How do I create a view that shows (just) all tasks which are dependent on something?

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John . Smith

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Oct 13, 2016, 10:50:01 AM10/13/16
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Hi

Is there any way to create a view that shows (just) all tasks which are dependent on something?

Or better yet show all tasks which are dependent on a specific task?

Background
I am trying create a list of tasks that are in effect in an action status of "Later/Soon".
i.e. I want such tasks to disappear off the "Active/Do ASAP" view.
I am already using "Hide the branch in To-do" for my "Someday/Maybe" list which is huge and I want another place to temporarily park tasks. 
I do not want to use time to move them back as this would interfere with my other lists (e.g. Waiting and Sheduled)

Cheers

J

John . Smith

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Oct 13, 2016, 11:05:43 AM10/13/16
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Wait, I may have solved my own question.

Although I still cant work out how to show all tasks which are dependent a particular other task,  if I create an Advanced filter with a value of HasDependancy is True, this seems to work in that it shows all tasks that are dependent on at least one other task.

In my defence I previously attempted to create exactly that view, but for some reason it wasn't working!

J

John . Smith

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Oct 13, 2016, 11:48:19 AM10/13/16
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PS Now my problem is how can I set a task to be dependent on another task using keyboard shortcuts/hotkeys?
Alt+6 seems to toggle open the Dependencies area on the right of the screen, but that's all I can find!

Dwight Arthur

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Oct 13, 2016, 1:00:20 PM10/13/16
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You may find it useful to use hasIncompleteDependency to see the tasks that are still inactive due to dependency.

Also there is a command on mlo/win. I think you right click the rask on which others are dependent (the target task) and look for a menu item along the lines of "tasks dependent on this". The result is a pop-up list of dependent tasks. Because it's a popup and not a view you cannot complete or modify the tasks right there.

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John . Smith

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Oct 14, 2016, 6:56:35 AM10/14/16
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Interesting - thanks Dwight.

So if I create a task called "Soon", I can make tasks dependent on it as follows:

- select the task(s) in question
- hit Alt-6 a couple of times to get the Dependencies window up 
- click on "Add" with the mouse
==> A popup window then appears.  What's boring is that I now need to go and find my task "Soon". The quickest way to get this seems to be to: 
- type "SOON"
- hit down arrow twice (if Soon is at the top)

And I can get to see everything that is of action status of "Soon" by
- Right-clicking on "Soon"
- "T" for "Tasks that depend on this task"
And this creates a new workarea/tab called "Dep: Soon"

That's definitely getting there.  :)

But are there any ways that I can do the above but without using my mouse?
e.g. How can I open the Add a dependency popup using the keyboard?
e.g. Is there any way to fire up the Right-click popup using the keyboard?

Cheers

Dwight

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Oct 14, 2016, 10:18:39 PM10/14/16
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First, let me correct an error in what I said before. The result of
hitting "tasks dependent on this" is not a popup, it's a genuine view.
In other words, you could create a tab called "soon", load the All Tasks
view into the tab, find the SOON task, right click it and select "tasks
dependent on this". The result would be that the Soon tab contains a
view that will always show you tasks dependent on the Soon task.

In other news

To create this tab without using the mouse,
1. Be sure that you are using what's called a Windows keyboard, which
has a key with the four-paned Windows logo (called the Windows key) and
another key with what looks like a cursor pointing to a menu (called the
Menu key)
2. select a task such as the soon task, by arrowing up and down or any
other method. Verify that the task is highlighted and that its details
are in the task details sidebar on the right.
3. hit the Menu key on the keyboard to bring up the menu
4. type a "t" to select the "tasks that depend on this" menu option

To make a task dependent on the Soon task without using the mouse
1. Make sure you have a Windows keyboard (as above)
2. select that task that you want to see become dependent
3. hit alt/6 a few times and see the Dependencies section on the right
opening and closing. Stop hitting Alt/6 while the dependencies section
is open
4. Without hitting any other keys, hit the menu key to bring up a menu
5. Type "a" to select Add Dependency and bring up a popup task selection
window
6. Using your favorite navigation method find the desired trigger task
such as Soon and select/highlight it
7. hit Enter to create a dependency on the selected task



