The Omni Group
These forums are now read-only. Please visit our new forums to participate in discussion. A new account will be required to post in the new forums. For more info on the switch, see this post. Thank you!

Go Back   The Omni Group Forums > OmniFocus > OmniFocus for iPhone
FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

 
Super simple text only input for iPhone app Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
One of the best parts of having the OF iPhone app is being able to quickly enter tasks in on the go.

However, the task input, while fully featured, is quite slow to use (lots of tapping around and selecting from lists.)

What I really like is the email to OmniFocus feature on the Mac where you can write an email with as little or as much info as you want and it's intelligently parsed into OF (i.e. with > indicating project etc...)

It would be really awesome if the iPhone app could do the same, i.e. you can use a quick "text only" input to quickly enter a task into the system rather than having to use the feature-rich but slow interface.

At the moment I have a workaround where I use a "quick email tool" (Captio in my case) on the iPhone configured to send an email to my +omnifocus address. This then gets received on my Mac by using Mail actions and inserted into OF.

While this works really well, it's a bit fiddly as it requires my Mac to be on, and Mail to be running when really what I'm trying to do is just really quickly add something to OF from my phone.

Build this feature and I'll buy you a beer.

Cheers,
Ganesh

Last edited by gshankar; 2011-05-23 at 04:29 PM.. Reason: added feature request title
 
Something like what Remember The Milk (RTM) does? ^ for due dates, ! for priority, # for tags, @ for places, but then tailored to OmniFocus?

I've used RTM for a good few months, and found the service overall to be great, though the software lacked a lot of features for me that OmniFocus does have. The quick entry of RTM was massively appealing though, especially because of the special buttons beneath the input field (that entered the symbols), and the auto-complete of dates and such.

While I find the entry method in OF for iPhone to be cumbersome, I also often just input it to the inbox, and parse it later. It isn't ideal for me, but it works. If the Omni Group could implement such a quick entry feature while not overcomplicating the design of the app (any further), then I'm all for it :)
 
Interesting ideias, but typing symbols may only lead to further confusion when comparing with other apps (on my mac from time to time I still try to type contexts as if on thl…)

Anyway the poster is right. It is cumbersome. Why not use the character icons as buttons who trigger each of the filling dialogues. This at very least would remove the scrolling.
At the same time readability would be hindered, so it may not be a good idea…
 
There shouldn't be any need to scroll if you use OmniFocus' intelligent matching feature. Type a few letters and the list of options presented is narrowed to those containing those letters in that order (though they don't have to be adjacent). It's the same matching procedure that the code uses when processing email, with the advantage that you can see if you are matching the right target. When your target project or context is shown, just tap it. The first letter or two of each word is often a good search string to narrow the choices in a hurry.
 
Would like to see faster input in Inbox for brain dumping. I think Omnifocus is the best task manager overall (use it on iPad), but GTask's or Wunderlist's rapid-entry abilities, for example, are far superior to Omnifocus's.
 
How exactly is Wunderlist's inbox superior for quick entry? I just installed it on my iPad, and just dumping a new thought into the Inbox appears to take an equivalent number of taps. For OmniFocus, tap the quick entry button, the text, and the save button. For Wunderlist, tap the Add a new task button, the text, and the done button. A tie, so far.

If I'm doing any processing of the new action as I enter it (setting context, project, dates, etc.) I can do that directly in OmniFocus without having to re-open the new item, unlike Wunderlist which makes me go to the bottom of the Inbox list (including having to scroll if I have more than 13 or 14 items already present) and tap the new action again. Once I am editing the other fields of the action, if I have more than a few projects/lists, the Wunderlist UI just gives me an unsorted list instead of OmniFocus' smart matching, which would be no picnic with more than a handful of projects (I currently have nearly 700 projects).

Now, I'm an experienced OmniFocus user, and I've only used Wunderlist for 10 minutes (during which it has crashed 3 times!), so I'm willing to consider the possibility that I'm not using it in the most efficient manner possible, but at least for the quick input of action names, both seem to be at pretty much the practical optimum: a tap to signal a new action is being created, the text, and a tap to save. Is it possible that you feel Wunderlist is better because you aren't using OmniFocus in the most efficient manner?

After a quick trial of gTasks, the same question applies.

For just doing a brain dump (getting the task names down, no processing), it seems to be a tie. For processing with a non-trivial amount of data, OmniFocus is better, but you need to take advantage of the tools that make it better.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
There shouldn't be any need to scroll if you use OmniFocus' intelligent matching feature. Type a few letters and the list of options presented is narrowed to those containing those letters in that order (though they don't have to be adjacent). It's the same matching procedure that the code uses when processing email, with the advantage that you can see if you are matching the right target. When your target project or context is shown, just tap it. The first letter or two of each word is often a good search string to narrow the choices in a hurry.
Agreed, that interface is great.
I meant before, when adding a task wou have the top bar with the title field, and the keyboard and you have to scroll in that tiny area (even tinier on landscape…).
Now to my bad — just remembered testing — pressing ok on the removes the keyboard without saving, so the issue is with ingrained behaviors (think find field in safari…).
 
 


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Simple Text Copying khoiv OmniOutliner 3 for Mac 6 2013-09-11 01:06 PM
Feature request: add simple text markups to iPad Notes editor Omen OmniFocus for iPad 1 2013-06-19 07:29 AM
Send via Mail, Simple HTML- text flow hampered SWCarson OmniOutliner for iPad 3 2011-06-30 10:45 AM
Moving text input elements = bad DigiChaos OmniFocus for iPad 17 2011-03-02 08:37 AM
Simple copy deck for clients to input bigjonno OmniGraffle General 0 2009-05-26 02:55 AM


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 02:49 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.