Sorting of subtasks according to own (logical) ordering, not alphabetical

[tomspur]

When I add several subtasks to a task, I want them to be shown in a specific ordering. When looking at the main window again, they are sorted below the original task in alphabetical ordering.

Can that be changed, so the specific ordering is retained please?

[rivaldi8]

This has been also a problem for me. I've identified part of the sorting here:

https://github.com/getting-things-gnome/gtg/blob/master/GTG/gtk/browser/treeview_factory.py#L191

It sorts first by tag and then by title, although I don't see any advantage in doing so.

After removing those lines some of the ordering problems disappear. However, there are some cases were the subtask are still not listed correctly. For example, if you add some subtasks and then one in between those.

I don't see GTG keeping track of the order of subtasks, so I guess the only way to fix this would be by storing this information somewhere.

[nekohayo]

I suppose it has been an issue for some, but not the majority, of GTG users, due to the way parent tasks are hidden in Workview mode, and I suspect many people work almost exclusively in workview mode.

This issue here is up for grabs for anyone wanting to see it happen. Please contribute code (or bring in someone who can) to the project for this purpose.

[digitalethics]

Would you consider setting up bounty integration or sponsorships for particular issues and pin the issues to the repo?

[nekohayo]

Would you consider setting up bounty integration or sponsorships for particular issues and pin the issues to the repo?

That would need to be discussed in a separate issue. My experience / thoughts on the matter is that I've rarely (never) seen bounties work for desktop applications (because the amounts typically are insignificant), and that it would need to not be BountySource, because they've got questionable practices.

[digitalethics]

@nekohayo Would you consider adding this issue to 0.5?

[nekohayo]

As this project is powered and driven by the willingness of contributors to join and provide patches/MRs, and as it seems to me that existing contributors are already busy with other things, setting a milestone on this means nothing if nobody has shown up to work on it ;) I typically only set a target milestone onto an issue while work is already underway or completed.

[digitalethics]

It sorts first by tag and then by title, although I don't see any advantage in doing so.

This still seems to be the case and doesn't make much sense to me either. @rivaldi8

Basically there are three sortable areas here: tasks, subtasks and tags. My original request actually referred to tasks (for sake of clarity it may as well be re-opened if @nekohayo agrees but maybe it is actually better to tackle these three related issues together), the present one to subtasks and the latest one to tags.

Then, there seem to be three basic expectations as to how items are sorted: chronological (bottom), reverse chronological (top) and alphabetical.

Lastly, it would be good to have a discussion on what is regarded as a sane default for new users interacting with GTG for the first time and it may not necessarily be what is the current default. Implementing new sorting features should also not limit existing users in their accustomed workflows but instead provide more flexibility in how to interact with GTG as a user. Linking to JMoerman/Go-For-It#21 for a related discussion.

Tagging @Neui and @zeddo123 for conceptual (and maybe code) ideas as both of you are very active at the moment.

[Neui]

It sorts first by tag and then by title, although I don't see any advantage in doing so.

This still seems to be the case and doesn't make much sense to me either.

AFAIK yes, this is still the case. I think it considers tags to group similar tasks together, but I haven't really checked or tested.

Then, there seem to be three basic expectations as to how items are sorted: chronological (bottom), reverse chronological (top) and alphabetical.

Also AFAIK you can click on the columns to sort (reverse) alphabetical and by dates, but if I remember correctly not "together" (like first by start date then reverse alphabetical).

(Warning, some random thoughts incoming; Note that I primarily use the Open-view not the Actionable-view, since I don't really follow GTD)

However, using that system how should we display tasks in "their order"? I guess you could have a "no sorting" mode where none of the columns are sorted, but that'll only allow sorting in one direction (no reverse). A new column would allow this, but that'll add clutter to the user interface, since it doesn't really provide some (useful) information to the user.

So I think it could make sense to separate sorting top-level tasks from sub-tasks. But then how should we "target" the top-level tasks and sub-tasks sorting? Like how would the user go about changing the sorting?

Maybe a good compromise could be sort the top-level tasks like currently, and use the column sorting for the subtasks, but that would put users in disadvantage who mainly create top-level tasks. Same the other way around.

Another idea I just thought of could be to force-sort subtasks by for example the right-click menu for an task (have a sort-submenu with checkboxes (or numbers?)), that would allow such control. This would allow certain "style" of subtasks be in certain sorting mode, and use non-forced tasks use the columns order.

[nekohayo]

It sorts first by tag and then by title, although I don't see any advantage in doing so.

This still seems to be the case and doesn't make much sense to me either.

AFAIK yes, this is still the case. I think it considers tags to group similar tasks together, but I haven't really checked or tested.

I have observed this (per-tag soft grouping behavior before per-title alpha sorting) as well, and I have to say that personally I like it, as a user I thought it was a "nice touch" that it tended to group similar colors and emblems together, it feels cleaner to me that way, and it helps preserve the "shape" of the tags column as well, I think.

Just saying that for the record, I would prefer to keep that ability, even if you folks end up implementing something that offers configurability for manual sorting and whatnot.

In any case this is still a "patch or it won't happen" issue, or maybe could be plugin material (?) depending on the complexity, and the user interaction design aspect of this is some significant work to be done. This sounds tricky/hard to handle especially if you still want to be able to have priority sorting by due dates and such...