[jet14]

Since I'm one of those people who is "burdened" to own an iPhone, and I AM burdened by an impossible firewall at work, I'd really love some way to host the "Ruby on Rails" web implementation for OmniFocus access on my newly expanded .Mac storage space. I am especially intrigued by the new iWeb features announced, including the ability to embed YouTube, Google Maps, etc. on your web.mac.com site.

Any ideas if it is even possible to use that for OmniFocus?

J

[Ken Case]

I wish we could do that, but we need to run the model logic somewhere. We can't run it on the .Mac servers (we can't even run the rails interface code there, much less our Objective C model) and we can't run it on the iPhone (though I sure hope that story changes someday), so right now the only place for us to run that logic is in our desktop app.

(We've contemplated putting that logic on Omni's web servers and hosting the service that way—but that's a whole different business that we'd have to start worrying about, where any web server downtime would mean people couldn't get at their action lists, where we have to scale our bandwidth and server CPU for each customer we add, etc. Not something we're planning for 1.0!)

[jet14]

OK, what about using iDisk as a common location for the database storage? I've tried (without success) to set up an alias of the OF folder in "Application Support" on my iDisk to leverage the iDisk sync capabilities.

The way I'd like this to work would be to use my wife's iMac at home to host the rails interface, letting me get to my action lists when I'm outside the range of the network inside the firewall, but otherwise access the database from my "active" Mac (the Mac Pro during the day and the PowerBook at night/traveling).

I would of course need to make sure that the iDisk versions were in sync before trying to modify the database on the "active Mac" after marking an item as done and/or adding to the In Box from the web, but I could deal with that if it meant that I would ALWAYS be able to access my actions, any time, any place.

Just my $0.02…

[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by jet14

OK, what about using iDisk as a common location for the database storage? I've tried (without success) to set up an alias of the OF folder in "Application Support" on my iDisk to leverage the iDisk sync capabilities.

It works now if you use a symbolic link rather than an alias, but we realize that's a little esoteric. (Maybe a preference is in order?)

You can also open an OmniFocus document that happens to be stored on your iDisk and simply use it. (But as you noted, you should be careful to make sure that you've got the most up-to-date copy synchronized before you start editing.)

[zedboy]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

\(Maybe a preference is in order?)

Yes, please! :)

[filmgeek]

I don't know about the new mac feature....

But for me, it'd be as simple as a text list in a context directory and a projects directory published to my .mac account (or your server of choice.)

A simple FTP upload...and if you choose to use this, every startup/shutdown uploads the data. It'd b e very small (in K!) since i'd be just text -a dn this would be a nice workaround until you can talk to someone at apple or google to host something along these lines.

[jet14]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

It works now if you use a symbolic link rather than an alias, but we realize that's a little esoteric.

I had thought that the "ln -s" UNIX command worked only on files, not on folders… since the OmniFocus.ofocus "file" is really a "package", I'm not sure how I would set up a sym-link to ALL of the .xml files inside that folder, making sure to pick up any that get added over time.

Am I missing something?

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by jet14

I had thought that the "ln -s" UNIX command worked only on files, not on folders… since the OmniFocus.ofocus "file" is really a "package", I'm not sure how I would set up a sym-link to ALL of the .xml files inside that folder, making sure to pick up any that get added over time.

Am I missing something?

Yep. Symlinks work fine for folders.