[faraz.yashar]

I installed Growl recently and suddenly realized it's wonderful usability with OmniFocus when I saw a notification popup after a backup had been created, so I decided to sit and play around with things for a bit.

Sadly, I couldn't get a single notification to popup in any test case.

When do the notifications show up? Should be around the due date or time? Does the notification popup when the item enters the due soon phase? Is there somewhat to set when reminders will popup (perhaps not exactly at the due date)?

[Toadling]

Notifications appear when the associated event occurs. Have an action due at 11:13 AM, that's when the Growl alert pops up.

You should be able to create an action, set its due date to one minute from now, and then wait a minute, and see the Growl notification appear.

You can see which events OmniFocus show notifications for by looking at the Growl preference pane: go to Applications -> OmniFocus -> Configure... -> Notifications.



You can also configure different Growl behaviors for each of these events.

-Dennis

[faraz.yashar]

Does OmniFocus need to open for Growl notifications to work?

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by faraz.yashar

Does OmniFocus need to open for Growl notifications to work?

Yes -- OmniFocus sends the events to growl, so they only happen if OF is running. If the event would have taken place while OF is not running, the notification happens when it is next opened.

[harringg]

Does it only 'growl' with Start dates? I've got a recurring Due date to remind me to check for and download monthly bank statements online.

It didn't remind me yesterday. Is there something set wrong in the Info panel?


Build details:

Product: OmniFocus-1.x
Tag:
Date: 2010-07-02 08:08:29 -0700
Builder: omnibuild
Host: tb106i.private.omnigroup.com
Revision: 134984

[whpalmer4]

Take a closer look at what you have set for a due date...

[harringg]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

Take a closer look at what you have set for a due date...

????

Next due = July 1, 2010 (yesterday) and growl didn't trigger, that's why I asked in the forums. And it didn't change to August 1, 2010. Is there something wrong with my Repeat setup? Or won't OF alert you on recurring dates? Maybe that's my issue?

[whpalmer4]

The due date you have on that action is June 1, so you would have gotten a growl notification of it going to the overdue state on June 1. If you haven't marked that action as completed (which you haven't, as it doesn't have a completed date shown), the next one (for July 1) hasn't been created -- repeating events are only created as the previous one is completed.

[harringg]

I'm a new enough OF user and I haven't used repeating events before, so didn't realize that. I've marked it completed, it pushed to 7/1/10 as due, and then I marked that as completed, so 8/1/10 it should notify me.

Thanks for the pointer.

[whpalmer4]

I agree that it can be a bit unexpected (put a repeating event in most calendar apps and you'll see them stretching into the distant future), and inconvenient at times. It's worth remembering that it behaves this way if you are looking at future events to see how busy you'll be (you won't see any repeating events except the "next" one if it has already been created), or if you're thinking of having a repeating action or project where the repeat schedule has to be maintained without deviation, and the length of the project or action is comparable to the time between repeats. Sometimes it works better to have a bunch of parallel repeating items, or to not have them as repeating items at all, but put them in by hand with start dates to hide them from view until they are relevant (obviously, this will be less tedious with something that doesn't repeat frequently!)