[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by endoftheQ

However, respectfully, this is unacceptable. Omnifocus is sold on the iTunes store with the stated ability to "attach" and "pick" a photograph.

You can attach images to your task notes in the iPhone app, either by taking a picture (using the built-in button) or by copying and pasting them from another app. To copy an existing image from your photo library, go to the Photos app to find the image, touch-and-hold on that image and select Copy. (You can also use this technique to copy images from other apps which support this functionality, such as Mail and Safari.)

Now open OmniFocus, and open an action (or create a new one) and scroll down to Attachments. Touch and hold on the word "Attachments", then select Paste. Your image will now be attached to your task.

Hope this helps!

[endoftheQ]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

You can attach images to your task notes in the iPhone app, either by taking a picture (using the built-in button) or by copying and pasting them from another app. To copy an existing image from your photo library, go to the Photos app to find the image, touch-and-hold on that image and select Copy. (You can also use this technique to copy images from other apps which support this functionality, such as Mail and Safari.)

Now open OmniFocus, and open an action (or create a new one) and scroll down to Attachments. Touch and hold on the word "Attachments", then select Paste. Your image will now be attached to your task.

Hope this helps!

Nice... !!! If only someone had bothered to tell us this 18-months ago... !!!

[endoftheQ]

Ken,
A group of us are all jumping up-and-down with glee thanks to your timely response. Just discovered you can even attach multiple pics. from the photo library to a single action. How fantastic is that?! However, in the next update, this facility needs to be flagged as no-one, not even your own Ninjas, appear to have known to click on the greyed-out word "Attachments". Now, a feature request, can you support copy-and-paste OUT of OmniFocus "Attachments" for the poor suckers who only have PC's and can't export photos taken within the App? OK, I'll shut up. Thanks a mil. You've made our team well happy. Have a great weekend!

[whpalmer4]

When the documentation next gets updated, not only should this be added, but also language explaining how to attach photos on the iPod touch should be added, as the current text in the manual makes it sound like one cannot do so. Not a hindrance for those of us who don't read the manual, of course :)

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Greg Jones

Brian, I want to add that I know that feature requests 'bubble up' based on user requests, but I suppose that I am surprised that bug reports follow the same process.

(Please keep in mind that we're speaking in very broad generalities at this point.)

Bug fixes will tend to get more attention, but something being a bug can't trump every other consideration. One of the realities of software development is that a project of meaningful size will pretty much always have more things you could be working on than you have time to do your work.

If the project matters, you'll probably never be "done", in other words. So, you have to prioritize. You spend the scarce resource of developer time and brainpower making the changes that the largest number of your customers find valuable.

Sometimes those changes are adding features, and sometimes they're fixing bugs. There are many ways to get the balance between the two wrong, of course, and customers often disagree about what's most important, which can also be fun. :-)

Originally Posted by Greg Jones

Does it not seem logical that many users may not report bugs because they have read in the forums that the bugs have been acknowledged by the development team?

This assumption does seem pretty natural; I handle that by posting many, many reminders about emailing the ninjas when they want something changed. I want every forum visitor to have the best chance of helping us make the right choices as we plan and work on our projects.

Side note: while there are undoubtedly folks that want something changed and don't let us know directly, I haven't seen any evidence that this skews stuff badly. Personally, I'd bet things are skewed slightly in favor of bug fixes. People are motivated more strongly to act on things they don't like. If a forum visitor sees that a something is a popular feature request, I bet they're a little less likely to email us.

[Greg Jones]

Brian, I can appreciate what you say, but I still find it curious. While it is a common practice to see the 'Contact the ninjas with a change request' posts, I don't recall ever seeing a 'Yes, that's a bug that we are aware of, contact the ninjas if you want to request that it be fixed' post.

At some level, allowing the customers to drive the decisions concerning development and maintenance of the product can be a detriment to a quality, integrated product. Conceptually, yes I can see it and I appreciate the fact that Omni does take the opinions of the customers seriously. But at some point, a developer needs to step back and ask the question 'Does this look, feel, and function as intended?'

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by Greg Jones

Brian, I want to add that I know that feature requests 'bubble up' based on user requests, but I suppose that I am surprised that bug reports follow the same process. I expect that once a developer has confirmed a bug, then no further action is required of the users-seems like the most efficient use of the users' and the ninjas' time.

