Comments on our blog post regarding the Project and Action Outline View go here. Tell us what you think!
I think it is a very good description.
May I offer a couple of comments on an unspoken part of the message (between the lines), and on the UI itself?
The colors for Waiting and Someday are somewhat similar (at least on the iPad). This might suggest that there is some similarity between Waiting and Someday. Further, the text says you keep your important projects high up and Waiting and Someday projects further down. Again, this may sound to an innocent user as if Waiting is some kind of “half-Someday” (or possibly subsequent/sequential). And the icon for Waiting looks like a pause button!
The way I see it Waiting is just as sure and imminent as Next. The difference is only that Waiting is somebody else’s Next, not your own. But it can be just as crucial to your success, and could well turn out to be completed well before any of your own tasks. It is definitely not “paused” or “on hold” or anything of that nature.
I suggest that the colors and the left-menu list grouping should reflect this. Next and Waiting are both “committed ASAP”, whereas Someday really means Maybe (not committed).
A Waiting For “project”, which you mention in the blog post, is something very rare, I guess, unless you really need to monitor somebody’s progress every step of the way, and need to keep their project outline on your own lists. Usually, what I do, is I keep only their agreed “deliverables” (milestones) as individual Waiting For actions on my own lists (often within one of my own active projects).
Just want to make sure it’s clear to other readers, that we currently don’t support GTDNext on iPad. At some point we will have better support for iPad, but today we don’t test against it and I would not expect good results when using it.
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Is there a specific reason that Expand /Collapse have 2 different buttons? Would 1 not be enough (like for show / hide completed items).
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When using a tablet, in the outliner view, how to create sub-projects (indent) or turn tasks / sub-projects into projects (outdent)?
We thought about it. However, if you have a partially open tree and want to expand the rest of it, having two buttons means you know exactly which one to press and potentially save yourself a second button press.
Good question. Right now we don’t support tablets, mouse is required. Once we get the web experience where we want it we will branch out to mobile. Phone, tablet, etc.
Appreciate your questions and interest in the product!
On my mac retina display laptop, the colors are very similar, I agree with @Folke. A turquoise or lime green may work well.
My main concern was/is that Waiting is presented as something that it is not. Waiting is not some kind of “later”, “half-Someday/Maybe” etc.
Waiting is the twin sister of Next. In fact, they are both equally “next”; the only difference is whether it is I myself or someone else that will do this task ASAP. For both Next and Waiting it is the case that they could be completed “any second now” - and there is no fundamental difference in importance or urgency.
Therefore, the pause icon in grossly misleading; the colors (and icon shapes) of Next and Waiting should be somehow more closely related to each other than with, say, Someday, and in the left menu I would prefer to have Waiting listed in the top section along with Next and Focus, because all of those could happen any time now.
Good clarification. Thanks!
I have completed tasks hidden but I still have a folder which has only completed tasks in it. Is there a way (preferably an automatic setting) that would hide folders which have no uncompleted tasks?
You could create a project called completed tasks and mark it as a someday project. Then put all completed tasks in that project. Then by clicking the green “A” in the projects view the someday folder is will not be visible.
Also, for premium customers, you can archive tasks and then they don’t show up in any view, just in the Archive. That’s the method I would recommend. 
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Toggling to hide tasks takes care of not showing the tasks. But once I complete the last task in a project, the folder line for the project itself is still there. 
Hmm, not sure I am totally understanding what you want to do. Sorry.
Is this a project you still want to keep around? Otherwise if all items are completed, then the project is completed right? You can just mark the project as completed - and it will then be hidden.
If it’s not completed, what is the next action? Once you add that it will now have an uncompleted item, so would need to show up. What am I missing? Thanks!
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Duh! Forgot that they worked like tasks in that regard. I think I was thinking of it that way because of the way scheduled tasks get an automatic project folder which goes away when the task is marked complete.
Thanks!
No worries! Glad we figured it all out.