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What's the best replacement for calendar syncing? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
I don't use iCal sync, primarily because it didn't do what I expected. I thought iCal sync would populate my calendar with events corresponding to my OmniFocus tasks, but instead it populated iCal's practically useless task list. This wasn't what I expected because in the OF dialog for this feature, it says it synchronizes with a calendar, which is technically true in the sense that the tasks correspond to a calendar in iCal, but the tasks don't show up in the calendar view I actually look at.

This was my intended use case: I wanted a visual of my upcoming tasks. I wanted to see, at a glance, what days had more obligations coming due or starting. If could see that, say, Tuesday had a lot of tasks, I might be able to get a head start on a slower day. I know that it's possible to subscribe to due reminders with the WebDAV sync, but (as best as I can tell) it only shows available reminders.

The other obvious use case--getting at my tasks when I'm not near my Mac--doesn't go well either. I can't usefully sync or access my tasks on my Android phone using any of the built in syncing mechanisms and I haven't had success syncing through some intermediary service. (And before you ask: I'm not considering an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. Objections to Apple's device lock-down aside, I'm not going to lug around another device or switch carriers just for OmniFocus.)

To work around the lack of visualization and my inability to access my data on my phone, I've whipped up an export script and a web app for myself to work around these issues, but it's read-only. I'm too busy actually doing things to go beyond that myself.

I'm really happy with OmniFocus, but getting an overview of my tasks (barring a review) and getting my tasks away from my Mac are my two biggest pain points.
 
I have since moved to carrying an iPod Touch plus my Treo phone because iCal sync didn't work. My use was to try to get something I could carry with me all the time that had my tasks. The limits of the iCal synch and problems with Palm OS drove me to finding a new device. I can't switch phone carriers in my area, Sprint is the only viable option here, so I'm forced to carry both devices for now.

If we could get a Sprint version of the iPhone I'd be all over it in a flash, and yes, I know that means using a different network but Verizon doesn't work here at all, ATT is poor so Sprint is the best choice we have.

If OF was on an Android phone I'd probably be moving that direction instead and I'd still prefer it.
 
@ddbeck: the new 'Subscribe in iCal' in 1.8 creates Events in your iCal Calendar.

Also, the Forecast view offers you an @ a glance view of what you have in store for yourself. Just create a custom Perspective to enable this feature (it translates nicely on the iPhone as well).
 
Hi Ken,
thank you for giving us opportunities like this!

I paste here something I wrote about iCal sync in another thread:

During my weekly review many times I found items that I like to do in the next week, particularly in some day when I think I have time/context to do them, but I don't want to mark them as due in that day, because for me a due date is a real deadline.

Yes, I know, I should put those items on the calendar, but I think that OF (mac version) is very better than any calendar application to track things to do (the sort of things that would stay in the "all day" section of a calendar).

The workaround for me is to set the review date for the project that cointains the action I want to do to the date I'd like to do that action, since I do a daily review, and during it that project with that action will show up in the morning, and I will flag it (I use flags to mark actions I want to do today)

But I'd really like another date field, not start, not due, just "on": those items should be synced within the calendar, for the folks that like to have all the stuff they need to do (things and appointments) in just one place.

Original post: http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthre...2764#post82764

Bye,
Francesco
 
I was using the "Publish due reminders as a calendar" feature, and then synching this to MobileMe. That way, I could see my due items on my calendar on all my PCs and devices.

Now that Apple has gone to CalDav and abandoned syncing, this doesn't work for me any more.

I'd like to be able to publish the due reminders to CalDav or Google calendars. Thank you.
 
I wanted to use iCal "todo" sync to pupulate "alarms" a little tool by MediaAttelier (http://www.grandtotal.biz/Alarms/) which is a kind of "focusing-on-what-you-have-to-do-now" tool by poping up an alarm which never stops as long as you don't check the task as done OR reschedule it later. It would be a very nice synergy to have these tools synced for me.

I realise that, even if it synked, it still wouldn't work for me because "alarms" uses the "useless ical ToDo" feature while OF now creates events as I understood by reading an answer above.

Is there a public API to access OF's actions from another app? Maybe I could write to the "alarms" developer as well ?

Thanks for you do!

Mike
 
I would love to access OF action items by context at a work computer (all windows) via the MobileMe calendar. I do not have an iPhone, so my current workflow is to print out a project's tasks in OF or email myself the project as a PDF at work.

Being able to set a separate iCal/MobileMe calendar for OF items would be awesome!
 
For a long time I worked on the assumption that using Apple's built-in data stores for calendar events, tasks, address book entries, etc. was always going to give me the greatest flexibility and interoperability going forward. At the same time, I wanted more power than was available in iCal, Address Book, etc. So I looked for more capable third-party applications that still, preferably, used Apple's data stores directly, or if not at least synced with them.

For tasks specifically, although I never really settled on one, I wanted to use one of the little utilities like Today or Anxiety to display just the tasks I was working on at the moment. I also wanted to use things like MailTags to get tasks into the system. For the past year or two, though, I've been finding that nothing else out there matches OmniFocus's capture or (using Perspectives) selective display capabilities anyway. It goes without saying that OF is way ahead of anything else when it comes to organizing and managing tasks. So there's still a nagging concern that one of these days I'm going to want to switch to something else and it's going to be a huge pain to get my data out of the OF silo, but until then, syncing tasks isn't the issue that I thought it was going to be.

That said, this may be going a little too far afield for this thread, but one capability I'd really like to have is integration between OmniFocus and Daylite. Getting that to work smoothly would require syncing not just at the task level, but also the project level.
 
The only reason I use the calendar sync is to get tasks onto my Blackberry. Sync with iCal -> use Blackberry Desktop Manager to sync the tasks over to the Blackberry, then sync the tasks into SlickTasks (much better task manager than the standard Blackberry tasks app).

Of course I'd love to see a version of OmniFocus for the Blackberry, but barring that, syncing up with an online service like Toodledo would be an option also as there are task management apps for the Blackberry that will sync with it.

Thanks for listening!

Steve
 
I don't bother syncing with iCal; it's just too limited to be useful.

Instead, I love the Forecast view on the iPad. This fits the bill perfectly because it tells me when I've scheduled too many things for any single day. By adding the number of items listed under the date, you actually save me the trouble of clicking on each day too.

In a perfect world, I would ask for a calendar to simply be integrated into OmniFocus (and synced with iCal for those who want it). This way I could click on a day and get a list: Scheduled appointments on top, with my scheduled tasks below. Since there's a notification system built into OmniFocus, my appointments would still notify me via alarm. In the Forecast view, Scheduled Appointments would be one color, with # of tasks another.

Maybe out of the scope of what you're asking, but that would totally RULE!
 
 


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