The Omni Group

Not on the show floor

This is usually when we start making announcements about Macworld for next year. We have some different news this time, though: we’ve decided not to have a booth presence on the show floor in 2013.

This was a tough decision to make, as Macworld gave us our first real “meet and greet” with our customers. One of our first shows was back in 1998 when we shared OmniWeb for Rhapsody, alongside Bare Bones Software (they were showing off a pre-release of Mailsmith), to a new set of OS X-ready users. Our presence included a good chunk of the company, a few computers, and a shared booth.

We do software, and increasingly the Expo Hall at Macworld has been shifting toward hardware. To better serve our customers, we decided to pursue a more personal way to interact and talk software during the show.

(By the way, Macworld still has a full lineup of great talks, workshops, and special events.)

So it’s very important that we continue to make that happen. We’re stepping out and trying something different.

But we’ll still be around

This year we went to a new thing called Userconf. When we heard Chase from 37signals talk about their experimentation with showing off Basecamp, live and in-person to customers, we were intrigued. With OmniFocus (and all of our apps), introducing the app in a minute is difficult (You put things in completable projects after you do a brain dump and use contexts as places or things to do them!), so having 30 minutes to talk about specific features or concepts would be pretty cool.

So, we’re going to try it with The OmniFocus Setup! You can put your name and a question in for a session, and we’ll do the best that we can to see everyone. (With the caveat that, depending on interest, we might have to filter them a bit.)

What The OmniFocus Setup is

So, on January 31st, we’re going to schedule a full day’s worth of OmniFocus “learning sessions” — usually 1-on-1s, but we’re going to turn popular topics into group sessions, too. Someone that really knows how to use OmniFocus (an Omni person) will be there to talk through workflows, features, or whatever, on iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

We’re also going to be doing another thing that we’re waiting to announce until early January, so follow us on twitter if you’ll be around during Macworld. (Remember the get-together during Macworld 2007?)

And a Little Bit More (Update!)

We’ve had a pretty great response to our plan for 1-on-1 learning sessions. A few other people (you’ve probably heard of ‘em) were excited enough to volunteer their brains and know-how, so we’ve added a bit more to our day.

If you’ll be in the area this year, please join us for a set of talks on OmniFocus with Kourosh Dini, Sven Fechner, Dina Sanders, Tim Stringer, and Mike Vardy. Afterwards, we’ll have a panel discussion. All the details here, and check back later for even more!

We are all very excited about Apple's upcoming iPad. So much so that we couldn't wait for actual production units to start testing our applications. In typical Omni fashion, a couple of engineers decided to make their own OmniPads.

Kevin Steele created the OmniPad Doc Holder and the OmniPad Whiteboard. (shown above)

Robin Stewart demonstrates the unibody construction method for his OmniPad. (Flickr)

Features:

• Unibody Construction

• Gorgeous Duct Tape Housing

• Dry Erase Interface (OmniPad Whiteboard)

• Accepts most standard paper sizes (OmniPad Doc Holder)

• Powered by imagination

A few hours ago, Apple announced the iPhone SDK! We're still trying to download it (Apple's servers are overloaded), but it looks like it has all the features we were hoping for.

We're eager to get started on our first iPhone app—and, yes, that first app will be… OmniFocus.

(Now to find out just exactly what we'll be able to do!)

As many of you no doubt know, we've all been very busy here at the Omni Group as of late. However, some of us have been busy with something that is not OmniFocus. That's right, OmniGraffle 5 is now ready for public beta testing.

NOTA BENE: OmniGraffle 5.0 beta 1 requires Mac OS X 10.5 to run.

So, what's new with OmniGraffle 5? If I were to tell you its story (which is a technique taught to me by Scott Maier long ago), it would something along these lines...

The basic plot encompasses a new layout engine based on the Graphviz code, offering two new layout types in addition to the two already present. Bezier controls on connection lines are now also in place to make hierarchical layouts even better, along with whatever uses you, the kind reader, may find for them. Along with the new layout engine comes Subgraphs, which are special pieces of hierarchy that can be collapsed and expanded as needed.

