Thursday, July 17, 2008

Create inbox items in OmniFocus from the dashboard

I am a very heavy user of OmniFocus. It has many ways to enter information. For example, you can use the "Quick Entry Window", which is great for creating an item with a project, context, and optional description.



But sometimes I am not in OmniFocus and don't have any text selected. This means there is nothing for OmniFocus to treat as a clipping. As a result it won't bring up the quick entry window.

So, I wrote my first Dashboard widget. It has a text area where you type the text for your item and a "Send It" button. When you click the button or hit enter in the text area, a new item is sent to your inbox.



I submittted it to Apple for inclusion in their download area for dashboard widgets download site. Until it shows up there, you can get it directly from here.

[Updated 2008-07-17 21:05]

Someone pointed out that I had forgotten that there is a separate keystroke to bring up the quick entry window without having any text selected. This eliminates much of the purpose of this widget unfortunately, unless you spend a lot of time in the dashboard anyway. At least it was a good learning exercise... :-)

7 comments:

Dean said...

That's very cool Brian. Thanks. It's works fine for me, except if I click the "i" button I see a picture that frightens me.:-)

Brian Gilstrap said...

A danger of the internet: anybody can put their mug out there where you end up looking at it!

Unknown said...

Hi Brian, thanks for creating this widget. By the way, I find your widget useful if you use Spaces and Omnifocus is in it's own space. ie: space 1 = mail & # 2 = Omnifocus, while checking mail, you want to input, you still have to change space. I know this is pretty specific, but still... I think I'll want to use your widget. The thing is your widget 100% reliable? Have you used it without issues for a certain time? Thanks.

Brian Gilstrap said...

I've used it since I created it and I've not had any problems. I've also not had any reports of problems from anyone else. By all means, let me know if you run into issues with it.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the widget. I'm not sure if this is unique to my setup, but if I enter text with an apostrophe, it doesn't get added to the inbox - nothing happens. Anyone else notice this?

Damon LaCaille said...

Thanks for the widget Brian! I'm digging it! It's simple and works, just like Mac software should be.

Damon LaCaille said...

Thanks for the widget, Brian! I dig it. It's just like all Mac software should be: it's simple and it works!