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Clean up moves Action Groups out of inbox? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
I have a bunch of action groups in my Inbox. I just started with OF, I'm using the latest 1.1 sneakypeak, and I've discovered that "Clean up" turns any Inbox action groups into projects - even if they have neither context nor project defined.

Is it supposed to do that, or is it a bug? I can't find any discussion of this on the forums.
 
I'm pretty sure that is by design. I rather like it.

-Dennis
 
Never noticed that. My usual practice when fleshing out new projects that started as Inbox entries has been to outdent them, which turns them into a project but they stay in view in the selection (I tend to only have the Inbox selected in the sidebar when working on it) down at the bottom of the list. If I've captured a bunch of related stuff into the Inbox for building up a group of projects, it makes for a nice way to see all the pieces as I shuffle them into the various projects. This allows you to actually complete some items in the Inbox and clean them up to get them out of sight while still working on the processing of those other actions into projects. If you're building projects out of action groups in the Inbox, they'll be scattered to the winds if you do a clean up, and that seems less convenient. Different strokes...
 
@Toadling: Interesting! How does it help your workflow? Do you use the Inbox action groups as a "staging area" for new projects, instead of filling in the Project field in Quick Entry?

Once I fully switch to OF, I probably won't care as much, since I don't think you can use Quick Entry to create action groups at all. At the moment, I'm using a database imported from MyLifeOrganized, where "Inbox" is just another project that happens to be the default location for quick-entry items, and where the tree can be arbitrarily nested, with no strong folder/project/group/action distinction. So I have a lot of Inbox groups like:
  • Ideas for wall color
    • Red
    • Yellow
    • Green
    • Brown

This isn't a project, of course, just a list of related ideas. So I don't want "clean up" to do anything. Is there a better way for me to enter these?
 
If you have your clean-up preferences set so that Inbox items need both a context and a project to be cleaned up, setting either (but not both) on an action group in the Inbox seems to protect it from getting swept out into the big bad world of the project library.

You can actually build action groups in the Quick Entry window. You can group, indent, etc. with the keyboard equivalents. There are some things that you can't do (I haven't figured out how to change the sequential/parallel nature of an action group, for example) but if you just wanted to stick a bunch of actions together so they don't get misplaced in the bursting-at-the-seams Inbox it is easy enough - just select the bunch of items in the Quick Entry window and do cmd-option-L to group them. An action group in the Quick Entry window will be automatically promoted to a project, however - be sure to label the action group!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Levitt View Post
@Toadling: Interesting! How does it help your workflow? Do you use the Inbox action groups as a "staging area" for new projects, instead of filling in the Project field in Quick Entry?
I rarely enter project or context information in the Quick Entry window. If I've invoked the Quick Entry window, I'm usually in the middle of doing something else and just want to capture something before it escapes my all-too-forgetful mind. I then come back to it later in my inbox and sort things out there.

So yeah, I will sometimes "build" a project from the new actions sitting in my inbox, then clean up to send it to my sidebar. It always gets appended to the bottom of the sidebar list, so it's not hard to find and drag to a folder if necessary.

But you know, I'm not married to this workflow. I don't think I actually use it enough or feel strongly enough about it to really mind if it were changed. And I can certainly understand the desire to have the collection of actions either remain in the inbox or get moved to a project as an action group when you hit the clean up button.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Levitt View Post
This isn't a project, of course, just a list of related ideas. So I don't want "clean up" to do anything. Is there a better way for me to enter these?
I like to make all my actions start with a verb. If a verb doesn't feel right, then I don't make it an actions. In this case, I'd probably make a single action with the color options in the action's note field:

- Decide on paint color for walls
Choose between red, yellow, green, or brown

That way it makes more sense to me when viewing context mode. Otherwise, I might see a lone action with nothing more to go on than this:

- Green

That doesn't tell me much if I don't immediately recall what it relates to.

-Dennis
 
 


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