[gumby]

I have started to dive in with a real project. It'll be great to have a straightforward-to-use (can't say "easy-to-use") app for the mac since MSproject isn't available and anyway is way too hairy.

Some comments in no particular order.

o - My Wacom tablet causes OP to hang every time. I don't know how to trigger a cras dump so I can't give you more info than that.

o - I find the calendar view being a "mode" overkill since it doesn't change often. But this is a taste issue.

o - I just opened it and none of the menu items between modes and the bar next to assignment appeared. Clicking didn't help; customise did.

o - Is there a way to zoom/unzoom the right-hand pane? One of the zoom sliders in iPhoto would be ideal.

o - I'd like to be able to ctrl-click a task to change start or stop dates (for example we can't have furniture delivery before the date the lease gives us occupancy). Right now only the inspector can do this.

o - We use PERT charts to sketch out dependencies and then map them onto a Gantt chart to see if they are doable. I don't know if this is a huge feature or a small on, but it would be quote useful for us.

Thanks, guys, looking forward to this app.
-d

[Greg Titus]

* I've got a Wacom tablet, I'll have to test and see if I can reproduce the problem.

* The calendar 'mode' is there mostly because the calendar is too cramped when it is in an inspector. (Which is what we tried originally.) We also want room to add more calendar controls as time goes on.

* How would you expect the control-click-to-change-dates to work? A popup calendar type control?

* Right now you can open a Graffle file in OmniPlan, and it treats the diagram as a Work Breakdown Structure to generate an outline of tasks in OmniPlan. We want to extend this so that on import it will give you the option of treating the diagram as either WBS, Activity-on-Arrow PERT, or Activity-on-Node PERT.

[sunshine]

I'm using a Wacom tablet (Intuos 3) driver version 4.9.3-3 on a G4 PowerBook and it works perfectly.

[gumby]

Originally Posted by Greg Titus

* The calendar 'mode' is there mostly because the calendar is too cramped when it is in an inspector. (Which is what we tried originally.) We also want room to add more calendar controls as time goes on.

Yeah, I could see this. In that case it's a reasonable tradeoff, and since you can only see one thing at a time then that selector is the right place.

Aha! I understand the problem: it's not a display mode but a window mode!!!! I always think of the term "mode" as referring to ways of looking at the same data. That is, PERT and Gantt charts are sort of "head on and from the side" views of your project. Like the rendered view and source view in a web browser. In all such cases there's a direct isomorphism between the two views.

In this case however you're talking about different inputs to the project: time, resources, holidays etc. In that case the icons and the selector are fine; perhaps "mode" is the wrong word?

Originally Posted by Greg Titus

* How would you expect the control-click-to-change-dates to work? A popup calendar type control?

Exactly, a pop-up ("right-click") menu; selection of one would either pop up a little window (bound to the top in the usual HIG way) select the inspector. I would find the former less invasive and less confusing to the new user. Oh, and if it had a little calendar + clock with the option of typing (like the Date and Time preference Pane) that would be mega-cool, say with a clicker to switch between start and end. Oh yeah and I'd like a pony.

Originally Posted by Greg Titus

* Right now you can open a Graffle file in OmniPlan, and it treats the diagram as a Work Breakdown Structure to generate an outline of tasks in OmniPlan. We want to extend this so that on import it will give you the option of treating the diagram as either WBS, Activity-on-Arrow PERT, or Activity-on-Node PERT.

Excellent. I will fiddle with this. Cool if you could export back too.

[ajrichardson]

Building on these comments, I'd like to see calendar pop-ups anywhere I have to enter a date in the palettes also. Otherwise it's very difficult to figure out Mondays and Fridays - I have to have a calendar app like Entourage open at the same time and keep flipping back and forth. I think this is a must-have item, people are really used to this way of doing dates, and unless I'm missing something there isn't a way to do this in OP.

Cheers,

Adam

[Lizard]

Originally Posted by gumby

o - Is there a way to zoom/unzoom the right-hand pane? One of the zoom sliders in iPhoto would be ideal.

-d

Since I didn't see anyone else address this....
First, there's a little magnifying glass in the upper-right corner to switch from days to weeks to months.
Second, you can just grab and drag anywhere in the headers for the right hand pane. Left zooms you out (makes time periods narrower), right zooms you in (makes time periods wider).

[gumby]

Hmm, I see why it works that way but it's confusing. On the other hand it is direct manipulation and having a million little controls would also be confusing.

[gumby]

Thanks, Sunshine; I have an Intuos 2 and the same driver on the same machine. Locks OP up repeatably. I don't know how to describe it in a bug report though!

[Lizard]

gumby: send us that hardware/driver info (to omniplan@omnigroup.com) and a sample of OmniPlan from activity monitor and even if you're not sure what sequence of actions causes it, we can try and work it out from the sample report.