My top requests for OmniOutliner Pro > 3.0

[Christian Roth]

jmck at mac.com wrote:

>Coupled with request one, I would be able to add a top level "action 
>items" to collect things that need to get done next, while also keeping 
>them correctly filed as children deep within "design review."

Just out of curiosity:

How should a single section consisting of clones from sections with
different column layout be handled (both visually and conceptually)?

Further you said:

>Kind of Spotlight-ish, rules based cloning...

..or intelligent playlists in iTunes. So if I understand you correctly,
there would be two kinds of sections (like those two kinds of playlists
in iTunes): Manually filled ones (like the ones we have now in OO) and
additionally ones that populate themselves based on a set of (more or
less complex) rules?

Actually, I'm a real fan of rule-based automatic grouping, so I basically
add my vote to your suggestions. However, I see some UI and semantic
problems coming in, like:

1. Are columns accessed by names? Are columns of the same name used in
different section column combinations considered semantically the same
(is "Date" under "Due items" treated the same way as "Date" under
"Finished Items" or "Birthdays")?

2. Should intelligent sections be allowed to gather from other
intelligent sections?

and probably more. As Kathi, I am currently also evaluating other
offerings. Hog Bay Notebook, e.g., has cloning, but it does not offer a
solution to the different columns per section problem (and has some
usability problems with attachments that OO3 does not have).

So I'm finding me (yet again) in the position that even if I paid 5 times
what the average tool in a functional area costs, I'd not be able to get
one that really fits my needs.

Regards, Christian.