OmniFocus widgets in TestFlight

Perspectives are now available in TestFlight. I have quite a few notes on these new widgets that I’m emailing in, but for those waiting, you can try 'em out now. :blush:

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I have the newly added widgets and have fiddled around with them. I have been using them stacked. So far I like the set up and what they offer. Very useful for flipping through perspectives.

@kennonb Do you think you will move to OF if the widgets are good given your recent comment “ I have found that Things works best for my mind. Really any task manager works, but I just have clicked with Things now and really enjoy using it.‘?

Short answer: no. :blush:

It would take a large shift in Omni’s priorities for me to switch back to OF, or a large shift in my responsibilities at work, and in life. Currently I’m just not busy enough, nor switch contexts enough, to really need the level of perspective filtering available in OF.

My other gripe is that OF on iOS is just slow to use in comparison to Things because I really only work out of a Today view. If I needed to switch perspectives from “Work Area 1” to “Work Area 2” and then to “In town” when I’m running errands, and then to “Afternoon Meeting”… then I could see the benefit to OF for me. But really all I need is a daily list of things to do, and be able to re-schedule to the next day or week easily. OF is too cumbersome for me for that simple of a workflow. It takes far too many taps to change dates, or move projects, etc…

At this point I’m solidly in the Things camp and likely won’t switch anytime soon.

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You’re making me want to switch to Things :see_no_evil:

I’m experimenting with Things. I’ve used OF for years and have a lot of custom perspectives. My workflow is more complex than what @kennonb’s appears to be. I have 200 employees and large multi-department projects. But, I’m finding that I don’t necessarily need complexity in my task manager to manage complex projects. What I need is a bird’s eye view and then be able to drill down as necessary. What I’m discovering is that it is much easier and faster to add and change data in Things than in OF. There are far fewer clicks in Things.

I’m also finding that I can simplify my processes without losing the ability to manage projects and tasks. I’m still experimenting and I may stay with OF, I’m not certain but I must say that so far Things is working extremely well especially now that I know how to save searches, which is akin to but not identical to OF Perspectives.

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I have recently glanced at Things because let’s face it, it’s way more beautiful than OF.

Then I remembered there’s no built-in review. Then the glancing stopped. :grin:

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I don’t actually are about “pretty.” What I do care about is efficiency in task management. For me the jury is still out but so far I like Things. I too was concerned about the review function. That is a nice feature in OF but it is not difficult to go through one’s projects weekly especially if a review weekly, daily, and monthly system is established by project. OF handles this nicely. Things requires more initial setup but after that I’m finding it is no more difficult than in OF. For me the issue is Perspectives. Will I miss the custom OF perspectives versus the “saved searches” in Things? I don’t know yet, hence my experiment. :slight_smile: What I have discovered that managing tasks/projects in Things is easier and faster–far fewer clicks and opening/closing of panels. That saves a lot of time.

I’m on another productivity forum (French) where there’s an ongoing debate about OF Vs. Things. The conclusion is always the same: OF offers unparalleled power.
The question is then: do you need that power? After all, the tools we use should be as powerful as we need them, but anymore is wasted.
If you do, then it’s OF. That’s, year after year, the conclusion people in productivity circles come back to.
But if you don’t, then Things is a better tool because it’s simpler and therefore more efficient.
All depends on what you need. I know I need OF because I can set it up the way I want to. But not everybody needs that.

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I agree completely. I’m still assessing the level of power I need! :slight_smile: At some point I’ll stop second guessing myself. The good news is that my experiment has not slowed my productivity. I’m still on top of things and not feeling any project/task related stress. :slight_smile:

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[mini-rant] :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

This is what frustrates me about OF, and Omni’s priorities. I realize they know the demographic of people that they are going for better than I do, but it feels like they could make OF “the” task manager for everyone if they really dug into that mindset of “we are THE power user tool for task management”.

A few ideas:

  1. Allow complete customization of the app. Allow me to customize swipe gestures and force touch options. Allow me to set individual field visibility in all lists, so I can get more dense list layouts with the exact information I need.

  2. Facilitate new users or custom workflows with “quick setup” options. Have some workflow templates that people can quickly switch between (like keyboard shortcuts) so it doesn’t feel like you’re hot rodding your own engine when you try to make adjustments by having to integrate OmniJS to set a defer date from a keyboard shortcut. For instance, what if there was a template that added Things style keyboard shortcuts + swipe gestures, so you could make use of the custom perspectives and automation that OF allows, but also speed up your day to day workflow within the app?

  3. Care more about the UI. It just feels like Omni’s view of UI is that they will do the bare minimum to facilitate the workflows they need. They hardly ever write any custom UI code, and they maintain lots of complex user interactions without trying to make anything easier. One that drives me batty is the notifications interface. Why do I have to dive 3 levels deep to set a notification on a task? And that inspector. :joy: Why does the inspector (macOS) have to list every available field, not allow re-ordering, and not remember which ones were expanded / collapsed?

I realize that maybe not everyone cares about these things. Maybe I’m just too nitpick-y. Maybe it’d make the app just beyond the level of complexity that even OF devotees care about. :man_shrugging:t2: For me these are the main areas that always make me abandon OF when I give it a second look from time to time.

EDIT: Also why can’t I create perspectives filtered by date! :grimacing:

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This is one of the differences I see between Things and OF. When I send an email to Things, the text keeps its formatting with spaces between paragraphs with a nice horizontal layout. In OF, the spaces between paragraphs are stripped bunching everything together making it hard to read. Compounding the problem is that the inspector is a narrow vertical panel that cannot be widened. This also makes reading the email text harder. In Things, the email looks and reads like it does in the mail app. This is but one small example of better design leading to efficiency in Things.

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Widgets have been out for a couple days now. I’m pretty happy with a non-smart stack of two 2x4 perspective views so far. I’m thinking of making a new perspective just to use for widgets that only shows due/due soon and that filters out work I’d see at my computer, so it’s more of an urgent-or-on-the-go list.

The configuration options are very welcome, especially font size.

What are others doing?

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Argh you guys have made me want to try Things out again.

I’m so torn between the two.

I’m using my « Today » custom perspective with a small font to fit as much as possible on a half height widget. Very happy with how the widgets turned out.