[whpalmer4]

Always has been able to do so -- but the catch is that the merge algorithm is "last change wins" and it is done on a per-action basis. In other words, if you change the context on an action on your iPhone, and then change the title of the action on your Mac, when the two are synced, the only change that will remain is the change to the title.

[gandalf44]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

App Integration

• OmniFocus can now accept tasks from other applications! As a demo of this functionality, there's now an "Install Safari Bookmarklet" option under Experimental Settings (to install a bookmarklet which sends your current web page from Safari to OmniFocus).

Any chance to expand on this more? :) Specifically, for Mail.app? ;) Or even other applications? What is the implementation?

[brab]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

Always has been able to do so -- but the catch is that the merge algorithm is "last change wins" and it is done on a per-action basis. In other words, if you change the context on an action on your iPhone, and then change the title of the action on your Mac, when the two are synced, the only change that will remain is the change to the title.

I see. It's still fine with me: I was basically hit by the sync bug everytime, so I would lose added Inbox actions. I can live with not being able to edit a given action.

[whpalmer4]

Did you take advantage of the excellent Omni customer support you've paid for? There's no need to lose any data in the cases where the clients throw up their hands and make you choose, so long as the data is still present in one or more of the databases. Don't be shy, you've paid good money for it!

[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by gandalf44

Any chance to expand on this more? :) Specifically, for Mail.app? ;) Or even other applications? What is the implementation?

We'll be documenting in more detail soon, but the API is a simple URL-based API, much like other iPhone APIs (such as those you'll find in Twittelator and Tweetie).

Here's an example of how you would add a task:

omnifocus:///add?name=hello%20world&note=text%20and%20http://example.org/%20link

(And before anyone asks: yes, OmniFocus 1.8 for Mac will support this as well.)

We can't add support for this to other iPhone apps ourselves, but we've tried to make it easy for other app developers to add support if they wish. (They can test whether OmniFocus is installed before presenting the option to send something to it, so it will only appear for people who are using OmniFocus.)

P.S. — If you're an iPhone app developer, you'll want to check out our sample iPhone code for adding a task to OmniFocus.

[brab]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

Did you take advantage of the excellent Omni customer support you've paid for? There's no need to lose any data in the cases where the clients throw up their hands and make you choose, so long as the data is still present in one or more of the databases. Don't be shy, you've paid good money for it!

I did contact them back in October, and here is the reply I got.

I'm terribly sorry for the trouble here. As you suspected, OmniFocus currently syncs the most recent edits to the database, rather than merging unsynced edits from multiple sources. So far, we haven't found an effective way of doing this without extending sync times to the point of being unacceptable.

It's good practice to run manual syncs on each copy of OmniFocus before opening and quitting the application- that way your edits will be synced with the server, and pulled down to other devices when you sync them. Again, apologies for the inconvenience.

It seems that this has now changed, which is great news.

[whpalmer4]

No, it hasn't changed in the way you think. The practice they describe simply makes it less likely you'll have the opportunity to change the same action in two different places before syncing. By syncing a device when you stop using it, you get any changes made into the transaction history of the central copy, and by syncing a device before you start using it, you get those changes from the central copy.

If you get into a situation where you do have unsynced conflicting changes on multiple devices and OmniFocus throws up its hands, the way to rescue your changes is as follows. I'll assume you have 1 computer and 1 iPhone, for simplicity. On the computer, back up your database to a known backup with File->Back Up Database... to save a copy of that set of changes. Next, force the iPhone to sync and when asked if you want to keep the device database or the sync database (the central copy mentioned above), keep the device database. Now have the computer sync and take the sync database. At this point, double-click on your backup file made above, which will get you an additional OmniFocus window showing your database from the computer as it was when you made the backup. Use the grouping and sorting operations to find any actions and projects changed recently and apply those changes to the main database.

[brab]

Thanks for this walk through, this would have been very useful a few times.

I guess I should put back OF on my 1st iPhone screen then ...

[ezzekschuba]

WOW.This guys just keep blowing my mind!I'm excited about the perspectives stuff, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how much faster the syncing is gonna take,Nonetheless GREAT update from a GREAT company!

[Ken Case]

…and 1.6 is now available!