The Omni Group
These forums are now read-only. Please visit our new forums to participate in discussion. A new account will be required to post in the new forums. For more info on the switch, see this post. Thank you!

Go Back   The Omni Group Forums > OmniFocus > OmniFocus for iPhone
FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

 
Not Loving Context Sorting [A: Adjust using View button in v1.13.1 or later.] Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayala View Post
Just been using OF for the past 3 days. Got a question, I just opened a context "@errands" with "available" as the sorting order. The tasks listed are listed in no apparent order unless I'm missing something. They're not alphabetical, they are not listed by date, which I would prefer with due soonest first and they are not grouped together by folders or projects. Just curious if I'm missing something.
Nope. That is the current sorting method. There are a few threads on this. I think they rethinking of adding options to sort and I hope they do.
 
Totally agree. Hopefully options for sort appear soon.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baarogue View Post

It's stuck in Remaining view, instead of Available like I need it to be, with no option to change it. SO I'm stuck scrolling past dozens of tasks that won't become Available for hours, to get to the few I need to be working on.
So if you could have a version of the Due perspective that showed available tasks instead of remaining, you would be okay? Call up Omni support and have them help you construct one. If they won't do it, I will, just send me email at gmail.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jdh View Post
There's another ongoing thread about it over here where Ken explained Omni's logic for making the change (basically matching the iPad version), and indicated he didn't think it would as controversial.

I think the general consensus in that thread is that many others (myself included) want it changed back, or in the very least made available as an option. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next version, as it's made my context views similarly useless in the iPhone app.
What settings would you use on the Mac, if you could put it in your pocket? Or are you saying that you found the old behavior more useful than anything you could do with the Mac version?
 
On the Mac, I always sort my context view by due/flagged. I don't hang out in context view unless I'm actually looking at what I need to do, and I almost never show anything other than "Available" in that view.

The problem is that the Mac version is much more customizable than the iPhone version in terms of how you want to see things, even without using custom perspectives. On the iPhone, the "Context" view is basically a fixed presentation with no customizability.

More importantly, the pre-defined Contexts view is the only view that actually allows you to filter by individual context, by presenting them hierarchically -- a custom perspective doesn't provide a multi-level hierarchy -- it simply shows you ALL of your selected contexts in a single listing.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jdh View Post
On the Mac, I always sort my context view by due/flagged. I don't hang out in context view unless I'm actually looking at what I need to do, and I almost never show anything other than "Available" in that view.

The problem is that the Mac version is much more customizable than the iPhone version in terms of how you want to see things, even without using custom perspectives. On the iPhone, the "Context" view is basically a fixed presentation with no customizability.

More importantly, the pre-defined Contexts view is the only view that actually allows you to filter by individual context, by presenting them hierarchically -- a custom perspective doesn't provide a multi-level hierarchy -- it simply shows you ALL of your selected contexts in a single listing.
Instead of getting the old iPhone functionality back, wouldn't you rather get the Mac functionality on the iPhone/iPad?
 
Of course, but let's stick to goals that are attainable in the short term :)

One suggestion in the other thread was to add a sort control on the view options, which would essentially provide Mac-like functionality in one form (since you can sort the default context views on the Mac). However, Ken expressed some reticence to that idea for fear of adding unnecessary complexity.

Another solution, of course, would be to add a multi-layered view to the perspectives feature -- effectively turning just about every view into a customizable perspective in much the same way as the Mac version now works. To me, that's the ideal solution, but I don't think it's something that's achievable in the next update.

The problem is that the most recent change has broken the existing context view for many of us, creating a more immediate problem that is going to need to be solved. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this change has rendered OmniFocus on the iPhone to be significantly less useful for me.

For me, Context view is a "doing" mode. It is counter-productive to have to scroll down through dozens of tasks that are much lower priority just to check if I have a flagged or due/overdue task buried in there somewhere. The built-in Forecast and Flagged views don't serve as useful of a purpose, since that essentially goes against the context ethos of GTD -- the ability to focus on only those thing that I can do in my current context without needing to clutter my mind with all of the other things that, while possibly important or even urgent, are simply not possible at a given moment.

To work around it, I've had to create more than a dozen custom perspectives (one set for single contexts and a separate set for combinations of sub-contexts), but that's been a nuisance to maintain and more difficult to navigate than the old context view was.

Again, however, ultimately yes, the correct solution would be the same level of customizability as the Mac version, either directly on the device or inherited from the way views are configured on the Mac side (I personally don't care which, but I imagine there's room for a lot more debate on which approach is preferred). It would be fantastic if that type of solution can be delivered in the next near-term update, but I remain somewhat skeptical that this is going to be nearly as simple as returning the current context view to something that's actually useful for getting things done.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jdh View Post
One suggestion in the other thread was to add a sort control on the view options, which would essentially provide Mac-like functionality in one form (since you can sort the default context views on the Mac). However, Ken expressed some reticence to that idea for fear of adding unnecessary complexity.
It seems clear there are good uses for both ways of sorting, so we're looking at providing a sorting option for context lists in our next update.

Last edited by Ken Case; 2011-11-28 at 06:42 AM.. Reason: less jargon
 
Thanks!
 
I am pretty sure that the order they automatically appear in is not arbitrary, even though it seems like it. I believe they are listed in the order in which they were individually added to OF. You can view tasks sorted by due date in the Forecast view, but that seems to be it. I actually think it lacks this sort of sorting capability because they wanted it to, but I could be wrong.
 
Merged the three threads on this topic.

Last edited by Brian; 2011-12-01 at 02:27 PM.. Reason: found another thread. :-)
 
 


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
View->Sorting issue gfadel OmniFocus 1 for Mac 3 2012-12-11 07:54 AM
Sorting in Context whshep OmniFocus for iPad 23 2011-10-18 05:34 PM
Sorting Flagged View Catherine OmniFocus 1 for Mac 13 2010-09-17 06:00 PM
Context button shows Proj. view [A: associated perspective edited; reset to default] stevegray OmniFocus 1 for Mac 3 2010-09-01 01:29 PM
Sorting context/project drop downs in Clippings view? emarmite OmniFocus 1 for Mac 5 2007-11-08 09:08 AM


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 02:25 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.