OmniFocus 3 adds power and flexibility — while also making it easier to get started and easier to work the way you want to work.
We’ve replaced contexts with tags, made scheduling and notifications more flexible, updated the design, added automation and collaboration features — and even created a web app, since not everybody always has their Mac, iPhone, or iPad available.
In future posts we’ll go into more details with each of these — but, for now, we’ll quickly highlight a few upcoming features. Note that not all of the below will appear in the initial 3.0 release (though tags will).
Tags
We’ve replaced contexts with tags. Tasks and projects can have multiple tags instead of just a single context.
Consider the case where you want to talk to Alice at work when your energy level is high. (Since Alice imparts a lot of useful information quickly!) Instead of applying a #work context to that action, you would tag it with #work, #Alice, and #high-energy.
You’ll be able to view every task and project with a specific tag, re-order items within that list, and sync that order across devices. You’ll also be able to create custom perspectives that show this tag or that tag, or this tag and another tag but not this other tag.
Like contexts, tags can be nested: you might have a #people tag with #Alice and #Joe as child tags. Tags do everything contexts do — and more. And they’re a thing people are used to. Even the Finder has tags these days!
Automation
While the Mac version has always had strong AppleScript support, we know our users need something powerful that works on Macs and on iOS.
To that end we’re adding JavaScript support — the same Omni Automation system that already appears in OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner — that will allow you to write scripts that work on both Macs and iOS and across Omni apps.
You’ll be able to create reports, run powerful filters, create projects and tasks based on templates, and plenty more. You’ll be able to do things we haven’t even thought of — which is the point of automation.
Collaboration
With OmniFocus’s new collaboration features, I could send you a task with all its data, and you could accept, which links this task across our databases.
While the task is linked, both of us will see updates to that task, including status updates. One of us may add sub-tasks, and one of us might not. One of us might move it to a different project. The task remains linked.
This lets you keep using OmniFocus for your personal task management, while still allowing for flexibility and for the sharing that you need.
OmniFocus for the Web
We’ve heard from plenty of people that they’re in front of a Windows machine at work — or that they, for whatever reason, sometimes have access to a browser but not to OmniFocus.
OmniFocus for the web will allow people to view their projects and tasks, edit them, complete them, and make new ones. It will be simplified compared to the Mac or iOS app — it won’t include custom perspectives and similar features. But we believe it will handle most of what people need when they’re away from their Mac or iOS device.
More…
The above is light on detail and skips a number of important features, but we promise to write more posts to fill you in on everything. And there will be delicious screenshots. :)
But, for now, you can read the second half of the Omni Roadmap 2018 blog post, where it concentrates on OmniFocus 3, and you can listen to Ken Case talk about OmniFocus 3 on The Omni Show.
You’re also welcome to ask questions via Slack, Twitter, Micro.blog, the forums, or by contacting support.
