Feature Request: Rule Sets for Task Ordering

[chuckdevee]

MLO gives users great freedom to create their own customised task
systems but has, at its heart, a befuddling way of ordering tasks
which, I suspect, few people understand or can tune properly to their
needs - the computerised score priority. I wonder if some thought can
be given to creating a way that users can write their own rules for
task ordering, in a similar way that they do so now for task
filtering. Maybe have a series of default rule-sets for people who
didn't want to do this.

[Richard Collings]

Interesting idea.

I was going to suggest that an option was added to the ordering options
which provide a the option to select a non-recursive algorithm so that lower
level items are not automatically ordered in front of other items which are
higher in the hierarchy - my most hated feature of MLO.

I guess this goes one step further.

[max]

I like your approach of enhancing the sorting algorithm in MLO.
I am trying to implement AutoFocus 2 in MLO, and am facing some
difficulties with list sorting.

AutoFocus is based on a list which is never reordered, except when you
do something with an item (but not complete yet), it is re-entered at
the top. Items which are crossed out (marked completed) stay wherever
they were when they were crossed. In other words, completion of items
must not move them up to the top of the list.

I was planning to sort the ToDo list by "modified date", so that items
that are modified always travel to the top of the list ("re-enter at
the top"). When I do that, items which are marked completed also go to
the top of the list as soon as they are crossed out. This should not
happen.

One possible remedy would be to only change the "completed" date when
tasks are completed, leaving the "modified" date intact ("modified"
should be updated for all other changes to the task). Could we have an
option for this ("Completing a task does not change modified
timestamp")?
Also it would be good to have another right-click menu item ("re-enter
task") or hotkey to duplicate and complete a task.

My current solution in MLO 3.0.0 is:
- sort the list by "created date" - this keeps items ordered as a
simple FIFO list
- items stay at whatever place in the list (also when they are marked
completed).
- to re-enter items, I have to duplicate the task (Ctrl-D), then
complete the current. I have to remember to do that whenever I change
something about an item, otherwise the items do not refresh to the
top. It gets nastier if the current task is recurring, because
- either I need to remove the recurrency before completing it
(duplicate, remove recurrency, complete)
- or I complete the task first, but then the new item does not get a
new created date (complete, then duplicate the new occurence, then
delete it)

Perhaps this could be AHKed? I am no expert in this.

Ideas, anyone?

Max

[אליהו הופנר‎]

Avery nice idea, and one that might be implemented with relatively small effort using the existing features.

I we have numeric values in fields like "Goal", "Impotance", "Urgency", "efort", we can use the sort feature to do our personalized prioritizing.
We might need more levels of sort.

Regards,
Ely Hofner