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Apologies if this has already been referred to in the forums. I searched a couple of million words and couldn't find it.

When I fire up OF on Monday morning, I want to look at what projects are due over the next few days. The problem is, OF sorts projects on their action due dates - and because all my actions necessarily precede completion of the project, I can't get meaningful groupings of when projects fall due.

Am I missing something glaringly obvious here, or is this what OF does?

If this is what OF does, can I enter a plea for some means of project-centric sorting?

For me, it's counter-intuitive to list the project "Mulch garden" (due 18-12-07) under the Due Today" grouping, ahead of the project "Submit article xxx" (worth $4000, due 16-12-07), just because OF is sorting on an action in the garden project "Call produce store for hay prices" (due 16-12-07). Some way of sorting projects independent of actions is needed.

Matt
 
I might be missing something, but did you try assigning a due date directly to the project (either in the inspector or in the content column (if visible))?

You can assign dates to both actions and projects.

-P
 
That's my problem - I do assign due dates to projects, but OF gives sorting precedence to the actions within those projects. And because actions always precede project completion, this behaviour screws up the ability to get a sorted list of when projects fall due.

Last edited by bashosfrog; 2007-12-16 at 02:23 PM..
 
I see that now, interestingly I was looking at that in regards to another thread where I think there is a similar confounding of projects and actions.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=6281

A agree that when the filter explicitly states "Sort projects by" that the project due date override the action.

Maybe it would have been simpler to have the project's due date be inherited from the latest action due date of the project.

-P
 
Inheritance wouldn't work for me - I'd like to think that I finish the last action in a project well before the project's actual deadline. Not that this tends to happen in reality, but ideally speaking ...
 
In Planning mode, when sorting by due date, OmniFocus sorts the projects by the minimum due date of the incomplete actions in each project. So, as you say, if you have added an action in project A that is due before the entirety of project B, then project A will sort first.

Start & due dates on groups (projects and action groups) provide something like a default start/due date for the actions contained therein -- if you set a due date for a project, all the actions therein are assumed to be due by that date, though some may be due earlier if you set explicit dates on them (later due dates will be clamped to the minimum of the due dates of the containers).

So, given this approach, there is nothing particularly special or more important about a due date on a project vs. one on an action. We still do have some UI ideas to make this more clear and friendly, but they are a little too wild to make it in to 1.0 -- maybe 1.1 or possibly not until 2.x.

In the case you mention, the project is currently more important to you, but there is nothing to say that the action might not be more important in another scenario -- OmniFocus can't make this decision for you. That said, there might be call for some sort of preference to add this behavior to OmniFocus if that's the way you tend to work. I do worry that someone might miss a due date if we take a different approach. OmniFocus is trying to be very conservative and trustworthy here, by ensuring that the project with the overall earliest due action is listed first.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Wood View Post
In the case you mention, the project is currently more important to you, but there is nothing to say that the action might not be more important in another scenario -- OmniFocus can't make this decision for you.
I think it can and it should - make me use context view for this.

I think one of the challenges OF will face in being a commercial success is that it is so damn flexible.

While this is great for this hard core early adopter crowd, the best tools are those that are easy to use for those who don't need every feature, but can accommodate the power users as well.

I think this is a case where OF needs to be more assertive.

labeling the view bars with headers like "Sort Projects by", while it still requires a click to understand what will happen, was a great move and a big improvement.

It made more clear that, in general, planning mode is more project oriented, while context view is more action oriented. While people will continue to ask for action sorting as a secondary sort in planning mode, this can be an FAQ. However if when in planning mode you have to grok that sometimes sorting projects is really subject to override by an action, it can cause a bit of feature vertigo - you question what you thought you know.

If it is important not to miss an action that has a due date - use the context view. Sometimes its better to force fewer options on the users, because then there is less to remember. Sometimes OF feels like English must feel to a non-english speaker. Yes you can learn it all eventually, but there aren't just a set of simple clear rules. You have to learn the basic rules, which are clear enough - and then all the quirks and exceptions that go on top of, or modify that.

So many of these exceptions can be argued to have a logical reason (unlike the english language), but often to me, these explained scenarios exist out on the tail ends of a bell curve of most likely uses, while being confusing to the majority of users.

Veterans of the development process like brianogilvie are perfectly happy because they've lived with the peculiarities for so long, but you also have to consider the customer who will be downloading the demo on Jan 10th.

Again, I want to say I'm thrilled with the product and most of the design decisions. There are some super tough calls to make on the whole ease-of-use vs powertool trade off. And you've hit a lot of sweet spots!

So good luck, please don't take any of my criticisms personally - January 8th is coming mighty fast - we'll be up in Seattle visiting my folks next week - maybe I'll bring by some snacks for the midnight oil that will likely be burning.

-P
 
 


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