OmniFocus Task Actions [Updated to 3.1]

[_mk_]

OmniFocus Task Actions Alfred 2 Workflow
 
Master your OmniFocus tasks from Alfred
 
Features
 

 

 
Use Alfred to:

• Search for tasks
• Search for folders
• Search for projects
• Search for contexts
• Search for perspectives
• View tasks of a folder
• View tasks of a project
• View tasks of a context
• View tasks of a perspective
• View Inbox tasks
• View tasks completed today
• Act on your tasks:
  • Check/Uncheck
  • Flag/Un-flag
  • Change Project
  • Change context
  • Defer start/due date
  • Append a note
  • Open in OmniFocus

Installation
 
Download and import into Alfred 2.
 
Usage

 

Keywords

 

• .of - Show list of available commands

 

Manage your folders

• .offf [part of folder name] - Search for folders
  • ENTER - Show available tasks of selected folder
  • CMD+ENTER - Focus folder in OmniFocus
• .oftf [folder name] - Show available tasks of folder
  • ENTER - Show task details
  • CMD+ENTER - Focus task in OmniFocus

 

Manage your projects

• .offp [part of project name] - Search for projects
  • ENTER - Show available tasks of selected project
  • CMD+ENTER - Focus project in OmniFocus
• .oftp [project name] - Show available tasks of project
  • ENTER - Show task details
  • CMD+ENTER - Focus task in OmniFocus

 

Manage your perspectives

• ​.offv [part of perspective name] - search for perspectives
  • ENTER - Show available tasks of selected perspective
  • CMD+ENTER - Open perspective in OmniFocus
• .oftv [perpective name] - Show tasks of perspective
  • ENTER - Show task details
  • CMD+ENTER - Focus task in OmniFocus

 

​Manage your contexts

• .offc [part of context name] - Search for contexts
  • ENTER - Show available tasks of selected context
  • CMD+ENTER - Focus context in OmniFocus
• .oftc [context name] - Show tasks of context
  • ENTER - Show task details
  • CMD+ENTER - Focus task in OmniFocus

 

​Manage your tasks

 

• .offt [part of task name] - Search for tasks
  • ENTER - Show details of selected task
• .ofti - Show tasks in Inbox
  • ENTER - Show details of selected task
• .ofdt - Show tasks completed today
  • ENTER - Show details of selected task

 

Act on your tasks

 

 

 

 

Settings

• !oftheme - Switch between dark and light theme

 

Hotkeys

• ​SHIFT+CTRL+I - Show tasks in Inbox
• SHIFT+CTRL+D - Show tasks done today
• SHIFT+CTRL+T - Search for task
• SHIFT+CTRL+P - Search for project
• SHIFT+CTRL+C - Search for context
• SHIFT+CTRL+V - Search for perspective
• SHIFT+CTRL+F - Search for folder

 

Changelog

• Version 3.1 (2013-12-26)
  • Fixed "Tasks done today" showing wrong tasks
  • new feature "Search tasks" to find tasks by part of their names
• Version 3.0 (2013-06-06)
  • complete re-write of the workflow to make it easier to maintain and more reliable
  • workflow now uses a single script filter instead of 8
  • streamlined scripts and removed duplicate code
• Version 2.4 (2013-04-23)
  • search for folders
  • show tasks in folder
  • use CMD to focus project, context, folder, perspective in OmniFocus instead of showing the tasks
  • bugfixes
• Version 2.3 (2013-04-20)
  • fix no results when searching for german umlauts (and maybe other accented characters
• Version 2.21 (2013-04-20)
  • Bugfixes
• Version 2.2 (2013-04-20)
  • Bugfixes
  • Hotkey support
  • new task actions:
    • add/append note (thanks to uscmeche)
    • change project
    • change context
• Version 2.1 (2013-04-18)
  • search for perspectives
  • in context, project and perspective search all contexts/projects/perspectives are shown if no search string is entered
  • the flagged status of a task is visible in all task result views
  • the database is queries instead of the project metadata to find projects to improve performance
  • task details link to project and context view
  • task's start and due date can be deferred from task details view
• Version 2.0 (2013-04-12)
  • show inbox tasks
  • show tasks completed today
  • new task detail view with all task actions
  • unflag and uncheck tasks
  • support for a dark and light icon theme
  • new icons
• Version 1.3 (2013-04-09)
  • actions are prefixed with a dot to move workflow actions to top of search results in Alfred
  • search for contexts
  • show available tasks of a context
  • project search is now case insensitive
  • new icons for contexts/projects
  • task state icons:
    • transparent: normal task
    • orange: due soon
    • red: overdue
  • bugfix: due dates did not show up correctly if a start date was set for a task
• Version 1.2.1 (2013-04-07)
  • bugfix: tasks did not open in OF if it was not already visible in the current OF view
    • tasks open in a new OF window now and focus the containing project
• Version 1.2 (2013-04-07)
  • search for projects
  • show available tasks of a project
• Version 1.1 (2013-04-04)
  • show start date, due date and context as task subtext
  • added Alleyoop support
• Version 1.0 (2013-04-03)
  • initial release

