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Originally Posted by arossphoto
Can someone please explain the rational behind this, and why users aren't provided with more options for automated syncing and cleanup?
Thanks,
Andrew
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I don't generally use syncing myself, but I want to point out that syncing is OmniFocus communicating with software that's completely out of the control of Omni's programmers. Errorless automatic syncing with, for example, iCal, would require Apple's programmers to work closely with Omni's programmers, each group modifying their own code so it would all cooperate back and forth. This would be great for us, and I'm sure Omni would go for it too, but if Apple gave time to every software group who wanted to sync with iCal and AddressBook, and Mail, they'd have all their resources working on iCal syncing for the next 10 years. So, they've decided to give 3rd party programmers basic (ie. non-interactive, manual) ability to sync with iCal, and leave the details up to the 3rd party programmers to find the best working solution. Could Apple have done more? Sure, but they didn't. This is one reason why manual syncing is best. There are others too.
The reasons for manual "Cleaning Up" are well summarized by the OmniFocus help files:
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"The grouping, sorting, and filtering settings in the view bar control what parts of your database are visible and how they're arranged. For instance, most of the time you don't care to see actions you've already completed, so you use the action filter to show only remaining actions. Sure, that's handy, but you also don't want OmniFocus pulling stuff out from under you as you're working on it. For instance, if you mark an action complete, you probably don't want it to disappear that very moment; you may still change your mind and want to uncheck it, or copy its notes into an e-mail, or just double-check that you clicked the right thing. Likewise, you probably don't want an inbox item to be spirited away the instant you assign a context to it.
So, OmniFocus has a command called Clean Up. It happens automatically every now and then, so that things stay tidy, but you can also clean up manually by clicking the Clean Up toolbar button, or choosing Clean Up from the Edit menu.
Cleaning up puts everything where it belongs: items that don't match the filter settings disappear, visible items move into the appropriate groups, inbox items move to their assigned projects, and so on. After you change some items, you can Clean Up to make sure that your view is up to date.
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So, everything will get cleaned up automatically, eventually, even if you don't click "Clean Up". But there are times when you want to make sure that you've got a clean slate, everything's in its right place and updated, and that's the purpose of "Clean Up".
Hope that helps!
Hope that helps.