What does "Near Due Date" means (and can we change it?)

[J Smith]

Hello

I want to change the colour used by Start Date so that there are 3 different possibilities:
a) Date is in the future      [i.e. "No need to start this task yet" ]
b) Date is today        [i.e. "You should have started this task today"" ]
c) Date is in the past    [i.e. "You should have started this task already before today"]

Is this possible?

To get clear, I want to see which tasks because due to start *today*.  (I find this particularly useful e.g. on my Morning Routine collection of tasks the repeat every day, when been away for a day or two and I have therefore gotten behind and I now want remove all of them apart from today's tasks, which I can then tick off in an orderly manner).

I shouldn't need to ask this question, but I found the documentation to be inadequate/ couldn't find the correct place (after 10 min of searching!)

BACKGROUND
I use Start Date a lot.  Currently, I am not using Due Date very often, because most of my tasks do not have genuine (exterior to me) due dates.
From what I can see Due Date colours work exactly how I would like my Start date colours to work, but Due Date does not take things off my Active task ("to-do") list.


DETAILS
For clarity here is where you can set up your Date Colours:

   Tools > Options > Themes & Formatting > Edit (my theme) > Dates Color
   The options here are:
      - "Future Dates"
      - "Near Due Dates" (**)
      - "Overdue Dates"

(** But exactly what does "Near Due Date" mean - and can I change it?)

From what I can see, the colour of the Start Date is affected by the date in the Due Date.
e.g. If a task's Due Date has happened, then  both the Start Date and the Due Date go to "Overdue Date" colour. ==> Fair enough.
Interestingly if there is no Due Date set, then Start Date can not go into "Overdue Date" colour. ==> Also fair enough

Likewise if there is no Start Date set, then the Due Date will only go into "Near Due Date" colours if the date is Today.
==> So this means that on their own, Due Date colours are behaving exactly as I would like Start Date to work.

OK, so you might think that I should simply use Due Date as my Start Date. HOWEVER I am using Start Date to disappear off my Active tasks list (i.e. my To-Do list) by putting them into the future. I find this extremely useful. e.g. I might go "Alt/S" and then "3D", and that will take the current task off my Active tasks list and I will not see it until 3 days time.

However my problem is that changing Due Dates does not remove things from my Active task list.

J