Plans

• ignore case when searching for projects
• search tasks by context
• search tasks by perspective + context
• search for contexts
• search for perspectives
• open tasks in OF in new window rather than using the foremost one
• query tasks by perspective from database and not from OF window
• add tasks to OF (not sure about this one as there are already awesome workflows available )
• show inbox tasks

Edited December 26, 2013 by _mk_

[drking]

Awesome!  Thank you.

[_mk_]

The workflow was updated to version 1.1

 

See the first post for the change log.

[spacecadet9]

Wow!

 

This is pretty damn good!

[_mk_]

The next update arrived. You can now search for projects and show their available tasks. From there, the known task actions (open in OF, complete, flag) are also available.

[twinpeaks]

I am stuck between Things and OmniFocus - I don't want to get into Things and then have OF2 be great. ARGH! This workflow is awesome though! Makes me more tempted than ever to use OF. Thanks for sharing, love it.

[_mk_]

It's always the same: Things vs. OmniFocus. I tried both and sticked with OF. I always felt that Things is not flexible enough for my needs. But this is maybe because I am no GTD person but prefer planning my work with Agile Results (http://gettingresults.com). It was easier to implement my workflow with OF than it was with Things.

Edited April 7, 2013 by _mk_

[twinpeaks]

Yeah I am not a GTD person either, just unorganized and don't really like super strict schemes like GTD although it can be interpreted for your needs personally. I will look at Agile Results, thanks for the link. This is a super useful workflow by the way. Random question but have you tried the OF2 beta? I am curious if it's much better or not, seems to be very nice but I am way down on the list of "testers." Thanks again for the workflow, much better than others I had seen, well none do what yours done but you set the bar pretty damn high! Cheers!

[_mk_]

I also did not get my hands on the OF2 beta yet. 

[_mk_]

I found a bug that prevented task from being shown and selected in OF if the current OF view settings did not already show the task. I modified the responsible AppleScript to open a new OF window to show the task and adjust the view settings accordingly.

[thh]

Hi,

 

really useful, thank you.

it would be great to be able to search for a context, too, or even to combine perspective and context. For example, I have a perspective "today", and then contexts like "priority", "office", "home". So, I'd like to look for "today"-"office" etc. (similar for waiting for perspective which contains "waiting for" for different people).

[_mk_]

The context search is planned for version 1.3 that I hope to finish sometime next week.

 

I'm not sure about the context-perspective combination ... have to think about it. I could imagine something like: Enter perspective > Choose from available contexts > Show tasks. But I am not sure if the extra step will be annoying after some time? 

[twinpeaks]

The context search is planned for version 1.3 that I hope to finish sometime next week.

 

I'm not sure about the context-perspective combination ... have to think about it. I could imagine something like: Enter perspective > Choose from available contexts > Show tasks. But I am not sure if the extra step will be annoying after some time? 

 

I don't think it will be annoying, extra step that is. As long as you can filter the list down it should come up pretty quickly, plus if someone has a context they view all the time they could attach a hotkey to a quick applescript which calls Alfred up and populates with the string to get to that context. I am sure you will find a great solution so I should probably keep my mouth shut and just let you do your thing. Just my .02 cents.

[thh]

I guess another solution is to create separate perspectives with single contexts in OF. But, depending on the number of contexts, this would make a lot of perspectives.

The workflow you laid out sounds fine to me. But, it might actually be more useful to have an extra command which immediately lists the contexts of the perspective you gave as argument (or is that what you meant anyway?). Then, you have 1 step to choose the context, and from there you get the tasks.

I think that the advantage would be that by filtering down onto 1 context, you will get a lot less items (well, depending on the perspective) - which fits well with the few lines we have in Alfred (and makes choosing a task easier without distraction…).

