Sort sub-tasks sometimes greyed out - why

[Richard C]

I wanted to sort the sub-tasks of a folder into alphabetical order in a hierarchical view.   Unfortunately,  the option on the Tasks Right Click Menu,  Advanced Options was greyed out.    I have encountered this problem before.

Anyway, had a brain wave - the view had a filter Show Completed > Recent.       I changed to a saved view which shows all the tasks (with no filter) and the Sort option ungreyed and managed to sort my sub-tasks. 

So I thought it must be something to do with the fact that the view was filtered but when I changed the Show All Tasks view to filter in the same way (ie Show Completed >  Recent) the Sort option remained available.

So I am now really puzzled as to why the Sort Sub-Tasks is greyed out in my original view  - as far as I can see the only filter I am applying is the Show Completed > Recent.

Does anybody know or have any suggestions as to why the Sort Sub-Tasks should be greyed out in this way?

Aside:  this is the big disadvantage of greying things out - one never knows why they are greyed out.    You either want a hover tip to explain why or something in the Help or to change the behaviour so that you get a an error message when you select it that tells you why.

Richard

[JimboDimbo]

Hi Richard,

The way I enable the Advanced Sort (in right-click) is to toggle the manual Sort for the view; by selecting Sort in the filter for the view and checking the 'Manual sorting' checkbox at the top of the Sort dialog box, select OK. Then reopen the Filter view Sort and deselect 'Manual sorting', but the right-click Advanced Sort remains active. Not sure why, but toggling manual sort seems to clear/enable it.

JD.

[Richard C]

Hi - thanks for the suggestion.  But that doesn't seem to work for me.  Is this in a hierarchical view?    (Aside: not quite sure how sort is supposed to work in a hierachical view - does it sort the children at every level in the order specified in the Sort parameters)

[JimboDimbo]

Hmm. My original assumption was that Advanced Sort was not possible unless you selected Manual Sort, but this is not the case. My original Outline View sometimes has it greyed out, and I re-enable it by toggling the Manual Sort checkbox as I described (although I normally leave Manual Sort selected and go to another view before going back to turn it off again). For your Aside: In the Advanced Sort dialog box is a checkbox at the bottom to allow you to sort all subtasks recursively, which is an action that cannot be undone looking at the warning message. But this re-sort only affects the currently selected folder/project/task. If the recursive box is not checked then only the child tasks (of the currently selected task) are sorted.

[Richard C]

I have emailed support to see if they have any ideas.    My aside question related to what happened if you chose a Sort option for a hierarchical view in the Sort dialog box in the filter.

Richard

[Dwight Arthur]

Hi, Richard. I have a partial understanding of this, I'll tell what I know.

Background: keep in mind the distinction between the outline, which holds all of your tasks, projects and folders in a definitive, hierarchical order, and views in which the items may be sorted into some entirely different (manual or programmed) order. The sort entailed in a particular view applies to that view only and does not affect the outline order.

The "Group & Sort" section of view properties affects the view sort but not the outline order. If you right-click a task to bring up the context menu, select Advanced a,d then "sort subtasks" this actually changes the outline order. Note that if you look at a hierarchical view there's a very good chance that you are seeing the tasks displayed in outline order, so you will see the effect of having sorted them. But it's important to understand that you are not sorting a view, you are sorting the outline. The change will be permanent and will affect the outline order across all views.

I am not certain but I think that the command is greyed out if any of the subtasks of the selected task are hidden in the current view. That would be consistent with your Show Completed > Recent filter. If there were any subtasks of the selected item that were *not* recently completed, they would be hidden. As a result, MLO would not necessarily have enough information to know where in the outline the hidden tasks should go when the subtasks get sorted.

One other ambiguous point: My understanding is that "manual sort" in the sort and group box enables a manual sorting, but that this just affects the view order and not the outline order. However a recent thread about cross-platform synching of manual sort suggested that for at least one view (I forget which one) the manual sort gets synched because it actually sorts the outline order. I have not had a chance to actually try this out.

-Dwight

[Richard C]

Hi Dwight -

Answers in line

On Sunday, 25 January 2015 02:59:32 UTC, Dwight Arthur wrote:

Hi, Richard. I have a partial understanding of this, I'll tell what I know.

Background: keep in mind the distinction between the outline, which holds all of your tasks, projects and folders in a definitive, hierarchical order, and views in which the items may be sorted into some entirely different (manual or programmed) order. The sort entailed in a particular view applies to that view only and does not affect the outline order.

This makes sense

The "Group & Sort" section of view properties affects the view sort but not the outline order. If you right-click a task to bring up the context menu, select Advanced a,d then "sort subtasks" this actually changes the outline order. Note that if you look at a hierarchical view there's a very good chance that you are seeing the tasks displayed in outline order, so you will see the effect of having sorted them. But it's important to understand that you are not sorting a view, you are sorting the outline. The change will be permanent and will affect the outline order across all views.

