An idea for sorting – is there anyway to do this?

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Lisa Stroyan

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Nov 22, 2013, 12:33:49 PM11/22/13
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I'm wondering if anyone can think of a way to do the following - I'm willing to have it be desktop only if I have too.

I have a list of tasks that are "today's tasks" (which I currently mark with a star and use the Active Starred list) . Note that these tasks are not all in a tree together because I can take any task in my tree and mark it. Also, note that a significant portion of these tasks are recurring, most daily, but some weekly, etc. an example is "brush teeth every morning" or "schedule the car for maintenance every three months".

Now, what I want is a fixed "default" sort order that I can set (this could involve setting some kind of a property or something) . The default order would be the order in which the tasks usually occur, for example brushing teeth before going to work. Then, I want a manual but temporary sort, using drag-and-drop. This would be the order in which the tasks are going to be seen today (or until I reset to default). For example, if I have a dentist appointment in the afternoon, I might wait to brush my teeth until right before it, so I would move that task down in the list.

However, tomorrow I'm going to want this recurring task to be back in its normal place, not in the middle of the afternoon. So lastly, I would want a way to reset back to the default order.

Am I totally overthinking this or missing something obvious? How useful do you think this feature would be and couldn't be implemented in MLO's current architecture?

Lisa Stroyan, lstr...@gmail.com

pottster

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Nov 22, 2013, 7:40:50 PM11/22/13
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Ok, this may be a bit out of left field and I may have not understood what you want, but you could try using Starred Date. The Starred Date property is sortable and is applied to the second that you star a task. This means that you could unstar your tasks, then restar them in the order you want to be your default, and finally sort by Starred Date.

Lisa Stroyan

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Nov 22, 2013, 9:12:10 PM11/22/13
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That's a great idea, I'll play with it. Last I played with manual sort I think I was able to reset the manual sort by modifying the view.

Lisa Stroyan, lstr...@gmail.com

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Roberto Penzo

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Nov 23, 2013, 1:16:59 AM11/23/13
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Hi all.
I think to have found a solution.
Please read my post of the date nov, 21th, of the title: bug: MANUAL SORT ORDER LOST.
That bug (until is not fixed) offers a solution.
Please tell me what do you think of.
Bye.

Lisa Stroyan

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Nov 23, 2013, 9:43:26 AM11/23/13
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Am I right in understanding that this would require having set times on all the tasks? My tasks are not all dated. anyway, I don't really want to rely on a defect :-)

I ran into a snag with Pottster's idea also. In order to sort by Starred Date I have to un-star and re-star the task, but since my list is filtered on star, I lose my task from the list. I created a temporary flag to mark all of the tasks that I want to sort right now, but that doesn't help when a new task joins the list, because then each time I have to set that property and un-star and re-star the whole list. There may be a way to make it work, but my brain is not up to it this morning.

Lisa

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Lisa


Lisa Stroyan, mailto: lstr...@gmail.com

Roberto Penzo

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Nov 24, 2013, 2:07:57 AM11/24/13
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Yes you're right. And I agree with you: not a ggod practice to rely on a defect (I suppose that it is).
Anyway, a good topic, I also need the same info / function.
Lisa Stroyan, mailto: ...@gmail.com

BOC

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Nov 25, 2013, 7:44:48 AM11/25/13
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One idea.

Create several sets of flags (random example below):

Red = 6am-9am
Green = 9am-12pm
Blue = 12pm-3pm
Yellow = 3pm-6pm

When you're going through your list, flag each item for the time period you would like to complete the task.

View

Advanced Filtering
Flag<>none AND Recurrence=none  OR
Flag<>none AND Recurrence=none AND DueDateTime is Today

This will give you all non recurring flagged items AND Recurring flagged items due today.
If you use flags for other things, add steps to only account for those you want here OR select them in the flags choice for the view (latter is probably easier)
 
Group by -> Flag
Sort by -> Your Preference

Challenges:
The system will have no idea where to place your recurring tasks in relationship with the others except for putting it in the 'group'
You have to manage the process by flagging each task


I can't think of any other streamlined way because you're going to be messing with modified dates, starred dates, etc.

Lisa Stroyan

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Nov 27, 2013, 12:15:15 AM11/27/13
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Interesting, this is closer than anything else I've come up with. I'll mull it over. Thanks!


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Lisa


Lisa Stroyan, mailto: lstr...@gmail.com

pottster

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Nov 27, 2013, 6:17:00 AM11/27/13
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To help with the implementation of the idea from BOC: remember that you can use custom icons for flags e.g. you could use number icons and also the sort orders and grouping orders for flags follow the customisable order in the Manage Flags dialog.
Lisa Stroyan, mailto: ...@gmail.com

Lisa Stroyan

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Nov 30, 2013, 11:15:09 AM11/30/13
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I played around with this a little last week, because I started with the Active Starred view, it seemed to mess up the order of that view. Maybe they are linked. So I haven't had time to go back and play with it on a clean database that doesn't mess up my regular daily work. But I'm still looking for a default sort order that I can reset the beginning of the day easily. And I need to find a way that it doesn't mess up my work on android, even if it doesn't propagate.

Lisa Stroyan, lstr...@gmail.com

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