Greg, there are bugs, and then there are bugs :) Consider it fortunate that they spend time doing things other than fixing all the obscure bugs I've reported over the last few years, or there wouldn't any time left for development! While certainly Omni developers are going to do some amount of self-prioritization (for example, "we need to fix this, even though only one report has come in, because looking at the report, it is clearly going to affect others, even if they won't necessarily immediately realize it", and anything that can cause the program to crash probably gets a priority), in my opinion it is not unreasonable to use customer feedback to assess the urgency of getting other bugs fixed, and to help balance the effort between fixing bugs and developing new features. It's definitely a refreshing change from some software vendors who respond to detailed reports of just how their software is broken by insisting that it isn't rather than thanking one for caring enough about improving their product to submit the report!

[endoftheQ]

If it is seriously a question of voting - whether on a change, feature request, or bug fix - I would find it extremely helpful if there was a sticky thread that allowed users to cast their vote. I've seen this on other boards, where you have the ability to vote on a item, so wouldn't it be possible to list say the current top 20 requests with a vote button beside each one? It would mean that end-users wouldn't have to trawl through 1000's of postings to see what might have already been discussed before deciding whether they need to raise it as an issue and vote for it and perhaps it would help the Ninjas who wouldn't have to log emails against requests. Just a thought!

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by endoftheQ

If it is seriously a question of voting - whether on a change, feature request, or bug fix - I would find it extremely helpful if there was a sticky thread that allowed users to cast their vote. I've seen this on other boards, where you have the ability to vote on a item, so wouldn't it be possible to list say the current top 20 requests with a vote button beside each one? It would mean that end-users wouldn't have to trawl through 1000's of postings to see what might have already been discussed before deciding whether they need to raise it as an issue and vote for it and perhaps it would help the Ninjas who wouldn't have to log emails against requests. Just a thought!

Arguably, the top 20 items don't need representation -- they already have many votes and Omni knows they are important to people. It is the items further down with only a few votes where more clarity might be achieved. Having to actually send an email instead of just clicking a button encourages a bit of investment, if you will, in a way that simply tapping a button or posting "me too" or "+1" doesn't. How important can something really be if one isn't willing to write a sentence or two in an email requesting it? It is like sending a kid into a candy store with some money -- give him 50 cents and he is going to buy what is most important to him. Give him 50 dollars and he is probably going to buy a whole bunch of stuff just because he can ("gimme one of everything!")

I think it is pretty simple -- if you encounter something that matters to you, whether a bug that needs fixing, or a feature that needs implementing, send in a vote. Maybe even start a forum thread to sell other users on your idea and encourage them to send in a vote.

Remember also that what you see on the forum may not be totally representative of the whole user community. People who contact Omni directly by phone or email/Help->Send Feedback may never contribute to the forum regarding their issue(s). I suspect that many new user issues, particularly from users new to Omni products and unaware of the forum's existence, may tend to go that way. Looking at forum posts one might say that tagging/metadata is the most popular request, but the support ninjas may say that the bulk of the calls they get are from new users trying to understand why new items in the inbox don't appear somewhere else, or other typical getting started questions. Watching the release notes, I'm often struck by the number of changes that didn't seem to me to have been driven by forum traffic, but are accommodations to users who aren't coming from a hard-core GTD background.

[endoftheQ]

Interesting! I suppose I'm relating it only to my own experience. Our team had a meeting a couple of weeks back about abandoning OmniFocus because of it's inability to attach pictures from within the App. The 20+ people who attended felt, with good cause, that the product had been mis-sold. It would have been easiest, from my point-of-view, to tell them they should post 1-star reviews on the App store and demand their money back from Apple, which although justifiable would probably have had a negative impact on bug fixes, development and future sales. Instead, I decided to take the time to come on the board, explain my problem and get people to email the Ninjas. Having done that, and felt that I was getting nowhere, I threw my toys out of the pram, mentioned mis-selling, and "hey bingo" we get an immediate work-around. I appreciate that you've been following this discussion, so you can see that even voting by email or posting threads in the past didn't help me and the other members for whom this was a problem. I feel that voting buttons would at least let all the board users see what things everyone is concerned with, albeit that they may not be typical end-users. For example, if I'd seen that 'Pick Photo bug to be fixed' was no.1, I'd have at least known there was a good chance it would be sorted in the near future. OK, I'm now off to find out what metadata is, and whether there's anything in it for us!