Hi!
Here is another vote for another handling of uncompleted groups.
I am often in the situation that I complete an action and then realise that I might have forgotten to fill up the action group with remaining actions. Then there are basically three options:
- wait for the next review (Which might take a week or so. Then I basically forget the project for this week.)
- go into project view and search for the action group. This is complicated because I cannot use the Switch feature anymore to get it automatically focused.
- undo the completion and use the Switch feature. This contradicts the meaning of completion, as the action is completed in fact. And I only unclick it because I need it as reference for the action group to focus it in the project view.
My proposal would be to add a implicit "Group Foo completed" action for a group, or make a group without available action into an action itself. This has been proposed before and I think it's what many people will want and expect.
I think the review of projects is very important in GTD, but making it the only way to solve this group problem can slow down your progress a lot (several days until the next review) or it makes you extra work to check the group manually (if you remember that it was not complete yet).
The argument that the preference pane should not be filled up is a good one normally. But it is already so full and I don't see why this kind of option would not be important enough to be put it there. It breaks the workflow considerable and makes OF unconfortable in those cases. That should be reason enough.
Moreover notice that there is already a "Projects & Action Groups" section there. A whole section for only one option. The group option would at least justify the use of this separate section in this dialog ;-)
Schimmi