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Deleted a bunch of my Contexts... what the? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
I somehow deleted about 2/3 of my Contexts while using the Service menu to add actions to OmniFocus. Not sure how that happened. Anyone have a guess? I had to go into OmniFocus and then "Undo" the last half dozen or so things I did to get them back, and now I don't really know what I "Undid". Thoughts?

It might be helpful to have a "History" capability so that you can see what was done and reconstruct important activities when something like this happens.

I still would like to know how I deleted a bunch of contexts while working with the Clip-O-Tron thingy.
 
I suspect this is a view settings issue. With the View Bar turned on, make sure that the first lozenge in contact mode is set to All Contexts, if you want to see all your contexts. If instead this is set to Active contexts, then an context without an action will be hidden. So, changing the actions can change the list of displayed contexts.
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Curt
 
This is not a view settings issue. This is, as I said, a "delete" issue. I was doing something in the Clip-O-Tron with an email message and managed to delete about 2/3 of my Contexts entirely. I am positive that they were deleted because

1. They were no longer in my Context drop down list in Clip-O-Tron
2. They were no longer in my Context drop down list in the Examine dialog in OF.
3. They were no longer in my Context view which shows all Contexts
4. I suddenly had dozens of actions with "No Context" when I normally have zero actions in this state.
5. When I hit "Undo", it said "Undo Delete" and they came back.

Somehow, it deleted about 2/3 of them... It was some single key I hit by accident while working in Clip-O-Tron. Whether I accidentally moused over into OF or not I can't say, but it was literally a single hit of something that did it. I can't think of anyway I would delete a group of contexts in one hit even if I wanted to. If I have a certain perspective up at some point, is there a keyboard shortcut that would delete all the contexts in that perspective?

This is all speculation, because I'm pretty sure I didn't ever leave Clip-O-Tron.

Is there a preference to always warn when deleting? I hate to invoke something like that but I am very nervous that my whole life is in OF and if I manage to delete a lot of it then there is no other place I can get the info.
 
Hmm. I haven't heard of anyone losing contexts from doing a clipping; the code which processes clippings only knows how to add items, not remove them.

The only way I know of to delete all of your contexts with one keystroke is to have them all selected (either in the sidebar or in the main outline when it's grouped by context) and to then press the Delete key or to use the keyboard shortcut for Cut (Command-X). Is your Clippings keyboard shortcut near the Delete key, or at all similar to Command-X?

If you solve this mystery, please let us know!
 
Well I just figured it out I think. If I go into OF and select a perspective and then hit the Delete key, it deletes all the contexts for that perspective. I would think that with no actions selected, a hit of the delete key should do nothing. I guess I accidentally hit the delete key while in the Clip-O-Tron while I accidentally selected the OF window.

OF deletes have always worried me because of the complex relationships. I really wish there were an option to turn on a delete confirmation... and maybe by category... contexts, projects, actions, etc. This silent deletion is kind of scary.

Last edited by convergent; 2008-11-13 at 03:55 PM..
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by convergent View Post
Well I just figured it out I think. If I go into OF and select a perspective and then hit the Delete key, it deletes all the contexts for that perspective. I would think that with no actions selected, a hit of the delete key should do nothing. I guess I accidentally hit the delete key while in the Clip-O-Tron while I accidentally selected the OF window.

OF deletes have always worried me because of the complex relationships. I really wish there were an option to turn on a delete confirmation... and maybe by category... contexts, projects, actions, etc. This silent deletion is kind of scary.
It apparently doesn't delete the actions though, which is nice.
 
convergent, can you provide more detail? Select a perspective where? In the perspectives window?

Here's what I tried:
I opened up context view and selected a context in the sidebar. (All were visible, one was selected.)

I then selected "Save window as new perspective" from the perspectives menu. I named the new perspective, switched to another one, selected the one I created, and hit the delete key.

The perspective was deleted, but none of my contexts disappeared. If you could send email to the ninjas with the steps to repro this, we'd definitely want to know about it.

(We do have a feature request open on deletion confirmation - folks that want to see it should use Send Feedback to let the ninjas know, as well.)
 
I have my perspectives as buttons in the toolbar. When I select one of them, it highlights the Contexts that are part of that perspective. If I hit delete, then it deletes those Contexts. I take it from your reply that its probably not supposed to be doing that.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by convergent View Post
Well I just figured it out I think. If I go into OF and select a perspective and then hit the Delete key, it deletes all the contexts for that perspective. I would think that with no actions selected, a hit of the delete key should do nothing.
Selecting a context in the sidebar and hitting the delete key seems like a natural UI design for getting rid of a context, no?

I can see how the option to require confirmation of deletion might be an attractive option, but it seems like a bit of a tar ball to configure. Some might want this protection on all deletions, others just on contexts, and so on. Maybe an option to have the delete key functionality on cmd-delete instead? That would presumably wipe out the chance of accidental deletion.

I've noticed that the Undo function isn't something I feel comfortable using because I often can't figure out what will be or has been undone. And the dialog that pops up when OmniFocus can't do something because it can't get enough disk space (a problem that perpetually afflicts me no matter how many disks I buy), offering to "Revert this change?" when it usually is triggered while I'm away from the computer? Uh, gosh, thanks, I love surprises and puzzles, let me see if I can figure out what the change was after you blow away all my windows and relaunch :-)
 
whpalmer4, I did NOT select the context(s) in the sidebar and then hit delete. I hit the desired Perspective button in my toolbar and then hit delete without selecting anything. The Perspectives select contexts apparently. I can't believe that it would ever be desired to have Contexts arbitrarily deleted. In fact, possibly the solution is to always confirm deletions of things like Contexts and Projects which have pretty significant ramifications if done willy-nilly. I would even vote for, in the case of Contexts, not allowing them to be deleted at all by simply hitting the delete key. The delete key in OmniFocus is quite dangerous since you don't necessarily get visible feedback of what happened.
 
 


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