Forums / Ideas

wcitypoe

I just had an idea on how you could fulfill three feature requests with one feature set.

I've seen people request the ability to hide. I've also seen people request the ability to have nested lists. As a corollary to people's requests about nested lists, I've seen people request the ability to have dependent tasks, in which, say, in a list of 10 dependent tasks, #2 doesn't show up until #1 is marked complete, #3 doesn't show up until #2 is marked complete, and so on.

Here is how you could go about that.

You would have to first create the ability to have nested lists -- to have, in other words, subtasks.

You would have to then create a new element for every task, called "hide until" that could be used in tasks OR subtasks. The "hide" variable would accept two types of input.

For tasks and subtasks, it would accept a date (with RTM's lovely flexible date input such as "in 10 days" or "Wednesday", etc.). For subtasks only, it would accept "until parent task is marked complete". (I'm not sure how you could simplify that wording, but I'm sure you could.)

In this manner, you'd end up having the following abilities:

(1) Someone could create a nested list with no hidden attribues whatsoever, allowing them to see the entirety of the list, but segregated. This would be useful for project management, I imagine.

(2) Someone could create a nested list in which each item was nested beneath its parent and marked with the "hide until parent is completed" attribute. This would essentially fulfill the "dependent task" request.

(3) Someone could not use nested list at all but instead simply hide a task as requested. This is very useful because it gives you a very fine, granular control over what tasks are put on your plate. Smart Lists can give you a sweeping control over that, but it is like trying to cut a single blade of grass -- but no other blades -- with a scythe.

As a human example of a case in which the above attributes would be desired, I get paid every other Thursday. I would like, every other Wednesday, to have a dated task appear with the top-priority attribute set (so that it bounces to the top of my list) that tells me to in advance prepare checks for bills and such, so that when the paycheck is direct deposited, I can stick them in the mail. However, I cannot set it as a top-priority item without it always being at the top of my list, and scheduling it for every Wednesday will always keep the item visible on my to-do list perenially -- both of these being undesirable outcomes.

Mike

Posted at 3:56pm on March 28, 2007