[Janice]

Any possibility of an option to flash a page of essentials (essentials determined by user, at times specified by user in preferences)? For example. Each morning during the week, I would love an executive summary of all my overdue, due today or due tomorrow tasks within active development projects. Each Saturday, I would love an summary of errands that I could ignore. Granted, I can manipulate the ribbon to get what I want. But darn it all, sometimes I forget!

[dansays]

Seems like Smart Groups would fit the bill nicely.

[dhm2006]

Could you do that with a "Perspective"?

[Janice]

Smart Groups : Have I missed something? Is tagging in play in one of the latest builds? If so, I'm one step closer to productivity nirvana.

Perspectives : I've yet to play with this element. Can perspectives provide a "dashboard" view upon a specified (and recurring) date and time?

[wkoffel]

In general, I haven't figured out perspectives. How are people using them? Any examples out there to enlighten the unwashed?

[dhm2006]

From the June 8 Message of the Day:

"Work in progress on Perspectives in the new Perspectives menu. What's there is pretty basic, but you can now save the current view state as a new perspective and then restore it later. Perspectives are saved between sessions, but there are not yet any controls for naming them, reordering them, deleting individual perspectives, etc. A work in progress."

I have two saved perspectives. The first shows those actions to which I have assigned a due date sorted by that due date. The arrangement/filter ribbon: Active Projects, Ungrouped, Due, Remaining, Any, All. The second shows those actions which I have flagged. The arrangement/filter ribbon: Active Projects, Folder, Unsorted, Remaining, Any, Flagged.

On both perspectives, the folder "Projects" is selected rather than any individual folder or project.

[dansays]

Originally Posted by Janice

Smart Groups : Have I missed something? Is tagging in play in one of the latest builds? If so, I'm one step closer to productivity nirvana.

I merely meant that smart groups--as they are implemented in iTunes, Finder, and so forth--would be a more generalized and flexible way of achieving the same end. No, they have not yet been implemented. I seem to recall Omni alluding to their presence on the roadmap, but I could be wrong. Judging from dhm2006's comment, it seems I may just be.

This discussion probably belongs in its own thread, but it was my understanding that "perspectives" were initially intended to provide a way of grouping contexts non-hierarchically: when I'm at home, I can handle things in my @home, @calls, @mac contexts, so group them together.

Extending the feature beyond this scope seems confusing to me, and would be much better suited for a more traditional "smart groups" implementation. Disclaimer: I'm behind a build or two, and haven't had a chance to actually play with the feature yet.

Just my $0.02.

[dansays]

Oops, I misread the date in dhm2006's post as July 8th. I must have misunderstood the original concept of "perspectives."

My point still stands: it would be handy to be able to edit and refine the logic of perspectives after they've been created, and at that point you may as well just call them "smart groups" since that's what the majority of Mac users will understand. The very fact that I wasn't aware of the extent of functionality speaks to its lack of discoverability (in its present, unfinished state).

[Janice]

Alright. Back to my original request. An executive summary that presents itself at some predefined, recurring interval. Would anyone else find this useful?

[markbrown00]

Perhaps this could achieved with an applescript that surveys your OF data, calculates various statistics, and builds a little executive summary text file. You could use that application (I forget its name) that overlays text files on your desktop.