[Paul Hoadley]

Hello,

When I am entering items into my Inbox, I am often doing it at speed, and with little detailed thought about structure, and even task/project distinction. As a result, when I am reviewing the items in my Inbox, I find tasks which should ideally be projects—maybe I knew it should be a project at the time, maybe I later realised it involved more than one step. I don't see an obvious way to convert a task sitting in my Inbox into a new project—have I missed it? If not, I nominate it as a feature request.

Ah—having written all of that, I just discovered that 'Structure > Outdent' and 'Structure > Move > Move Left' both achieve this. I'll post this as a self-contained question and answer, then.

[Paul Hoadley]

I'll just continue talking to myself for a moment:

Originally Posted by Paul Hoadley

Ah—having written all of that, I just discovered that 'Structure > Outdent' and 'Structure > Move > Move Left' both achieve this. I'll post this as a self-contained question and answer, then.

That actually isn't quite right. 'Structure > Outdent' promotes the task to a project, and inherits any tasks below it in the Inbox. 'Structure > Move > Move Left' promotes the task to a project and takes no children with it.

[coconino]

Neither of these are intuitive since neither has semantic meaning, they are merely presentational positions. Additionally, even if the presentational positioning is accepted, neither actually works as described: the "outdent" command actually indents the children; and the "move left" command merely changes the icon and text weight without moving anything to the left. In fact, if anything, the text alignment moves to the right due to the greater width of the project icon.

[Paul Hoadley]

Originally Posted by coconino

Neither of these are intuitive since neither has semantic meaning, they are merely presentational positions.

I agree completely. I'd like to see a specific "promote task to project" function. (I'm not sure what would be an appropriate outcome if the task had metadata, like a context and a time estimate.)

[smew]

Originally Posted by Paul Hoadley

I agree completely. I'd like to see a specific "promote task to project" function. (I'm not sure what would be an appropriate outcome if the task had metadata, like a context and a time estimate.)

I strongly second this. The context should become "default context"; the time estimate could just be dropped, I suppose... or, if we get time estimate totals for projects, move to that slot.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Paul Hoadley

I'd like to see a specific "promote task to project" function.

Edit: somehow I managed to miss the fact that this was aimed specifically at the inbox, not abstractly throughout the structure of your document. Removed the bits that were no longer relevant once comprehension dawned.

The existing commands get you where you want to go, but I definitely understand the criticism of the existing terminology. Some of the things that make sense in the more general-purpose context of Outliner aren't as necessary in the more specific context of OmniFocus.

Can folks think of a verb pair that would be semantically accurate but would apply to sub-tasks at any depth of a structure?

If so, I'm happy to write up a feature request on changing that terminology.

[Athanasius]

What about 'Promote to Project (with children)' and 'Promote to Project (childless)'?

Something like this would avoid spatial terms by replacing 'move' and 'outdent' with something more conceptual.

[markbrown00]

Originally Posted by Athanasius

What about 'Promote to Project (with children)' and 'Promote to Project (childless)'?

Something like this would avoid spatial terms by replacing 'move' and 'outdent' with something more conceptual.

Maybe we need to invent some new verbs:

Projectify -- Taskify ???

I'd also like to see a "Demote Project to Task" function, since I have already created two projects that turned out really to be tasks.

[brianogilvie]

Originally Posted by Allen Watson

I'd also like to see a "Demote Project to Task" function, since I have already created two projects that turned out really to be tasks.

You can already do this. Select the project you wish do demote and use the Structure > Indent command or command-]. Your former project is now demoted to a task under the project above it. You can drag it to a different project if you wish.