[CorgiGirl]

I work in OF for a LOT of projects. Many of the projects are multilevel, with many sets of grouped actions, single actions, many different aunt/child levels etc. etc. My project as a whole has "master" start and due dates, and then my actions and action groups have different start and due dates for each phase of the project.

I can't tell you how many times projects – as a whole – get moved a week, or 5 days or two weeks, etc. For many users, I am sure this is very common. When this happens, I have to go in and manually move all of my dates that set amount. I can't select all of my actions and change the dates at once, because actions all have different start and due dates for their own respective phase of the project.

So what's I'd like to be able to do is to select multiple actions, group of actions, projects etc. all at once, and have a drop down where I can "move start dates X number of days" and "move due dates X number of days". Of course the number of days would would include both positive or negative numbers, depending how you had to move the dates. Deadlines are moving up... or deadlines are pushed back.

I believe Curt posted an Applescript that accomplished moving an action's due date a day. I am not sure if being able to customize the # of days for multiple actions is an applescript solution. I am completely out of my league when it comes to AppleScript, and there might be an uber-smart person on the boards who could help lol :) I am always afraid I will mar my data if I play with AppleScript. ;)

Either way, I think this might be a great feature for Omni to pursue for the group of us who us OF for a lot of work projects and tasks.

[whpalmer4]

Dan Byler's Defer script does much of what you want. You can defer a project and its associated actions by an integer number of days (use a negative number to move something forward in time), and it will do multiple items at once. You can change either the due date or the due and start dates, though there is no support for moving due & start dates different amounts. Invoking the script twice would accomplish that, however.

I've noticed that the script works best if you make your selection in the right-hand pane, not the sidebar, and if you want the included actions changed, they need to be selected as well.

[CorgiGirl]

whpalmer4 - for lack of better words: You rock! :)

[CorgiGirl]

Hi whpalmer4 :) I just downloaded and installed the script, created a test project and a few test actions. When I run the script on a single action or the whole group, I receive an error of "Script Failure: No valid tasks selected" via Growl. Any thoughts?

P.S. Thanks for help

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by CorgiGirl

Hi whpalmer4 :) I just downloaded and installed the script, created a test project and a few test actions. When I run the script on a single action or the whole group, I receive an error of "Script Failure: No valid tasks selected" via Growl. Any thoughts?

P.S. Thanks for help

Yes, you need to make the selection in the right hand side of the window or you'll get that error, in my experience. If you do it in the sidebar, though that works for most things, it won't work for this. The key seems to be having the focus in the main panel when you invoke the script, not the sidebar. I don't understand the data structures that OmniFocus provides through Applescript well enough to do more than say "do it this way, not that way" :-) I also don't understand why the counts returned for how many items have been adjusted are off.

[CorgiGirl]

Hmmmm... when you say right hand side of the window, I assume you mean the "main outline" (What Omni calls it in the style preferences.) That's actually where I am selecting the actions... I tried it when in planning mode, then in context mode, then by focusing on the project just to see if there was some voo-doo involved. :) I even tried putting a few actions in a single-action list and selected a single action. Then I tried reverting to OF's default view to see if maybe it had something to do with viewing actions through one of my perspectives. Nada.

I am still using Tiger, do you think that be coming into play?

[malisa]

Originally Posted by CorgiGirl

Hmmmm... when you say right hand side of the window, I assume you mean the "main outline" (What Omni calls it in the style preferences.) That's actually where I am selecting the actions... I tried it when in planning mode, then in context mode, then by focusing on the project just to see if there was some voo-doo involved. :) I even tried putting a few actions in a single-action list and selected a single action. Then I tried reverting to OF's default view to see if maybe it had something to do with viewing actions through one of my perspectives. Nada.

I am still using Tiger, do you think that be coming into play?

Did you ever get this figured out? I'm trying to utilize the script as well. I'm getting this...

The script 'Populate Template Placeholders.scpt' could not complete. AppleScript reported the following error: FileGrowlelperApp.app wasn't found.

I'm still searching posts here, but since this was a recent, similar issue...I figured I'd start here.

I selected it in the main (right) window and I'm running Leopard.

I didn't see anywhere that I needed Growl. But that's the way I read the error...

[whpalmer4]

Yeah, it uses Growl to report its success or failure... http://growl.info

[JKT]

If you don't want or have Growl:

For the Defer script, you need to open the script in Script Editor (it is in the /Applications/AppleScript folder) and change the flag for the following line from true to false (it's the second line of the script):

property useGrowl : true

Save the edit and relaunch OmniFocus to have it function without Growl. The notifications are just standard dialogues then.

It doesn't look like the Populate template script has an equivalent - does anyone know how to get rid of this if you don't want to install and use Growl?

[malisa]

Originally Posted by JKT

If you don't want or have Growl:

For the Defer script, you need to open the script in Script Editor (it is in the /Applications/AppleScript folder) and change the flag for the following line from true to false (it's the second line of the script):

property useGrowl : true

Save the edit and relaunch OmniFocus to have it function without Growl. The notifications are just standard dialogues then.

It doesn't look like the Populate template script has an equivalent - does anyone know how to get rid of this if you don't want to install and use Growl?

There are two parentheticals that discuss growl, one at the beginning with a chunk of property stuff after it, and one at the end with a bunch of notify stuff after it. I tried 'getting rid of' the stuff by moving the *) down on both of them, and then each of them independently...still a no go.

ETA: I thought maybe I should add that line of code. I tried adding it just below the property placeholders ones. I tried it with the other chunks there and gone. Still no go.