preferences and perspectives were being done to your own database. This functionality is present to allow you to retrieve items from backups and the archive by drag-and-drop; you just double-click the backup file and you get a new window independent of your regular database. Make backup copies of all of those files/directories before doing a demonstration, and restore the originals when you are done.