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Originally Posted by Toadling
I don't find it particularly distracting or un-GTD in principle. In fact, I find the tiny amount of effort spent hitting the keyboard shortcut to manually cleanup is negligible given the peace of mind I get from seeing exactly what I just completed. Ahh, mind like water. :)
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Then you don't need the option, which is fine, but I do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toadling
It's not as simple as "just don't filter out completed actions" because one is then forced to see *all* completed actions, not just the actions recently checked off. Talk about distractions!
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Then we can draw a straight line between "don't want to see any completed items ever" and "always want to see completed items". I'm very very close to one end of that line, and you are part way along it, somewhere between the two extremes. My point is that it's not up to the software to decide where I should sit on the line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toadling
Well, either it's not that simple (maybe it's event-driven rather than simply time-based?), or it hasn't been a problem in practice. At least that seems to be the consensus from the Omni Group's original 1.0 beta program and whatever usability testing they do internally.
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You're probably right that that feature doesn't work as simply as I suggested, but none-the-less it doesn't help one bit with my issue.
As I know from experience, what's decided in beta is not always what a significant proportion of users want. For all kinds of reasons, beta testing groups, even open beta's, are not as representative as the developers would like them to be, and can only really be relied upon to give a good starting point.
An example of that is one you'll have to take my word for; when exactly this issue was debated in the Pocket Informant beta group, the consensus was completely reversed. It's very difficult to explain why, but it was, and that leads me to be rather wary of "but most people want it that way" type statements. It would be more acurate to say "most people here who've expressed a preference loudly enough, who have experience of the software from buggy day one, and who care at all, prefer it". For example, I didn't express a preference back then because the software wasn't useable for me, and I didn't have time to try it for more than a few hours in test mode.
And anyway, this is a case in which we CAN have our cake and eat it - it's a perfect candidate for an option.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toadling
Because every new feature, configuration option, UI element, etc., potentially increases complexity, risk of regression, and expends finite engineering resources to implement, test, and support. Nothing should be added without careful consideration and weighing of pros and cons.
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And yet no-one
ever argues against a feature they would find useful! My attitude is that if some users would find it useful, and it makes logical sense, then there's no reason for me to argue against it even if I don't see a need for it. Unless that is I see a problem it might create. It's up to the developers to decide what they do include, and to do so elegantly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toadling
And OmniFocus does hide completed tasks as you've asked. It also allows you to decide the importance of the operation by providing a means to cleanup exactly when you want.
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No it doesn't!! It hides completed tasks
eventually, which is no use at all to me.
And no the keyboard shortcut is NOT handy to me, because I don't find it handy!
However, it's futile for me to try and convince you to find it annoying in the extreme, because you never will. By the same token, it's futile for you to try to convince me that it's NOT annoying. You
can convince me that
you don't have a problem with it, and I hope you believe me when I tell you it's so annoying and intrusive to me that if there were a viable alternative, OG would not get my business, purely because of this one omission (as I see it).
That's how annoying this behaviour is to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toadling
Apparently, the Omni Group's test data led them to believe that a longer delay on auto-cleanup is more desirable for most people. And for those that want immediate gratification, a handy keyboard shortcut is available. It's not like the Omni Group arbitrarily decided to make your life difficult by withholding detailed control of the automatic cleanup interval. :)
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With respect Dennis, what right do you have to tell me that the keyboard shortcut is adequate for me? I don't know how to explain it if you don't feel it, but it's about as far from being a solution to my issue as it's possible to be. The issue is NOT that I can't clean up whenever I want, it's that it's not done (almost) instantly and without intervention from me.
I'm not trying to create an argument here Dennis (there's no need for one as with a little engineering skill we can both be 100% happy), but I do want you, and more importantly OG, to understand that this issue is a major one to me, big enough to cause me to ditch OF the moment an alternative arrives, and that the current options do nothing to relieve it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toadling
Maybe it's not difficult to correct such errors (Command-Z would do the trick, I suppose). But it's also not difficult to hit a keyboard shortcut to immediately cleanup completed items on the rare occasions when you need to see your view without them.
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Again, what insider take on my brain do you have that allows you to conclude that I only need to see my view without completed items,
rarely? I'm telling you, because I'm the only one who knows, that to be comfortable with my workflow, which after all is the purpose of GTD and therefore OF, I need them hidden always and continuously and without ANY input from me. I wouldn't dream of suggesting that you're wrong and that despite what you say, you
don't need to see completed tasks for a while, so please do me the same courtesy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toadling
But, as I said before, there's more to it than just the ability to correct an erroneous completion.
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And there's more to it than the ability to hide completed tasks at will (cmd-k).