[joelande]

Last night I added some perspectives to my toolbar.

I noticed after clicking one, the toolbar button indicated a selected state.

However, after changing the filter settings, or even the view mode, the perspective's toolbar button is still indicating it is selected, whcih is misleading.

After doing some searching, I noticed that there is a "Clear Perspective" option in the Perspectives menu. Selecting it clears the selected state of the perspective toolbar button.

So, this leads to a string of questions:

1) Shouldn't the persepctive buttons state be un slected as soon as you change vilter or view mode?

2) What exactly does the "Clear Perspective" menu item do?

3) And finally, does anybody else think that adding a Perspectives toolbar button that included a drop-down menu listing all of your perspectives would be a welcome addition? (adding even three perspectives to the toolbar really east up toolbar space fast!)

[eronel]

These are great questions. I'm glad you raised them; perspectives are something I have meant to use more, but I sort of dropped them for a while until they got more of the kinks worked out.

Your 1) makes a lot of sense.

2) is a question I asked here but got no answer for. I would also add that the little 'x' on the view bar would seem to be a good candidate for clearing out all settings back to a neutral state. But instead when a perspective is in force, it disappears until a setting change is made, when it appears and serves to clear back to the state of the perspective, which is also useful.

Edit: Except that handling of the 'x' is a problem when perspectives are set to show completed items, which also seem to require that the 'x' appear. So in that case, hitting the 'x' does not clear back to the original state of the perspective. I'm very confused by what seem to be inconsistencies related to this 'x' and perspectives.

3) would be great and was also suggested here.

In addition to the related threads already mentioned above, here's another older one:
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=4829

[Journey]

Originally Posted by joelande

3) And finally, does anybody else think that adding a Perspectives toolbar button that included a drop-down menu listing all of your perspectives would be a welcome addition? (adding even three perspectives to the toolbar really east up toolbar space fast!)

Definitely.

[davisre]

Originally Posted by eronel

3) would be great and was also suggested here.

In addition to the related threads already mentioned above, here's another older one:
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=4829

Yeah, OmniFocus is a pretty elegant application, visually, but dropping a few perspective buttons onto the toolbar is an efficient way to uglify it, lickety split. They're handy, but I wonder if there's a better way.

Anyone considering changes to the perspective UI should also think about the relationship to the "focus on project" feature, because together they're a bit confusing, as I've mentioned here.

I like the little X that appears at the right of the view bar. I like anything that returns me to a known state. [Edit: I didn't know about the weirdness with using the X with perspectives that show completed items.] My biggest complaint, after using this app for a couple of months, is that it often leaves me unsure about what I'm looking at -- like when I switch from planning to context view -- which requires me to monkey around with view settings or switch to a known perspective to find something that I know is buried in there.

[joelande]

Originally Posted by davisre

I like the little X that appears at the right of the view bar. I like anything that returns me to a known state. My biggest complaint, after using this app for a couple of months, is that it often leaves me unsure about what I'm looking at -- like when I switch from planning to context view -- which requires me to monkey around with view settings or switch to a known perspective to find something that I know is buried in there.

Me too.

Perfectly said.

I keep thinking there needs to be a way to set it back to "normal" (of course we have to determine what that is, and it woudl be different for many of us--and I think even for each individual person "normal" may be a moving target - at least until we settle into a comfort zone)...

But its more than that...

Like you said, it is hard to determine exactly what state you are currently looking at at any given time. It's because the nature of the program is so fluid, and constantly changing. I don't think OmniFocus will be able to always make this perfectly clear, due to the nature of the program and how it is intended to be used, but I think some small improvements will go a long way:

Some I can think of right away are:
1) Document in detail exactly what a Perspective stores
2) When you change a filter of view of the Perspective, no longer indicate that it is active
3) Allow us to define either a default Perspective, so that Clear Perspective or clicking the little "X" on the View bar returns us to that known sate
4) Add the "On Hold" indicator icon to Singleton Projects that are On Hold
5) The canned Perspectives should be available for us to customize



Here is another example of how the software can leave us confused:
1. I selected OmniFocus built-in "Remaining Items" perspective
2. I set the Projects filter to "Active Projects"
3. I selected my "Hot" Perspective (which switches to context mode and groups by Due)
4. I selected OmniFocus built-in "Remaining Items" perspective again
5. I switch to Projects mode (Active Projects is still filtered)

OK, that's the baseline. Now I:
1. I set the Projects filter to "All Projects"
2. I selected my "Hot" Perspective
3. I selected OmniFocus built-in "Remaining Items" perspective again
4. I switch to Projects mode, but now All Projects are selected

I woudl have guessed that the "remaining Items" perspective was storing the projects filter but it is not.

I have no real reason to know if this is how all perspectives work (I thought the perspectives stored the filter settings), or if it is a bug, or if it a behavior/feature that is exclusive to the built-in perspective.

There is great power in this software. The view of the data is very fluid and dynamic, by design. It just needs some small little bumps to clear some of this stuff up (it is still beta, of course).

There definitely needs to be some improvement to help you feel you know what you are currently looking at.

[xmas]

Hmm... I see the confusion.

Right now the "x" button will take you back to your perspective state (if you have a perspective) or to the default settings.

The tooltip on the "x" should show what it's going to do.

[eronel]

I've had a lot of difficulties with the 'x'. Just now I got into a state where I could not dismiss the 'x'. I'm not sure how I got there, but if I can track it down I'll post it.

Hadn't noticed the tooltip, though. That's cool.