[dhm2006]

Originally Posted by brianogilvie

That's one advantage of a competitive software market: you can find the tool that best suits how you work. For many of us that will be OmniFocus. For others, iGTD, Midnight Inbox, TaskPaper, Journler, Life Balance, etc. It's a bad idea to try to make an app all things to all people and end up pleasing none.

I can sympathize with Reuben and others who have expressed frustration over changing from a software package that they know to OF. I am having the same experience trying to switch from MS Office to iWork, and I had the same experience several years ago switching from MS Windows to Mac OS X. I try to do something I have done hundreds of times, and the function is not where I expect it to be or it operates differently than I expect it to operate.

However, I think the time needed to learn the new software design is worth it. OF does a great job implementing GTD, and once I understood how action groups work (thanks to the various examples posted on the forum), I liked them as well or better than subprojects.

[snarke]

I have, oh, dozens of different things to do around the house, particularly because we're doing quite a bit of remodeling. So when Sunday rolls around, and I have a nice large chunk of time, I'd like to be able to pick out which tasks are which, which means I'm looking to have, mixed in amidst "mow the lawn" and "fix the sink," the one "next action" related to the remodeling. I don't want a next action for every remodel project, I just want one item from the category "remodeling the house."

I can get that if I make "remodel the house" a project, and all the actual projects "action groups." But that's not working very well, because I end up with an item like "frame out doorway" or "buy bolts" with a project of "remodel house" and have to hunt down that item in the project view to get the context. Which door? Bolts to fasten what?

If I make "remodel the house" a folder, then I can see that "frame out doorway" is from the "Downstairs Bedroom" project, or "Buy bolts" is from the "Attic Ventilation Fan" project. But I may never find those mixed in among the twenty or so other next action items from other projects.

Now, I don't care if folders are enhanced to allow me to enable "projects must be completed in order" for their members, if inter-project dependencies are added, if the Context view's heirarchical display includes parent action groups as well as project and folder names, or if projects can actually be nested within projects. But I need some place to record lots of semi-independent projects where I can funnel all their Next Action items together, then hide all but one of them, or, even better, all but n of them. (That's what I really want: to have the next action items from my top five remodel projects hit my list, along with the top three hobby projects.)

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by snarke

I can get that if I make "remodel the house" a project, and all the actual projects "action groups." But that's not working very well, because I end up with an item like "frame out doorway" or "buy bolts" with a project of "remodel house" and have to hunt down that item in the project view to get the context. Which door? Bolts to fasten what?

This isn't a complete solution, but have you tried selecting the action in Context View and pressing Cmd-Opt-R (View --> Show in Planning Mode). That saves the hunting in Planning View.