[SpiralOcean]

This is cool! My newest favoritist feature! Thank you OF!

[LizPf]

I'm still having trouble managing links.

I can make what I think is a link: I drag a file from Finder into my OF Action's note, and I get an icon of the file.

But I can't do anything with it! If I click on it, it highlights, as if it was text.

Oh ... I just tried Control-click, and I see a menu item to open the file. All is not lost, just carefully hidden.

I would prefer to be able to open the item by just clicking on it.

Comments?

--Liz

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by LizPf

I would prefer to be able to open the item by just clicking on it.

See above where Ken wrote:

Originally Posted by Ken Case

We also plan to let you click on an attachment to open it, but for now you have to Right-Click or Control-Click and choose Open from the contextual menu

[nikpel]

Hi,
after reading all previous messages about embeding files and links, etc, I wonder how stable the database file is : 1) how much is the upper limit - 1a) is there any?, 2) crashing of this file means loosing attachments? - 2a) is it possible to crash?.

And finally (I don't know if it is answered anywhere else), speed of OF and exporting back the files to disk in order to use, email, print (could OF manage those actions?)

newbie in OF
Nik Pel

[Toadling]

Originally Posted by nikpel

Hi,
after reading all previous messages about embeding files and links, etc, I wonder how stable the database file is : 1) how much is the upper limit - 1a) is there any?, 2) crashing of this file means loosing attachments? - 2a) is it possible to crash?.

By default, OmniFocus stores a reference to the attached file (indicated by the curved arrow cursor that appears while hovering a dragged file over the notes field). The file itself remains in its original location. With this method, your database size increase is negligible.

You can copy the file itself into the database by holding the Option key while dragging a file icon into the notes field (indicated by a green bubble cursor with a plus sign on it).

As for an upper limit or the possibility of a crash causing file corruption in attachments, someone from Omni Group would know best. But I don't think you have much to worry about, especially if you use the default method of just linking files in rather than copying them to the database.

Originally Posted by nikpel

And finally (I don't know if it is answered anywhere else), speed of OF and exporting back the files to disk in order to use, email, print (could OF manage those actions?)

If the files are only linked in, then there's no need to export. You can just use the files as you always have.

[nikpel]

Yes, I already know about handling the files.

As for an upper limit or the possibility of a crash causing file corruption in attachments, someone from Omni Group would know best. But I don't think you have much to worry about, especially if you use the default method of just linking files in rather than copying them to the database.

If the files are only linked in, then there's no need to export. You can just use the files as you always have.

I use an Folder named "Project Support Material" in which I have created subfolders with each projects description as a folder name. As I think right now, linking is much better because there are many large files I need to handle (Video files, photoshop files, etc), so the question about stability and integrity of the database file, no longer has a value for me.

Thank you

[mjeb]

Am I missing something or does OmniFocus only insert an icon (with no file name) for individual attachments or just a folder icon (with no name) when inserting attachments?

It would be really useful to have a similar attachment functionality as in OmniOutliner, and the ability to attach multiple files at once from the "Attach file" dialogue.

Right now, though, I'd settle for just a clickable link with the file name shown rather than just an icon.

[Toadling]

Originally Posted by mjeb

Am I missing something or does OmniFocus only insert an icon (with no file name) for individual attachments or just a folder icon (with no name) when inserting attachments?

No, I don't think you're missing anything, except maybe that you can use Quick Look on the icon by hitting spacebar when the icon is selected (requires Leopard). For me, this greatly mitigates the need to have the attachment's name visible. But I'd still like to have the option to display "attachments tags" like OmniOutliner (I think that's what OO calls those little, gray lozenges for attachments).

But I don't know about plain links. How would you handle triggering Quick Look if you only had a link? Would the whole link need to be selected, or just the cursor be in the link text? What if you actually wanted to insert a space in the link text when spacebar triggers Quick Look? Seems like there's all kinds of obstacles to work around with a text link. So for now, I actually prefer the icon.

-Dennis

PS - It does seem strange that I can't Command-click or Shift-click to select multiple items in the file selection dialog. Maybe that's why the menu option is called "Attach File" and not "Attach Files". :) But you could also just drag multiple selections directly from the Finder, which is what I usually do anyway.

[miked378]

I was also expecting to see the OO-style "lozenge" when I link a file to a task. Maybe it's just because I'm still running Tiger, but having a document icon without even a filename is a little annoying to me, since I can't Quick Look the file.

[zekereich]

There's either a big bug in my ability to embed attachments, or I'm not understanding something. (I just got OF so probably the latter...) I can't figure out how to edit the embedded attachment and have OF save the changes. I.e. I do the following:

1. Create a new OO document, save and close it, quit OO.
2. Attach the document to an OF action, selecting "embed file."
3. Open the OO file and make some changes to it.
4. Save OO and quit it.
5. Open the OO file via the link from the OF action: the changes from step 3 are there, no problem, everything is fine. But now here's the problematic part:
6. Save OO and quit it. Quit OF.
7. Open OF and open the OO file via the link from the OF action. The changes are not there! The OO file is the version I originally attached, with none of the changes from step 3.

This seems like a pretty substantial problem - I assumed that the point of embedding files was that I could attach, eg, my list of books to read, and then when I update that list, the updates would be saved. Is there something I'm not understanding?

I know that of course I can just attach without embedding - but for things like "book lists" I like having the info inside the OF file for backup purposes.

Thanks for your insight!