Displaying Empty Folders

[Maciej Wasyluk]

Hi, I'm playing around with Views and want to achieve an effect where specific folders that don't contain tasks are displayed.

More specifically, I want to achieve the following:

• Show all folders which are named 'Next' AND
• Are empty

For the first part, I'm using "FolderName is 'Next'." I need help figuring out the second part - how to display only empty 'Next' folders.

Can you suggest a solution?

[Dwight]

First, I would not use the foldername variable. I'm not 100% sure but I believe that a task whose grandfather is a folder named next would pass this test. I don't think that's what you want.

Also, I would use contains instead of is. This gives you the ability to use future names like next vacation or next report.

So, I would end up with:
Caption contains next
And
Isfolder is true
And
Hassubtasks is false

Dwight

[dti...@gmail.com]

Also, be aware of the HasIncompleteSubtasks filter which may be useful depending on your definition of a folder "being empty".  

I believe Hassubtasks is true even if the subtasks are complete and possibly no longer visible.  

[Maciej Wasyluk]

Hey everyone, I tried @Dwight's suggestion, and it does work to some extent. However, as @dtimpe pointed out, the "HasSubtask is False" condition excludes folders with completed or hidden tasks. I expected ActiveAction to address this issue, but it didn't work as I had anticipated and heck knows how it does work actually. So, for now, I'm using this workaround: Caption contains Next; IsFolder; Show hierarchy. With this setup, I can easily spot empty 'Next' folders because they don't have the ">" indicator/button on the left.

> Not empty

Empty folder

> Not empty

> Not empty

[dti...@gmail.com]

A while back, I would create a subtask in every project or folder called DNA (Determine Next Action) then any tasks in that project or folder were entered as children of the DNA task.  So long as their was an uncompleted subtasks under the DNA task the DNA task was inactive but once all the tasks under DNA were completed the DNA task activated and I knew I had to review and create some more actions.  I had a tab with a view of DNA tasks.  If the view was empty I knew all my projects/folders had at least one next action.  

I've since switched to using automatic formatting with several rules to present icons for different conditions.  One such rule, Identifies projects that need next actions.  Here are the conditions in my rule.

IsProject = TRUE AND

HideInToDo = FALSE AND

Complete = FALSE AND

HasIncompleteSubtasks = FALSE and 

(Context does not contain >Suspended AND Context does not contain > Someday)

The task is a project, is not hidden in todo, is not complete, does not have incomplete subtasks, context is not >suspended and not >someday.

These tasks get a yellow warning triangle icon as a visual indicator that the project does not have at least one next action in it.  

I also have rules for whether the subtasks are past due, due soon, or not past due or due soon.  Helps zero in on where attention is needed during daily reviews.