EccoPro: Why has nobody developed a clone so far?

Posted by Chris Thompson
Aug 26, 2007 at 10:05 PM

By the way, if you use Ecco mostly as a task management or GTD tool (for which it is excellent because of the ability to have custom views), the new Mac app OmniFocus is probably the best replacement.

Omni took the outlining stuff from OmniOutliner, combined it with a date engine (like Ecco, it has repeating dates, though the model is more flexible in that repetition can be based on either when a task is completed or when it was scheduled to be compled) and added calendar integration and filters. It’s not quite as general purpose as Ecco in that there are two hardcoded custom views (native and by context), though you can open any number of windows with filtered “Perspectives” (their term). It’s hierarchical, of course, having the OmniOutliner editor embedded. The current beta doesn’t support custom columns, but obviously that functionality is in their outlining control and they just have to expose it. Again, it’s pretty close to Ecco, but without the Ecco data model’s full generality. Still, it’s as good as or better than Ecco for GTD, being tilted in that direction. I wish it was a total Ecco clone, but if wishes were horses…. Anyway, Omni has a full development team, it’s not a one man shop, which is reassuring. I use it myself, now, though I still keep Ecco around.