Don Weighs in on Things vs. OmniFocus

We've received lots of great feedback on the Mac Power Users Things vs OmniFocus episode. Most recently, Don McAllister of Screencasts online wrote a thoughtful piece about why he uses Things. Don's screencasts on both applications are highly recommended.

The OmniFocus "Switch" Button

I've received several e-mails and comments concerning my discussion of the "Switch" button in OmniFocus during the task management episode of the Mac Power Users.

This button is among those available in the "Customize Toolbar" menu.

Simply drag it on your toolbar and you are set. Here is my OmniFocus toolbar.

The "Switch" button becomes useful when working through your list. I work most of the day in the context view. So, if I'm working through the phone context and perform a task like, "Call Rumpole regarding trial" and decide I need to add a task to that project after the call, I do not need to go digging through the project list for it. I simply press "Switch." Then, using some strange dark magic, OmniFocus drops me right into that specific project for me to fiddle with to my heart's content. When done, I simply press the "Context" button again and get back on my merry way.

Pagehand Review

If you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you’ll know that I have a “thing” for word processors. This is partly because I spend so much time writing but also because I remember the cowboy days of word processing when our computers were 8 bits and there were 20 different developers trying to build a better mousetrap.

Gladly, the Microsoft Word stranglehold seems to be loosening and independent developers are once again bringing their own particular take on word processing to the Mac. One of the most recent additions is Pagehand.

This version 1.0 application is all about the words. The interface is simple and tasteful developed to stay out of your way and let you get to the hard work of writing.

Thankfully, you can spend a lot of time writing in Pagehand without ever straying into the menu listings and there simply are no inspectors. All of its tools are presented in the toolbar and sidebar. One nice touch is font are grouping by style so if you are looking for a nice decorative sans serif, they are easy to find.

It is always refreshing to see a developer create an application with no regard to feature lists. However, there are a few things missing from Pagehand that could make it a deal breaker for some. You can’t track changes and there are no footnotes or endnotes. For me, that severely limits my ability to use Pagehand. Likewise the page layout and table support is present but not nearly as robust as in Apple’s Pages application.

The thing is, those features that Pagehand does include are done extremely well. I’ve always used paragraph styles but I’m the only person I know who does (and I talk to a lot of writers). I think part of the problem is implementation. Pagehand has made developing, customizing, and naming paragraph styles very intuitive.

In terms of character and paragraph customization, Pagehand excels. There are four different styles of underline and four styles of strikethrough. You can apply shadow and control the angle, offset, blur, and opacity. The hyphenation control includes sliders for the current paragraph and entire document.

Pagehand also changes the rules with file format. Pagehand’s native file format is called Pagehand PDF. This way, any saved Pagehand file can be opened in any PDF reader on any platform. What a great idea. In addition, Pagehand also imports and exports to the usual suspects including Microsoft Word and several text formats. Although importing Microsoft Word documents that include unsupported features, such as footnotes, led to some grief.

I can’t help but really like this application. The simplicity of the user interface and the moxy of simply ignoring several of the word processing features everyone expects is endearing. If you don’t need those missing features, Pagehand may be the answer you are looking for.

I suspect there will be some feature creep with future versions and look forward to seeing how the developer does this and keeps the elegant simplicity.

You can download Pagehand from Pagehand.com. The introductory price is $40 but that will eventually go to $50.

You can listen to this review on the Mac Review Cast.

Snow Leopard Gets Secrets

For those who would rather not venture into the murky depths of the Terminal to tweak their Mac settings, there is Secrets. This nifty little preference pane (that puts a pretty UI over a lot of terminal gibberish) is now Snow Leopard compliant.