The extra step, in my eyes, is not problematic, because it follows my own structure (for example, I always look at the today perspective, and I know my contexts there, and similar with waiting for) - I would make a TextExpander shortcut for both, and then remember which number to press for each context afterwards.

I suppose people would get annoyed about the extra step if they always had to enter the exact same combination (so, they would always go to the same context in the same perspective). These people would probably just rearrange your workflow and take out the context choice to get rid of the extra input.

Edited April 7, 2013 by thh

[FiXER]

Great job on the workflow. I find it a little bit annoying that I have to write Perpectives, Projects case sensitive, is this necessary?

[_mk_]

@twinpeaks + thh

Maybe an additional action for the perspective + context thing would be the best solution. I'll have a look at it.

 

@FiXER

I only have a decent number of active projects at a time, so remembering their names and searching case sensitive was not a problem for me. But I can make the search case insensitive with the next release.

 

My most used perspectives also only have short names, so typing them was not a big deal for me:

1 ... daily review

7 ... weekly review

31 ... monthly review

 

But I can add a perspective search too, to quickly find perspectives with longer names.

Edited April 8, 2013 by _mk_

[_mk_]

Does anybody know a perspective icon that complements OF's project and context ones? The perspective icon that ships with OF is really ugly.

[_mk_]

Version 1.3 is available. It includes contexts and shiny new task icons. The latter ones were inspired by Benzi's great Todo workflow.

 

For a full list of changes refer to the changelog in the first post.

[boddicker]

This is my most useful perspective so far. Will it be possible for the context search to not be case-sensitive (just like the projects)? Thank you so much for this! 

[boddicker]

Two additions that would be amazing (and probably very tough to implement): 

 

1) The ability to press the right-arrow button to drill down and see the full, more detailed task information. Many of my tasks are quite long and cutoff. Of course, I could press enter and open up a new OmniFocus window in order to see the full task. But, it would be very cool if, when in a project, I could press the right arrow to "expand" the selected task, including the notes section. That way I never have to leave Alfred and get I get a really nice large sized view of what I'm interested in. When I'm in OmniFocus I'll have to take out my reading glasses and a microscope. The more that can be achieved without leaving Alfred, the better in my uneducated opinion. 

 

2) A way to Mark a task as reviewed from within the Alfred. I'm sure a lot of people don't use this feature, but I use it constantly within a Review perspective in order to make sure my tasks remain relevant. 

[_mk_]

The category search should already be case insensitive. There maybe an issue with non-ascii characters due to the missing ILIKE in sqlite.

 

This afternoon I also had a similar idea of a task detail view that would also include the available actions (see https://github.com/markokaestner/alfred2/issues/12). It's on my list for the next version.

 

The review is a good idea and should not be that much effort. But afaik OF only supports reviewing of projects not tasks. The question would be where to include it in the workflow. When reviewing a project I usually check the tasks, remove obsolete ones, add new ones and so on. So from the usability standpoint it would make sense to have the review option when viewing the tasks of a project maybe as first result. What do you think?

[_mk_]

I scripted a quick and dirty version of the task details screen. Unfortunately, I cannot use the right key to show the details like with the file actions. But I added a back button to go back to the last search. Is this close to what you imagined?

 

[boddicker]

I just checked and context search is definitely not case-sensitive. Excellent. 

 

That details screen looks amazing and is exactly what I had in mind. I like the idea of being able to open the task in context mode or project mode. If a task had a note, would it be possible to see the entire note from within Alfred/your workflow? It would be ideal if it was possible to see the full task, as well (only when checking out the task details). For example, if I had a task that said "Go to the movie theatre and see Django Unchained" it would be cool if it were possible to display all of that (in this "drilled down mode") instead of "Go to the movie theatre and see..." This workflow has already revolutionized how I'm able to use OmniFocus. It's very convenient to be able to quickly check out what I should be doing at any given moment.

 

Great stuff!!!! 

[_mk_]

The only way I see to display a long task title is to put it into the search box. The content that fits into a result cell depends on the width of your Alfred window. There is nothing I can do about it.

 

The same applies for the notes. I could include one more line for the note but if it's too long it gets truncated. I also doubt, that I can handle formatted rich text in a usefull way. The only reasonable solution to me is to show a note icon somewhere so that one knows that there are more information available in OF.

[nickwild]

thanks for a great workflow.

 

I now seem to have acquired a bug  - it just says "loading tasks"

 

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

Nick