[TXCiclista]

I'm setting up a Context called "School" from home. Obviously I know exactly where my university is, but really don't want an Address Book contact for it (maybe I'm weird that way). I would like to give the Location as "TCU" but w/o a contact, the best I can do is enter the address. Well, an address is obviously a bit less meaningful too me, especially if I think of the school as "TCU" not "2800 South University Drive."

Is there a way to create a specific location using a "name?" I'd rather not do a business search since that would take time each time versus OmniFocus just knowing the coords.

I hope the above makes sense. Feel free to help me flesh the idea out. I'm new to OmniFocus :)

PS I'll take this one further: Under "TCU" I might have "Library" and "Advisor" and so on. Some of those have no meaningful address and, again, a "named location based on coordinates, not address or Contact information" would be useful.

[whpalmer4]

I'm not sure if I'm completely understanding your issue. Are you unhappy with the display, or the entry? It is possible to set a location for a context by going there, getting a location fix, and tapping the Current Location button. That will store the lat/long, but the Maps application will still generate directions to that point if you request it. You do not get a location listed under the context name in the Nearby list view, however.

So, if you want to bind a context's location to a specific spot on the planet's surface that you can either visit, or determine the latitude/longitude, you can do it without any addresses, contacts, or business searches. (The lat/long option requires some surgery on your database, but it is much more difficult to explain than to do.) If you need the Nearby view to remind you without the use of the map that the context around +32˚ 42' 42.07" -97˚ 21' 37.38" is the TCU campus, I think you'll need to choose your context name accordingly, because there doesn't seem to be support for supplying another label.

[whpalmer4]

To clarify a bit, upon rereading your post:

You could set your TCU:Advisor context location by getting a position fix next time you go to your advisor's office, and tapping the Current Location button when editing that context. Unfortunately, I see no way to make it display "Suite 203 Tucker Tech Center" as well, if that happened to be the location of your advisor's office. If it is, let me know, I'll go buy some lottery tickets :)

[TXCiclista]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

I'm not sure if I'm completely understanding your issue. Are you unhappy with the display, or the entry?

As for entry, I'd like a way to designate the location without actually traveling there. A way to pull from the "Bookmarks" section of the Maps app would suffice (I often bookmark locations instead of making an address book entry).

About display, my post was partially a result of a misunderstanding about how the nearby feature works. I did some more testing and I see that the Context name is "primary" with the location shown in smaller font beneath. In this case, the address might actually be useful since the nearby display would show:

TCU:Advisor
2800 University Dr

OK, that's good. Of course this brings up the following issue:

Let's say I have a context labelled "Class" and two sub-contexts labelled "Basketweaving 101" and "BSing 201." Pretend they're both in the same building. Well, "just choose the street address as your location for both" some might say. But what if I don't need the street address but prefer the room number and building? The Location service knows streets, but not rooms. Say I want "Big Hall, Room 200" and "Small Hall, Room 102" because that's my frame of reference when on campus (as opposed to street names or GPS coords or Contacts). Can that be done? Your comment in the third post suggests no. :(

Basically, I'd like a way to use "my own words" to describe locations, much like the option to create a bookmark in Maps allows me to label it however I want. The Map sees the bookmark and ignores the label, while I see the label and ignore the coords.

(And no, you didn't get my advisor's location right. Sorry. Perhaps you could by a lotto ticket anyway ;) )

[whpalmer4]

Being able to label the locations seems like a reasonable thing to request. Use Help->Send Feedback or email omnifocus-iphone@omnigroup.com to do so.

As for entering lat/long without going to the spot, what I did was to use the Current Location button on the desired context, even though I wasn't at the real spot. Sync the iPhone, then go open up the OmniFocus.ofocus package on MobileMe and copy out the most recent couple of .zip files to my desktop, where I decompressed them one-by-one, checking the resulting contents.xml file in TextEdit until I found the one that had the transaction to set the location. A quick trip to Google Earth netted me the lat/long of my target, which I stuffed in the file, then compressed back to a zip file of the same name as the original, and replaced the original in the OmniFocus.ofocus package. I then reset the database on the iPhone and set up sync again (otherwise it would continue thinking that its local copy without my change was correct). When I pulled up the Nearby view and scrolled the map enough, there was the spot I had chosen, some 1653 miles from my current location. Use this procedure at your own risk! Send in your vote for location editing support in the desktop app, too :)

[TXCiclista]

Excellent. Thanks for the replies. I appreciate the help :)