[rmathes]

Chris, I don’t want to manage start AND due dates. One is enough.

Ken, that would certainly get us closer, yes. Combine that with ‘persisting’ display selections (like I expand tasks due yesterday and close tasks due today or vice versa) and that would work for me.

But I'd argue that’s a bit unnatural of an approach. And using the ‘coming due’ functionality in this way means it’s not available for it’s more natural usage.

The more I think about it, the more I think being able to sort by due or start and then select the groups of tasks I want to focus on, then hitting the ‘focus’ button in the context view is the more organic way to do this. It allows the user to use the View bar to get the basic data they want to work with, and then the Focus bar in the way it seems you intended Focus to be used.

So, for example, I use the functionality the way it’s currently displayed. I then select the tasks from yesterday and today and hit focus and now that’s all I see until I change view selections or unselect Focus.

I can understand why one would want to Focus in on a project, but your paradigm assume they wouldn’t in a context view. That seems to imply we need to Focus while planning but not executing. I’d assert that it’s just as important on the execution side, if not more so.

[ext555]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

Would it help if we added an option for defining "soon" as "today"? (Before midnight, I presume?)

that would be great !!

[wcarozza]

I have been using the context of "Today" for tasks that positively have to be done today. And, I too have used the flag feature. I agree that this is a hole that OF has not figured out and is more effective in iGTD.

-Bill

[bluevelveetaelvis]

Ken, rmathis, et. al.,

Thanks for this thread. I have been wondering how I can zoom in on all my overdue actions. This is something I have been looking for since I started using OF.

The Coming Due filter works great and now I have a Perspective saved with that.

A couple suggestions though:

1. How to filter all due events should be documented in Help when OmniFocus ships.

2. Omni should strongly consider including some default Perspectives. One of which should be All Contexts-Coming Due filtering method discussed in this thread.

3. You might even want to make a stand-alone menu item that does this, though a Perspective would probably suffice as that.

A lot of people, especially those that are new to the app, will really want to be able to easily see all their outstanding tasks easily. I think having it as on e of the default Perspectives on ship would really take care of a few issues here.

If OmniFocus is going for users with no experience in some of the personal organization methods in iGTD, a consistent effort needs to make how to do some to the stuff discussed in this in other busy threads obvious. New tools, buttons, & features is probably the best way to do that. Built-in Help providing a better than nothing solution, though Help has gotten a lot better in Leopard, especially at documenting menu items.

A default Perspective here would serve to introduce people to how Perspectives and Context sorting work, while also making a function readily available for even the most novice of personal organizers.

Also, a couple of other common Perspectives should be provided as well.

Though this might be an unpopular thing to say, Omni, and all developers, should pay attention to what Microsoft has done with Ribbon in Office 2007. Specifically, they have split open the old Menu interface with illustrative icons and sections for each major menu item. This serves as a self-documenting UI, which does not require the user to read in order to use. From a ease of use stand-point M$'s Ribbon is really a big shift. Yeah the Toolbar was there before and yeah Menus have been around forever, but combining them is one of those brilliantly simple ideas that really makes you wonder, "why hasn't it always been like this".

Thanks and thanks for the great app.

- Sam

[jasong]

Originally Posted by bluevelveetaelvis

2. Omni should strongly consider including some default Perspectives. One of which should be All Contexts-Coming Due filtering method discussed in this thread.

3. You might even want to make a stand-alone menu item that does this, though a Perspective would probably suffice as that.

A lot of people, especially those that are new to the app, will really want to be able to easily see all their outstanding tasks easily. I think having it as on e of the default Perspectives on ship would really take care of a few issues here.
- Sam

There are three default perspectives in the system, Remaining Items, Completed Items and All Items. There is certainly space for a couple more.

[braintoniq]

This has been a helpful thread for me. I just purchased OF this morning, even though I have little clue on how to get around it. But the first thing I looked for was a way to show just Today's to-dos, because this is how I worked with GTD in Entourage for the last few years. I switched to the whole Mail/Address Book/iCal/.mac combo with Leopard and immediately saw the need for a third-party app that was more robust with to-dos and the GTD system. I'm glad this Today/Soon feature is up for discussion.

[rmathes]

the advice above utilizing the ‘coming due’ functionality gets us pretty close if you change the preference setting to 24 hours. This gives you a view of what’s due/overdue as of today, plus what’s due tomorrow.

The biggest problem with this approach, besides the fact that it doesn’t just show you what’s due today, is that it eliminates the ability to use ‘coming due’ for what would seem to be its natural use, see what’s coming at you over a certain time frame. 3 days seems a nice fit for me, but I can’t do that because I'm using it to artificially try to create a ‘just today’ view.

Still hoping the developers will remedy what seems to me to be a blatant shortcoming. I’ve been exceptionally impressed with the continuing pace of development. Once this puppy went to public release and on ‘pre-sale’, many people slammed the email clipping functionality and strongly requested the ability to clip an entire email from the email list and OG responded beautifully and quickly. Here’s hoping they do something similar with respect to this issue.

[Jon]

I have read this thread because I too wanted a single list for all items that were due, past due, or due soon (defined as 2 days for me). In this thread, there was a reference to the action filter pop-up. I have not bee able to access this pop-up. Where is it?

[eronel]

In the view bar (which you can turn on from the view menu if it's not showing), the action filter popup is the lozenge with the icon that's a little checkbox with a check in it.

[tokyowagon]

I couldn't agree more with the sentiments expressed by rmathes. The ability to see only what is due today and nothing else is an obvious feature who's ommission seems rather strange.