As I noted at length in the previous thread, my issues with the change relate to the fact that items with 'today' due dates no longer show up as red, but are now orange (unless I change the due times, of course). This devaluing of the 'present' (i.e. today) is at the core of my reaction to this change.
But, setting that aspect of the issue aside for a moment, I would also point out that the other issues with time-dates that are being pointed out stem from the design decision to compress date and time effectively into one field. I'm not exactly sure of the rationale behind the decision -- it may have been to save display space by eliminating the need for an additional column, or it may have been that date-time was inherited as an existing database object. Regardless, this decision can be regarded as akin to creating a mailing database in which First Name and Last Name are contained in the same field. (That kind of sometimes convenient decision leads to pain down the road.)
In OF, it would be far preferable for due date and due time to be fully separate fields. In addition to relieving the the life of everyone who doesn't care a whit about due time (such as myself), this would be of tremendous benefit for people who do enter a lot of due times.
As it is now, the ability to access a tremendous amount of information about due times is being lost. If due times were a separate field, it would be possible to filter actions for those that have due times -- and end up with a list of only those actions for which one has actually actively set due times. In effect, this means it would be possible to easily filter ones actual appointments and other scheduled actions from those that have due times because OmniFocus says you have to have one.
Right now, both those who are have no need for due times and those who frequently use due times are both losing out.
Last edited by otter; 2007-12-18 at 04:41 PM..