Ok - I am confused.   When you say 'you will see the effect of having sorted them' - how will this have been done - I presume you mean using the 'Sort sub-tasks' because if I have understood what you are saying, using the Sort button in the filter panel does not alter the underlying 'Outline' sort.  Incidentally, do you know what happens if you use the view Sort button in a hierarchical view.  Does it sort the children of each parent into the specified order?

I am not certain but I think that the command is greyed out if any of the subtasks of the selected task are hidden in the current view. That would be consistent with your Show Completed > Recent filter. If there were any subtasks of the selected item that were *not* recently completed, they would be hidden. As a result, MLO would not necessarily have enough information to know where in the outline the hidden tasks should go when the subtasks get sorted.

That's what I thought but doesn't appear to be the case.  If I open up my All tasks view  - which is a hierarchical view without any filters or sorting - the Sort Sub-tasks is ungreyed (what one would expect) but if I then apply a Show only those completed in the last 3 days filter, the Sort sub-tasks view is still ungreyed.   Whereas, it is greyed in my All tasks (Recent completed) view which appears to have exactly the same set of filtering parameters.   Very odd. 

One other ambiguous point: My understanding is that "manual sort" in the sort and group box enables a manual sorting, but that this just affects the view order and not the outline order. However a recent thread about cross-platform synching of manual sort suggested that for at least one view (I forget which one) the manual sort gets synched because it actually sorts the outline order. I have not had a chance to actually try this out.

I think it is the starred view (from memory).

[Dwight Arthur]

On: Sunday, January 25 2015, Richard C wrote:

[…]Ok - I am confused.   When you say 'you will see the effect of having sorted them' - how will this have been done[…]

This is very straightforward, don’t overthink it. In the All Tasks view, select a parent item that has multiple subtasks. Right click on the parent item, select Advanced and then Sort Subtasks. On the “Sorting” popup, select “caption” – Ascending for the first line. It does not matter much what if anything shows in the other three lines. Hit “OK”. The subtasks should immediately jump into alphabetical order. This is not caused by the view you are using. Rather, the subtasks have been actually moved in the outline to a new order that’s alphabetical.

 

Incidentally, do you know what happens if you use the view Sort button in a hierarchical view.  Does it sort the children of each parent into the specified order?

The ‘Sort” in the main view definition sorts the top level of the items being displayed;  in a hierarchical view no children are sorted.

 

If I open up my All tasks view  - which is a hierarchical view without any filters or sorting - the Sort Sub-tasks is ungreyed (what one would expect) but if I then apply a Show only those completed in the last 3 days filter, the Sort sub-tasks view is still ungreyed.   Whereas, it is greyed in my All tasks (Recent completed) view which appears to have exactly the same set of filtering parameters.   Very odd. 

I have several excellent explanations of this, following a little experimentation I find that none of them work. So I can conclusively say that I haven’t a clue of what’s going on.

-Dwight

[Richard C]

Answers in line

On Tuesday, 27 January 2015 06:05:26 UTC, Dwight Arthur wrote:

On: Sunday, January 25 2015, Richard C wrote:

[…]Ok - I am confused.   When you say 'you will see the effect of having sorted them' - how will this have been done[…]

This is very straightforward, don’t overthink it. In the All Tasks view, select a parent item that has multiple subtasks. Right click on the parent item, select Advanced and then Sort Subtasks. On the “Sorting” popup, select “caption” – Ascending for the first line. It does not matter much what if anything shows in the other three lines. Hit “OK”. The subtasks should immediately jump into alphabetical order. This is not caused by the view you are using. Rather, the subtasks have been actually moved in the outline to a new order that’s alphabetical.

Yup - agree with that and when the option isn't greyed out,  it works fine and as you describe. 

 

 

Incidentally, do you know what happens if you use the view Sort button in a hierarchical view.  Does it sort the children of each parent into the specified order?

The ‘Sort” in the main view definition sorts the top level of the items being displayed;  in a hierarchical view no children are sorted.

Thanks - that's useful to know

  

If I open up my All tasks view  - which is a hierarchical view without any filters or sorting - the Sort Sub-tasks is ungreyed (what one would expect) but if I then apply a Show only those completed in the last 3 days filter, the Sort sub-tasks view is still ungreyed.   Whereas, it is greyed in my All tasks (Recent completed) view which appears to have exactly the same set of filtering parameters.   Very odd. 

I have several excellent explanations of this, following a little experimentation I find that none of them work. So I can conclusively say that I haven’t a clue of what’s going on.

:-)       I posted a support request and Andrey (indirectly) as asked for a copy of my file showing the problem.  Will report back.

 

-Dwight