[Mr. Reeee]

I've got to agree with Josh, in general.

The mock up wastes WAY too much space. It needs to be clean, simple and compact. Simply because there's more screen real estate does NOT mean you should waste 1 pixel of it!

Left column needs to be narrower, the right, a bit wider. Lose those dreadful grey trenches on both sides and all the space around separate list items ALL need to go away.
A simple thick divider/resize separator line between both sides would be sufficient.

It's also dull and nearly monochromatic. It desperately needs More Color!
Icons are too large. In Box counter and New buttons are awful.
I loathe the huge check boxes taken from the iPhone/iPod touch version.

As others have mentioned, using the desktop version of OF makes much more sense as a jump-off point rather than "borrowing" too heavily from the iPhone/iPod touch version or Things.

As far as a good design goes, check out the ill-fated The Hit List, which I find preferable to Things or OmniFocus. The tabbed interface is quite nice and their subtle use of color works well. I would have purchased THL instead of OF, had the developer had the time and resources to fully support it. AND a real timetable for releases and full iOS support. It's a shame.

Hire their interface designer!
http://www.potionfactory.com/thehitlist/

[RiK]

I think a few people are forgetting something very important here.

Lots of these suggestions to have an app more like the desktop version, or indeed *any* desktop app are forgetting that the iPad is based on the iOS SDK and not the full desktop version of OSX and hence the features available in the UI are largely going to be governed by the capabilities of the platform which are nothing like as flexible as the full mac os..

[jasong]

Originally Posted by RiK

I think a few people are forgetting something very important here.

Lots of these suggestions to have an app more like the desktop version, or indeed *any* desktop app are forgetting that the iPad is based on the iOS SDK and not the full desktop version of OSX and hence the features available in the UI are largely going to be governed by the capabilities of the platform which are nothing like as flexible as the full mac os..

Sorry, but that's just flat out wrong.

You may not build the same UI, but you can certainly build the same functionality.

The iOS is just as powerful as Mac OS X, you just have to be willing to spend the time to rethink things a bit.

[steven]

Someone earlier referenced the problem of "too many indented lines" consuming too much screen real estate. I have run into this problem using OmniFocus on my MacBook air. What does anyone think of the concept of the option for some type of "automatic window pan to the right," based on either touching a level of the outline, or based on your location in the vertical scroll of the outline?

I'm sure there's a good reason why something like this isn't done, but it was just a quick idea I had based on my constant "scrolling the outline window to the right" when dealing with too much hierarchical indentation when using OmniFocus for Mac on a smaller screen.

I haven't fully considered what kind of rules would cause the focus of the current window to pan to the right, but it would obviously have something to do with the majority of the on-screen outline items being mostly off the screen to the right.

[furtive]

I like the UI on the 4 second demo, love the tree hierarchy and how the parent project shows up at the top once you expand the tab, and how the tab reclaims the space lost to the left.

I think you guys are on the right track, and that the iPad version doesn't have to look exactly the same as the OSX version, it should take advantage of the design elements of the iPad.

There's no doubt this is going to be the most important app for me on the iPad, and I can't wait to get it!

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by steven

Someone earlier referenced the problem of "too many indented lines" consuming too much screen real estate. I have run into this problem using OmniFocus on my MacBook air.

I'm sure there's a good reason why something like this isn't done, but it was just a quick idea I had based on my constant "scrolling the outline window to the right" when dealing with too much hierarchical indentation when using OmniFocus for Mac on a smaller screen.

How deeply nested do your projects get? How long are your project and action names?

You can control the amount of indentation given to child rows in the Styles pane of the OmniFocus Preferences. If you like deep nesting, you might want to dial that Child Indent setting down a bit. It is also possible to put newlines in project and action names by holding down the option key when pressing return, so you could wrap particularly lengthy items to multiple lines and a more reasonable width.

Not intended as a critique of your suggestion, just tossing out some things you can do right now.

[RiK]

Originally Posted by jasong

Sorry, but that's just flat out wrong.

You may not build the same UI, but you can certainly build the same functionality.

The iOS is just as powerful as Mac OS X, you just have to be willing to spend the time to rethink things a bit.

Read my post again..

I didn't mention functionality. I have no doubt at all that all the required functionality will be there. I simply pointed out that people shouldn't expect to emulate the ui of a desktop app on a device based on a mobile touchscreen OS.

How is that "flat out wrong"?

[steven]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

How deeply nested do your projects get? How long are your project and action names?

You can control the amount of indentation given to child rows in the Styles pane of the OmniFocus Preferences. If you like deep nesting, you might want to dial that Child Indent setting down a bit. It is also possible to put newlines in project and action names by holding down the option key when pressing return, so you could wrap particularly lengthy items to multiple lines and a more reasonable width.

Not intended as a critique of your suggestion, just tossing out some things you can do right now.

Thanks, good tip on the opt-return to control where the linefeed happens. Titles auto-wrap anyway, though, right? I have a bigger proj/folder name truncation problem in the (left) sidebar though; too bad opt-rtn doesn't work there (I know that's not what I first ref'd, but I'm a new dad and rather punchy from lack of sleep ;-)

Nested folder count: I can get from my highest level custom folder (not "library" or "projects") to a basic project by 6 levels of outline, and add another level for the odd action list. (& no I don't have any projects comprised of "step 1, find pen, step 2, grasp pen, lol; these are legit efforts)

The 4sec sneaky vid peek showed 4 nested folders taking up about a quarter of the main outline pane width, so even with indent tweaking (& I'm doubtful (but hopeful) that feature will exist on the iPad), my three more levels of hierarchy had me concerned about iPad real estate being half gone.

I guess I don't even know if the iPad version will truncate or wrap too-long titles.

Just an idea to solve a problem that I don't know will actually exist, lol.

Thanks for the reply, though, whp.

[jasong]

Originally Posted by RiK

Read my post again..

I didn't mention functionality. I have no doubt at all that all the required functionality will be there. I simply pointed out that people shouldn't expect to emulate the ui of a desktop app on a device based on a mobile touchscreen OS.

How is that "flat out wrong"?

Sorry, maybe I shouldn't have quoted your entire message. Let's try again....

Originally Posted by RiK

the features available in the UI are largely going to be governed by the capabilities of the [iOS] platform which are nothing like as flexible as the full mac os

That's flat out wrong <grin>... iOS can be just as flexible (and powerful) as the "full mac os"... and on top of that, iOS offers behaviors that make doing some things *easier* than on Mac OS X.

I can't think of anything OF on Mac does that couldn't be done on OF for iPad.

OK, one thing: there's no "quick entry" on iPad....

[RiK]

Originally Posted by jasong

I can't think of anything OF on Mac does that couldn't be done on OF for iPad.

We're not disagreeing on that point from a functionality POV, iOS is extremely well featured and I never ceased to be amazed by the apps people are releasing.

The point I was (still am!) trying to make is that it needs to be handled somewhat differently from the UI perspective and therefore when people are quoting example UI's from desktop apps they need to be aware that those apps are designed for primarily keyboard/mouse interface rather than a (fat-fingers) touch screen.

Hey, I know, let's try talking in swahili or something and see if we can get in more of a pickle that way :D