-Dwight

On 10/14/2016 6:56 AM, John . Smith wrote:
> Interesting - thanks Dwight.
>
> So if I create a task called "Soon", I can make tasks dependent on it as
> follows:
>
> - select the task(s) in question
> - hit Alt-6 a couple of times to get the Dependencies window up
> - click on "Add" /with the mouse/
> ==> A popup window then appears. What's boring is that I now need to go
> and find my task "Soon". The quickest way to get this seems to be to:
> - type "SOON"
> - hit down arrow twice (if Soon is at the top)
>
> And I can get to see everything that is of action status of "Soon" by
> - Right-clicking on "Soon"
> - "T" for "Tasks that depend on this task"
> And this creates a new workarea/tab called "Dep: Soon"
>
> That's definitely getting there. :)
>
> But are there any ways that I can do the above but without using my mouse?
> e.g. How can I open the Add a dependency popup using the keyboard?
> e.g. Is there any way to fire up the Right-click popup using the keyboard?
>
> Cheers
>
> J
>
>
>
> On Thursday, October 13, 2016 at 6:00:20 PM UTC+1, Dwight Arthur wrote:
>
> You may find it useful to use hasIncompleteDependency to see the
> tasks that are still inactive due to dependency.
>
> Also there is a command on mlo/win. I think you right click the rask
> on which others are dependent (the target task) and look for a menu
> item along the lines of "tasks dependent on this". The result is a
> pop-up list of dependent tasks. Because it's a popup and not a view
> you cannot complete or modify the tasks right there.
>
> On October 13, 2016 11:06:35 AM "John . Smith" <shi...@gmail.com
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John . Smith

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Oct 15, 2016, 10:23:20 AM10/15/16
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I shall need to practice but that's great, thanks Dwight.

It turns out that the Context Menu key on my (Logitech MK700) Windows keyboard is Function key + Printscreen. Weird - who would have thought? And not the easiest thing to reach. [Why do they make this so hard??]

Sadly Shift+F10 doesn't work either.  [FWIW, my Setpoint software for my logitech keyboard allows various things to be launched but I can't see any way of launching the Context Menu ]

J

John . Smith

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Oct 15, 2016, 10:34:09 AM10/15/16
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Hi Dwight

I spoke too soon. I cant get this to work.

>>>
To make a task dependent on the Soon task without using the mouse 
1. Make sure you have a Windows keyboard (as above) 
2. select that task that you want to see become dependent 
3. hit alt/6 a few times and see the Dependencies section on the right 
opening and closing. Stop hitting Alt/6 while the dependencies section 
is open 
4. Without hitting any other keys, hit the menu key to bring up a menu 
5. Type "a" to select Add Dependency and bring up a popup task selection 
window 
6. Using your favorite navigation method find the desired trigger task 
such as Soon and select/highlight it 
7. hit Enter to create a dependency on the selected task 
>>>

When I get to #4, and hit the Context Key (i.e. FN+"Print Screen" in my case) I get the same effect as hitting mouse Right-Click on the task itself. If I then hit A it attempts to show "tasks that link to this task" rather than Add dependency.

Any thoughts?
Cheers

J

Dwight

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Oct 16, 2016, 10:09:02 AM10/16/16
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On a page like MLO/W, repeatedly pressing [tab] will continuously go to
the next defined tabstop until it reaches the last one, then the first
one and so on. Repeatedly pressing [shift][tab] will travel around this
same cycle in the reverse direction. The number of stops in the cycle
depends on what's on your screen, what's expanded versus collapsed, etc.
On my screen at this moment it takes 34 clicks of the tab button to
travel from any one tabstop all the way around the cycle and back to the
starting point. The tab cycle's path through the task details sidebar on
the right of the screen is *not* top to bottom, there is a fair bit of
jumping around. (It's possible that for a new user the path would be top
to bottom but when you rearrange the sections within the sidebar that
could make the tab cycle more jumpy)

When the focus is on the currently selected task in the last list, the
task's background is blue. When I hit tab, the currently selected task
remains the currently selected task but its background turns gray. In my
case the next tab stop is the text filter in the view details sidebar on
the left. You can tell that the focus is on the text filter because a
blinking cursor appears in the text filter box.