There's an exciting subplot involving the Stencil Window where you can view the entire library of stencils, perform searches for them based on their labels, notes, or custom data. You can even search Graffletopia for stencils and download them to your computer easily.

Some elements have gotten a rewrite, such as Master Canvases being replaced by the new Shared Layers, where you can have as many shared layers per canvas as needed, and changes made anywhere to a Shared Layer propagate to all other instances of the Shared Layer. Likewise, the Style: Summary Inspector has been replaced with a new Style Tray where you can easily drag object styles to other objects.

Layers can now display in an accessory view where you can view all of the objects on a layer and more easily move elements between layers and reorder them. The Drawing Tools palette can show all or just some of the tools you want and you can reorder tools as wanted.

For those of you watching on small screens, the ruler accessory view now contains a subset of inspector controls for changing styles, in case you're not keen on having the regular inspectors up all the time.

Lots and lots of other improvements have been put in place as well, too long to list here however there's a handy new tutorial in the OmniGraffle Help to get you started.

There's this one really great part where OmniGraffle 5 supports Quick Look.

And for the spoilerific plot twist at the end of the story: We've added a Visio binary file format parser, so you can directly open the default Microsoft Visio file format, VSD.

We haven't made any decisions about a release date, keep an eye out for an announcement from our marketing team concerning that.

As for pricing, any OmniGraffle 4 purchases made on or after October 31 will receive a free upgrade to OmniGraffle 5 when it ships in early 2008. At release, OmniGraffle 5 Standard will be available for $99.95. Upgrades from OmniGraffle 4 Standard will be available for $39.95. OmniGraffle 5 Professional will be available for $199.95 with upgrades from OmniGraffle 4 Professional costing $99.95.

So, if you're running Leopard, please stop by the Beta Download Page, peruse the release notes, and enjoy!

From an iChat conversation with Bill this morning, he's on the left and I'm on the right:

So, what this all means is that we're finally building nightly alphas of OmniGraffle 5, and it's going to be a long long time before anything comes remotely close to being public.

But, I thought it would be nice to distract from all the OmniFocus talk for a bit.

(oh, and OmniGraffle 4.2 beta 3 may or may not be out today or tomorrow)

We just got an email from our esteemed pal Wrong Size Glass, who wrote:

Hey Gals & Guys,

I was just wondering what ever happened to the search for a good 'code name' for the Omni â??GTD appâ???

Well, WSG, therein lies a tale! Yes indeed, a long and convoluted tale with mighty dragons and heroic journeys and a scrappy little dog and â??

You know what, never mind all that. I'll just cut to the chase and tell you the name we've decided on, for now at least, is OmniFocus. I see that commenter Cameron suggested that very same name just two days ago in response to this entry, so I will take that as a Positive Sign that "OmniFocus" is an okay name.

(Especially since no one liked my idea: OmniFu. What? It's a perfectly cromulent word.)

OmniQuest was a big contender, although some of us felt it was a little too gamey. Not in the sense that it smelled weird, but...oh, you know, the dragons and heroic journeys and so on.

So: OmniFocus. It has a name. It has a team of engineers working on it, a user interface guru mocking up modes and widgets for it, and a product manager whose Herculean job it is to herd this whole mess towards an elusive ship date.

Now for your participation! Many of you have already sent us some really, really useful feedback on what you're looking for in this type of personal organization application. What we wanted to ask this time is, what are you currently using for this purpose? Index cards? Kinkless and OmniOutliner? Other apps/other analog methods?

If you wouldn't mind sharing, we'd love to know. Hit us up in the comments section or by email.

Thanks for all your ideas on the App Which Has Not Yet Been Named. My personal favorites, in no particular order:

â?¢ OmniNCF (â??non-cat findingâ?? app), suggested by WrongSizeGlass, who went on to include the following:

â?¨Someone: â??Hey, have you heard about Omniâ??s new application that canâ??t find cats?â??â?¨Someone Else: â??Phft. Microsoftâ??s had one for years.â??

