I'm a new user here. So far so good, but a newbie indeed.

I've made a superficial perusal of forum topics and have not yet found any discussion of this question.

Is it possible for one OF user to subscribe/contribute to another user's specific project, like iCal's ability to subscribe to another's calendar, except with the additional ability to contribute/edit action items?

Example: Both my wife and I have OF. Additionally we sync to our iPhone's version of the software. Could we have say a project called "Grocery shopping" to which we could both subscribe/edit/contribute, such that when either of us end up at the market, we would know what each of us needs, without having to call, email, text, yell or smoke-signal one another?

How cool would this be?

And, how much cooler would it be if I simply have not yet dug deep enough into documentation and forum activity to realize that this is possible.

Thanks for listening.

[whpalmer4]

Well, you can do this, after a fashion. The bonus/catch is that you get to share everything, not just the grocery list. There isn't any way to share just a portion of your data, but you can set things up so that all of your computers and iPhones share the database, which would give you what you request. If you were to do this, you would want to hit the sync button before going into the store, because if you haven't made any changes on your iPhone, you might not see a change made to the database elsewhere for up to an hour after they were made. Changes are not "pushed" out to the other clients, but "pulled" every hour (or immediately if a change is made to the local database, which causes a sync attempt a minute later). You'll have to merge the two databases you've been using, which is a bit tedious if they are large, but not terribly difficult.

[Brian]

Re-titling thread to hopefully make it more findable for other folks with this question.

Hi Folks,
I am running the trial of OmniFocus for my Mac right now and I am VERY impressed. HUGE congratulations to everyone who spent time developing it!

Anyways, I'd like to use OmniFocus for my business. (I have looked at OmniPlan but feel OmniFocus suits our needs better). Just so you know our situation at the office:

I have an iPhone, MobileMe, and a Macbook Pro (which I take home with me every day).

My boss has a windows machine and an iPhone, he does NOT have MobileMe.

Here are my questions:

1. Is the iPhone app robust enough for exclusive use? Basically because my boss will not be able to have a desktop app (as I understand it there is no web app available yet), will the iPhone app suffice? He does not need to add tasks (he can just e-mail me). He just needs to be able to easily find them and complete them. I realize this a subjective question, but any feedback would be appreciated.

2. Would it be possible to keep all three devices in sync in a "live" manner (like mobileme)? I'm not looking for instantaneous syncing, just hassle-free syncing (i.e it would be a hassle if my boss had to be near my computer for his phone to sync). Again, I have mobileme, my boss does not.

Any help or opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

-Mayes

[Brian]

Moving this post to the thread that answers the same question. :-)

[chrisblair]

Could someone help with the way to set up 2 macs with 2 iphones, with OF on all 4, please?

I have a Mac and and iphone, and OF on both, and mobile.me works well with syncing.

I plan to get an iPhone for my wife, and install OF on her mac and her iPhone, and sync via her new mobile.me account. A duplicate of my setup.

We would like to share the same OF database, and sync them up on the macs.

Question is, how do I sync my mac OF with my wife's mac OF without interfering with the existing mobileme syncing with the iphones?

I can sync both iCals on the two macs with BusySync, and the iCals sync with the iphones with mobileme, so I guess I am looking for the the same functionality for the 2 OF files as I have with BusySync.

I would appreciate detailed and explicit details on how to set up - maybe point to a fact sheet somewhere- I have searched for something like this, but cannot find. I am sure other newbies would also appreciate this sort of information.

Thanks

Chris

[Brian]

Chris, I'm merging your thread with the existing one on this topic. Give the destination thread a look and let us know if you have more questions at that point.

[chrisblair]

Hi Brian,

Nope, same questions remain unanswered - at least I can't see where the questions I have asked are answered on this thread.

I did read all the postings on all the threads before I put forward my questions - you imply that the answers I need are already on the forum - well I could not find them. If I am wrong, and the answers are already there, please show me where.

Otherwise please reinstate my question as a new thread as I still need the answers, and I am very unlikely to get a response buried at the bottom of this thread.

Regards

Chris

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by chrisblair

Hi Brian,

Nope, same questions remain unanswered - at least I can't see where the questions I have asked are answered on this thread.

I did read all the postings on all the threads before I put forward my questions - you imply that the answers I need are already on the forum - well I could not find them. If I am wrong, and the answers are already there, please show me where.

Otherwise please reinstate my question as a new thread as I still need the answers, and I am very unlikely to get a response buried at the bottom of this thread.

Well, given that the most frequent posters on this board seem to answer everything in sight, I don't think your last concern is a valid one. The forum software allows one to see all the threads which have had a posting since one's last visit.

You and your wife can share OF databases quite easily if you simply use the same MobileMe account. You would set that up just as you would one iPhone and one Mac. If your wife needs to have a separate MobileMe account, I believe you can do that by configuring her Mac's OmniFocus sync preferences using the Advanced option and specifying the same location as the MobileMe option suggests. The first time a sync is attempted, prompts for the username and password of the WebDAV server will come up, and you'll enter the username and password for your MobileMe account. It will be most convenient if you do this before entering any data in your wife's copy of OmniFocus. You'll be asked if you want to use the server or local copy of the database, and it is important that you answer correctly. In the case of your wife's machine or iPhone, you'll want to answer "Server" so that you using the database that is already in use by you instead of overwriting it with the "welcome to OmniFocus" one on the new client.

If you have MobileMe iDisk syncing turned on (so that you can access your MobileMe filesystem while not connected to the internet) it seems to be preferable to tell OmniFocus to put your database in the Backup directory on your iDisk instead of the default location in Documents. MobileMe's iDisk sync routines (not used by OmniFocus, despite the obvious potential for name confusion) have been implicated in a number of cases of database corruption for other OmniFocus users, but the Backup directory is not synced and appears to offer a safe haven for the OmniFocus database.

[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by chrisblair

Question is, how do I sync my mac OF with my wife's mac OF without interfering with the existing mobileme syncing with the iphones?

...

I would appreciate detailed and explicit details on how to set up - maybe point to a fact sheet somewhere- I have searched for something like this, but cannot find. I am sure other newbies would also appreciate this sort of information.

Chris, if you're syncing your copies of OmniFocus to two separate MobileMe accounts you can't sync them together: you have to sync to the same sync database in order to share data. However, you might be able to have your wife's copies of OmniFocus sync to your MobileMe account (even though she has her own MobileMe account for email, iCal, etc.). And you could definitely sync both of your copies of OmniFocus to a completely independent WebDAV service such as box.net or jungledisk.com.

If you need help setting this up, my advice would be to call our OmniFocus ninjas at 800-315-OMNI so they can try to walk you through your possible options. Once you get this set up, we'd love for you to report back here so others can learn from your experience!