OmniOutliner is an application that uses an outline structure to help you organize your notes and lists, especially if you’re in the middle of a big project. Since getting a Mac late last year and playing around with some of the various GTD friendly tools like OmniFocus to manage my action lists, I thought a review of another OmniGroup application, OmniOutliner was a good idea. I am also one of those who gets on, and falls off the Getting Things Done wagon rather regularly, although I am hoping to stick with it this time. This organizing app helps you structure information for projects and general productivity.īeing a bit of a productivity geek I am usually torn between the multiple ways to manage my stuff. Like the ideas you’ll be working on, OmniOutliner 2.3 for iOS is evolving nicely.OmniOutliner productivity app for Mac and iPadĭerek Schauland takes a look at the OmniOutliner app for the Mac and the iPad. The app can import text shortcuts from TextExpander if it’s installed. There are settings specific to using an external keyboard with the app: using the Tab key to navigate between cells, showing keyboard shortcuts in inspectors, and typing Command-V to paste text styled or plain. The big news about OmniOutliner 2.3 for iOS is its ability to run on the iPhone as well as the iPad, but it’s worth noting a few welcome features that were added in version 2.0. Currently the only custom viewing option here is to sort the documents by date or title. Also, editing a filename means tapping the title on this screen, which is a small target on the iPhone. It can be difficult to parse long document titles when they run past the border of the document’s box, especially on the iPhone. Speaking of the Documents view, I would like to see an option to view documents as a text list instead of just the grid of previews. The Documents screen displays only a grid of previews. If a document is edited in two places before they’re synced, the server displays two copies, with the source added to the title, such as: “Test Outline (conflict from mobile on iPhone 6).” Although I’d love to see a way to highlight differences between the documents, it’s a nice touch that when you delete one version, the file name reverts back to the original and doesn’t litter your documents list with messy conflict names.
#Omnioutliner for mac review update
When you update an outline on the iPhone, for example, the edits are reflected on the iPad and in OmniOutliner 4 for Mac within seconds, even when the document is open on all the devices simultaneously. In my experience, Omni Sync Server is the model of cloud syncing. You can also sync using your own WebDAV server, or add outlines to the Local Documents storage area via cumbersome iTunes sync or by transferring a file from another application using the iOS Open In mechanism.
#Omnioutliner for mac review full
OmniOutliner takes full advantage of Omni Sync Server, a free service the company built from scratch when it became clear that iCloud wasn’t going to work for them. Now, however, we expect not only editing but a way to make the documents appear wherever we are, with as little friction as possible. Not long ago a “mobile” version of an application didn’t carry many expectations it could get away with just viewing documents. (I reported that to the developer.) Cloud sync I did run into one anomaly: When adding new rows to the bottom of an outline, the cell is initially hidden behind the document’s headers, but it pops into view when you begin typing. (That’s particularly helpful if you’ve tweaked the styles to suit your own projects and want to create new documents based on that appearance.)Īs you’re creating a new row of data, it’s simple to indent or outdent the level using buttons at the lower-left corner of the work area-which just happens to be where your left thumb is positioned while thumb-typing on the iPhone’s screen. Version 2 also enables you to apply new template themes within a document if you want to change the overall appearance, as well as save any custom theme changes to new templates. From there you can cut, copy, delete, group, or move the rows as a group. Now, when you tap that button, you use the existing row handles at left to make selections. In the original version, you’d tap the Edit button, which introduced a new set of round selection buttons at the right edge of a column. The interface for selecting and acting on multiple rows is also cleaned up. This is a tiny detail, but when you select a parent row, a faint line appears to indicate which child items belong to it (Figure 2). It’s also easier to see which items are selected when working in a complicated outline. The same outline looks incredibly similar across the iPad (top), iPhone 6 (center), and iPod touch (bottom)-the only difference is how much you can see on a single screen.
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