[bashosfrog]

Apologies if this has already been referred to in the forums. I searched a couple of million words and couldn't find it.

When I fire up OF on Monday morning, I want to look at what projects are due over the next few days. The problem is, OF sorts projects on their action due dates - and because all my actions necessarily precede completion of the project, I can't get meaningful groupings of when projects fall due.

Am I missing something glaringly obvious here, or is this what OF does?

If this is what OF does, can I enter a plea for some means of project-centric sorting?

For me, it's counter-intuitive to list the project "Mulch garden" (due 18-12-07) under the Due Today" grouping, ahead of the project "Submit article xxx" (worth $4000, due 16-12-07), just because OF is sorting on an action in the garden project "Call produce store for hay prices" (due 16-12-07). Some way of sorting projects independent of actions is needed.

Matt

[ptone]

I might be missing something, but did you try assigning a due date directly to the project (either in the inspector or in the content column (if visible))?

You can assign dates to both actions and projects.

-P

[bashosfrog]

That's my problem - I do assign due dates to projects, but OF gives sorting precedence to the actions within those projects. And because actions always precede project completion, this behaviour screws up the ability to get a sorted list of when projects fall due.

[ptone]

I see that now, interestingly I was looking at that in regards to another thread where I think there is a similar confounding of projects and actions.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=6281

A agree that when the filter explicitly states "Sort projects by" that the project due date override the action.

Maybe it would have been simpler to have the project's due date be inherited from the latest action due date of the project.

-P

[bashosfrog]

Inheritance wouldn't work for me - I'd like to think that I finish the last action in a project well before the project's actual deadline. Not that this tends to happen in reality, but ideally speaking ...

[Tim Wood]

In Planning mode, when sorting by due date, OmniFocus sorts the projects by the minimum due date of the incomplete actions in each project. So, as you say, if you have added an action in project A that is due before the entirety of project B, then project A will sort first.

Start & due dates on groups (projects and action groups) provide something like a default start/due date for the actions contained therein -- if you set a due date for a project, all the actions therein are assumed to be due by that date, though some may be due earlier if you set explicit dates on them (later due dates will be clamped to the minimum of the due dates of the containers).

So, given this approach, there is nothing particularly special or more important about a due date on a project vs. one on an action. We still do have some UI ideas to make this more clear and friendly, but they are a little too wild to make it in to 1.0 -- maybe 1.1 or possibly not until 2.x.

In the case you mention, the project is currently more important to you, but there is nothing to say that the action might not be more important in another scenario -- OmniFocus can't make this decision for you. That said, there might be call for some sort of preference to add this behavior to OmniFocus if that's the way you tend to work. I do worry that someone might miss a due date if we take a different approach. OmniFocus is trying to be very conservative and trustworthy here, by ensuring that the project with the overall earliest due action is listed first.