Managing Recurring Lists on the iPhone

During the recent Mac Power Users episode on task managers, I neglected to mention how I manage recurring lists. We all have lists that are not necessarily task lists but get used over and over again. I have them for the grocery and hardware stores with things like bananas and duct tape. I also have them for packing an overnight bag or heading out to a presentation (extension cord? check). These lists don't lend themselves to OmniFocus but there is a solution, the free web service and $2.99 iPhone application, Zenbe List. (iTunes Link)

Zenbe Lists has a very simple web interface that allows you to build lists straight from your browser or iPhone.

You can then share your list or even publish it to the web as a widget. More importantly, using the iPhone application you can sync it to your pocket.

While this architecture builds a perfectly adequate task management system, for me it creates an even better recurring list manager. I keep the application on my iPhone right next to the OmniFocus application and while it doesn't get used as often, it serves nicely when required.

Adding a Mail Folder to IMAP Mail Accounts

My friend, Tim, has recently "seen the light" about using IMAP mail services to sync between multiple accounts. (If this sounds like greek to you, watch my E-mail Sorcery screencast, episode 15 right here.)

Having successfully set up his IMAP mail accounts, he now wants to add several folders to also synchronize through IMAP. I thought his question was worthy of a short tutorial so here goes:

1. Create the Folder

In Apple Mail, Go to the Mailbox menu item and click "New Mailbox"

2. Make it IMAP

Next a dialogue will show up asking what type of mailbox you want. Click on the selection arrow.

The click will open a list of your current accounts. You want to select the root level of your IMAP account. In the example, I am doing this on my MobileMe IMAP account. This is where mistakes are made. If you create the mailbox "On My Mac" or within an old POP account, it won't synchronize.

Then you simply give it a name and you are done. It should show up in both Apple Mail and your other linked IMAP devices, such as your iPhone.

Mac Power Users 13: Task Manager Smack Down

Episode 13 of the Mac Power Users posted today. In it, Katie and I go into excruciating detail on our Things and OmniFocus workflows and tips. You've been warned.

Apple Users and Fear

It seems there is a bit of underlying fear among Apple users that stems from the old days. Many remember how dominant the Macintosh was over the original PC and how that position changed so drastically that by the 90's, Apple seemed everyone's favorite candidate for hostile takeover.

For Apple enthusiasts, those memories are never too far from their mind and every Apple move, product, decision, market statistic, and rumor gets passed through that filter. "Is Apple going to crash again?" "Am I going to be forced back into Windows?" Users are so dependent on Apple's products that they fear losing them in the future. This collective mindset is not unknown. Reporters and pundits often examine Apple moves in light of "what went wrong" back in the 80's and 90's and predicting Apple's next demise is great sport. Joe Wilcox just wrote a much linked piece attempting to apply this to the developing iPhone/Android market. (Gruber responds here.)

The thing is, this fear is irrational. Nobody at Apple is afraid.

Apple has its own, fairly obvious, plan: Dominate the top of the market. They make a high-end product with very few compromises. They are happy to sell 10% of the market with high profits and let the rest of the hardware manufactures race to the bottom for small profits on volumes of junk. I think this is also true for the iPhone. As demonstrated by the the meteoric rise of Apple's stock combined with the company's piles of cash reserves, this plan works.

There is a significant portion of the market that wants a controlled, superior interface and is willing to pay for it. Apple simply needs to continue to make superior products. Market percentages are not what will hurt Apple, corporate indifference to making superior products is. I think Apple is aware of this and I don't think Apple users have anything to be afraid of.

Mac Roundtable Live from Blogworld

Several of the Mac Roundtable gang met up at Blogworld this year. It is always fun speaking with my fellow Mac geek friends. Chuck Joiner was kind enough to organize a brief Mac Roundtable recording (including video) that can be found right here.

Fix for Snow Leopard Mail Address Clipping

I'm not exactly sure why, but in Snow Leopard, clipping a mail address also copies the addressee name. So when you paste it, you don't have a mailable address. Why Apple changed this? I have no clue. Thanks to Hawk Wings, I found the solution today.

Open your terminal and paste in the following:

defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -bool NO

Problem solved.