One of the tab stops is the "click to add dependencies" text in the
Dependencies section of the task details. There is no visual clue
(colour, cursor, etc) to tell you that the focus has tabbed to this
text. The only indicator is that the [menu] key on the keyboard raises a
context menu with only three choices starting with add dependency. (note
that right-clicking this same text raises the same context menu but also
highlights the text. Bug? maybe, but certainly too small to bother
reporting.) Another way to tell is to hit tab once to shift the focus
into the Delay field in the dependencies section. When the focus is in
the Delay field the text box border turns from gray to blue, the text in
the box gets a blue background, and a blinking cursor appears in the
box. At this point, [shift][tab] will return the focus to the "click to
add" text, you can hit the [menu] key and get on with task selection.

So, one way to do this is to ensure that the dependency section of task
details is expanded, start with the focus on the task that's to be made
dependent, and hit tab repeatedly until the dependency delay field gets
highlighted as above, hit [shift][tab] to move the focus back to "click
to add", hit [menu] and off you go. Problem: that is a large number of
tab taps (17 for me). You could make a keyboard macro called "17tabs"
but it might be 16 or 18 or something else depending on what tabstops
are currently onscreen. So you want a way to make the clickstream
shorter and more predictable.

On my system, starting with the focus on the selected task, if I {hit
[alt][6] to collapse the dependencies section - this step is necessary
only if the dependencies section is currently visible and expanded, and
then} hit [alt][6] to expand the dependencies section and carefully do
not tap or click anything else, the selected task has a grey background
and the focus is (invisibly) on "click to add". From your description,
the focus is still on the selected task. If you did not type anything or
touch a mouse, it is hard for me to imagine how this is possible.
However different computers work differently, so here is a workaround.

Hit [alt][6] a bunch of times and see if the selected task background
ever turns gray. If not, report this as a bug.

If you can get the selected task background to gray, then try to figure
out where the focus has gone. as you rapidly hit [alt][6] look for some
field that is changing colour, a cursor that appears, etc. When you find
it, see how many taps on [tab] or [shift][tab] will bring you to the
dependencies delay field. Remember the number of taps minus one, because
that many taps on [tab] or [shift][tab] will bring your focus to "click
to add" after using [alt][6].

-Dwight
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John . Smith

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Oct 17, 2016, 8:10:50 AM10/17/16
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Hi Dwight

Annoyingly I just lost an in depth reply!

Suffice-it to say that if I hit Alt-F6 a few times and leave the Dependency section open and if I then hit tab Once, then focus (blue background) goes to the Delay field.  Hitting tab focus is invisible (in theory on Add?) and hitting tab twice focus goest onto the Max Time: field within the Effort section (if that is open). Hitting tab once again the focus is in theory back on Add.

My keyboard (Logitech MK700) it has no Context Menu key. However if I hit FN key+"Print Screen" which is supposed to give the Context Menu absolutely nothing happens. 

Nor, FWIW, does it if I had hit the Enter key.

[Aside: I have been trying to find a better way to get access to my Context Menu (i.e. the menu you get when you right-click) by re-programming the keyboard, but to no effect so far. More here: http://www.tenforums.com/general-support/66975-how-can-i-launch-context-menu-without-using-mouse-right-click-2.html ]

This is all becoming insanely hard, no... ?   :^(

J

Dwight

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Oct 18, 2016, 12:45:26 AM10/18/16
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Hey John. My impression is that you are very strongly focused on your
keyboard, using it for all of your communication with your computer, to
the exclusion of mice, touchscreens, joysticks, styluses, etc. Someone
as reliant on the keyboard as you deserves a fully functional 86-key
keyboard, so you can stop struggling to express nonexistent keys. I am
currently very happy with this keyboard:
https://amazon.com/gp/product/B002QFOKOO

-Dwight
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John . Smith

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Oct 18, 2016, 6:33:34 AM10/18/16
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Hi Dwight


Yes in general I find using a keyboard about 10+ times faster than using a mouse. Worse mouse use tends to give me RSI injuries.  All-in-all the ability to configure keyboard shortcuts for almost everything (except Adding dependencies that is!)  is one of the best aspects of MLO.  

Yes, I hear you,  This does seem a little extreme being as there's not much else wrong with it.... Unfortunately I have two keyboards like this so I would need to buy two of them!

But yes, if all else fails maybe I shall have to buy a new keyboard at some point.

J
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