â?¢ OmniCheesecake, because as Seth pointed out, what's, like, better than cheesecake?

â?¢ Finally, Vicki's idea: OmniBaffle. That way OmniGraffle could have a friend with whom to commiserate. ("Dude, everyone calls me OmniGiraffe." "I know, man...I know.")

We haven't decided on a name yet â?? code or otherwise â?? but now we have a veritable plethora of concepts, both serious and, uh, otherwise (Butterstick??). Stay tuned, I hope to have a useful update on this project's progress in a few weeks.

:::

My 11-month old son has a book called Big Noisy Trucks and Diggers Demolition, which is a licensed product of, no kidding, Caterpillar Inc. (I suppose the gender-stereotypical equivalent marketed for little girls might be Fluffy Pink Ponies and Their Sparkly Anorexic Math-Hating Princess Friends.) The book details the thrilling adventures of demolition excavators and track loaders and so on, which I can tell you from first-hand experience is even more brain-numbing to read aloud than Sock Monkey Goes To Hollywood.

Anyway, while I don't guess that his Big Noisy Trucks book will prepare him for a future career in demolitions any more than his other books will help him become a Sock Monkey or a Very Hungry Caterpillar, I got to wondering about when it is that people start developing interests that stick with them throughout their lives.

Now for me, careerwise I was drawn to the fabulous art of Corporate Hyperbole at a young age because my aunt ran her own ad agency. Advertising/marketing seemed like such a glamorous, exciting world, especially after I learned that Campbell's Soup Company had very nearly accepted the joke soup name idea "Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Meat!". As for hobbies, I discovered BBSes when I was 12 or so on our crusty, ancient DOS machine, and finally stepped up to a PowerMac in...maybe 1997? Which I used mainly for playing Lode Runner and surfing, oh the shame, AOL.

And lo, the results of a non-techie's interest in computers and the secret desire to someday include the words "Great Balls of Meat" in a company-sponsored marketing vehicle: this very blog. (I'm totally playing the theme from Chariots of Fire right now, by the way. Duh dum duh duh DUH duhh....)

Ahem. Moving on. To my POINT, which is...what about you? When did you start becoming interested in software, in Macs? Was it when you were a kid, or older, or? Tell us your story in the comments section!

A while ago I returned from a family vacation to discover that our cat had gone missing. While the cat is at least 87% evil and often spends her time stealth-barfing into my shoes, I was concerned. After a worrying amount of time had elapsed and walking around shouting her name into various bushes had produced no results (well, other than being forever known as the Crazy Neighborhood Cat Lady), I turned to the one piece of software I knew could help.

That's right: OmniGraffle.

Exactly one day later, our cat made a dramatic reappearance – slightly haggard but no worse for wear.

COINCIDENCE?

I think not.

OmniGraffle: it has the page layout functions to find your lost cat. I'm in marketing, so what I say must be true!

(Note: your lost cat results may vary. Offer void where prohibited, taxed or restricted. Current version of OmniGraffle recommended for all cat-location activities.)

:::

Okay, now for some blog content you might actually care about: an update on the Omni "GTD app" progress.

Well, I don't have much news yet. Sorry, that's kind of a sucky update, but it's the truth. We have lots of feedback from everyone and a plan of sorts (including a UI mockup that is actually very exciting), it's now a matter of finding engineering resources and re-prioritizing other projects.

We're still really interested in doing this, and we are going to keep you posted on what we're doing. Hopefully when the engineers are back from WWDC we'll be able to start making some real progress.

Finally, it's been suggested that using the term "GTD" when referring to this project is maybe not such a hot idea, so we need a good code name. Want to give us one? Best suggestion wins a software license of your choice. Extra points given for sophomoric humor, pop culture references, or anything that makes us email your idea around internally with the subject line "OMG OUR USERS ARE CRAZY". The comments sections awaits!

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