how to rank tasks by ending date? or finishing date?

[元亨大吉]

so that i can see how the prject is ongoing, whtat is done and what is not.

[Dwight Arthur]

Hi, 元亨大吉

I think that you are asking how to take a view which already includes all the tasks you want to see, and sort this view by due date.

Try this

1. Bring up the view and ensure that all required tasks are being displayed

2. Bring up the view definition pane

  a. is the pane at the left side of the screen displayed or hidden? if hidden, hit alt+f1 to display it.

  b. if the title bar at the top of the pane says "Views" click on the word "views" to toggle to the view definition

3. find the section header "group & sort" and ensure that it is expanded

4. click the button "sort..."

5. ensure that "manual sort" checkbox is clear

6. click in the dropdown box under "sort tasks by"

7. select due date

8. select ascending

9. click "ok"

this should cause your tasks to sort by due date. If this is not what you wanted please write back and clarify

-Dwight

[元亨大吉]

Thank you very much Dwight, your reply is very helpful. I have got all tasks ranked by due date under you instructions. This is great!

But this is on the condition without Hierarchy. With Hierarchy Filter is switched on, i.e. with parent and children tasks, children tasks are not sorted out. Can you give me further instructions?

 Is it possible to sort the children tasks within a parent project buy due date?

[Dwight Arthur]

Sorry, no.

For views that show a hierarchy, any defined sort is applied to the root (parent) level and not to the leaf (child) level. Sometimes this leads to clearly undesirable results, such as when a particular view shows a single branch of the hierarchy, so that the level where the sort is applied contains only a single item. At some point there was a discussion in the forum suggesting that the defined sort should be applied at every level to items that shared a common parent. But this suggestion was never formalized as an enhancement request, so it's unlikely that it will be implemented any time soon.

-Dwight

On Monday, October 21, 2013 11:49:06 AM UTC-4, 元亨大吉 wrote:

... Is it possible to sort the children tasks within a parent project buy due date?

[元亨大吉]

Alright, thank you! Dwight

[Matthieu B]

Hi, have we made any progress since 2013 regarding this enhancement? Hierarchy should be used simply to put tasks in context, not to get in the way of sorting. Sorting should consistently be applied to main filters matches only, even if that means seeing the same hierarchy multiple times in this view. We already have the main outline (all tasks) for neat structures where items appear once. It feels very out of place in the context of a view since it conflicts with the primary function (which is to tackles individual tasks, regardless of location, in the chosen order). Thanks! I don't know how active MLO has been these last days... It's definitely not the most famous app for GTD but the team has done an excellent job so far. It would be a shame to leave it there.

[Stéph]

I'm not sure I fully agree with you. I think sorting should be as you describe if you are viewing tasks in a flat list. However, if you're looking at tasks within their hierarchy, then I don't think the sorting should change the outline hierarchy, duplicating branches and tasks. If you're choosing to view tasks within their outline hierarchy, then it would be quite confusing to override that outline with the sort criteria. (If I've misunderstood what you're suggesting, then my apologies - I'll blame my confusion down to my current bout of COVID-19).

Stéphane 

[Jon R]

I am a new user but see there is an option to sort a branch under the context menu 'advanced - sort subtasks'. I guess this was implemented since OP's ancient question!

I confess that MLO is very powerful/configurable, and hence complex - I am still learning!  So all I can report is my method:

I prefer the outliner to sort top level parents according to importance etc, while the tasks (children aka leaves) within each parent are manually set up in a sequence (no need for priority fields etc). MLO knows to present the first/next incomplete one in the 'todo' list.

But if a complex project has multiple parallel tasks I can see that sorting them per OP's question is needed (or maybe a filter?) to sort the wood from the trees. Warning - I have not tested this and see the menu says 'this cannot be undone' - I would be afraid of borking the entire tree by mistake. "With great power... etc".

My bolt-on question (perhaps deserves a new thread...) is that I notice that however I tweak the settings, the todo list always bunches dated items right at the top (including recurring tasks), and non-dated below, very rarely putting non-dated items among the dated ones.

This is awkward for me bc I want to fulfill the opening paragraph of the MLO introduction - i.e. to prioritise high value projects among the regular fluff of life and work. 

I feel that setting a 'date' imposes a heavy implication of 'must', whereas this is not true at all. E.g. if I set a date to remind me to do a recurring task, it might be mundane like 'take clothes for pressing'. The settings for priority etc don't seem to have enough influence over the due date.

Does anyone else feel this way?

[Stéph]

Hello Jon,

If you're a user of the classic "GTD" method, then you should avoid setting any dates other than hard deadline dates (the ones where "after this date, the task is invalid because it's too late"). Treating due dates as absolute means that they should always be set ahead of undated items - that's the theory, anyway. If that doesn't work for you, then you should be able to set up custom filtering and sorting in a view so that items are only sorted by importance, ignoring the due date. It's probably best to start with the basic To-Do list view and then set up your own custom filter from scratch, with  the filtering and grouping criteria you want.