Request: Add project notation

[Jostein Berntsen]

It would be convenient to have a way to categorize notes by Project,
like f.ex:

+ MSM710 upgrade 2011-02-22 (HP,switch) [F-MH_PM-11]

where the notation in brackets are reference to a specific project. nts
could then list all notes belonging to a specific project by an option
on the command line, and also by giving the first letters in the
project.

I know it's possible to organize tasks in projects by assigning them sub
directories, but it would also be a nice option to have a way to give a
project notation within the note for more flexibility. This would also
make it possible to make a task belong to several projects.

Jostein

[Alexander Wagner]

Seems like a good idea. Just out of pedantic curiosity, does the GTD philosophy encourage or discourage (or neither) assigning a note/task to multiple projects? I would also think that it might not hurt to have this flexibility for notes.

On Feb 22, 2011 9:09 PM, "Jostein Berntsen" <jbe...@broadpark.no> wrote:

[Jostein Berntsen]

On 23.02.11,01:49, Alexander Wagner wrote:
> Seems like a good idea. Just out of pedantic curiosity, does the GTD
> philosophy encourage or discourage (or neither) assigning a note/task to
> multiple projects? I would also think that it might not hurt to have this
> flexibility for notes.

I'm not sure what GTD says about this, but an example would be a
note/task for a pre-project which translates into a main project. Like a
system specification.

Jostein

[Jostein Berntsen]

As I see it a note can belong to one task, and a task can have several
notes. A notes can also belong to several interconnected tasks. This way
the Project will be the main categorizing element for the set of
notes/tasks.

Jostein

[Dan]

I'm a little confused. Are you talking about integrating notes in nts to tasks and projects in etm?

-Dan

[Jostein Berntsen]

I was mostly just thinking of having a way to see which project a note
belongs to. If it could be integrated with etm that would alos be great.

Jostein

[Dan]

Is there some reason that you can't just add the project to the list of tags for the note?

[Jostein Berntsen]

On 24.02.11,05:06, Dan wrote:
> Is there some reason that you can't just add the project to the list of tags
> for the note?
>

Yes. I'll try to explain what I mean. Tags are keywords with no inherent
relation or limitations for use, a note can have 0, 1, 10 or 1000 tags.
I use tags as an identifier for a note, but there are no parameter for a
tag that can make it separate from other tags.

Project notation will be used for categorization and as a container for
notes that naturally belongs together. It would then be cool if the
Project Notation could have an option for meta data. Tags will then be a
parameter that is like a free keyword, while a Project is more like a
type that is a mutually exclusive term with a defined set of parameters.

Jostein

[Dan]

Could you give me an example of a note with your proposed project notation and an idea of what you would like nts to be able to do with the project information from this note?

[Alexander Wagner]

In the first email, Jostein gave an example like so:

+ MSM710 upgrade 2011-02-22 (HP,switch) [F-MH_PM-11]

But, I guess i've changed my mind on this after some thought...

The way I saw it was that tags are essentially "context" or "keyword",
and the association of something with a "project" allows you to view the
progress (and dependencies of tasks) in completing a project. For notes,
the distinction between project, context, and keyword is perhaps not
important, since nts is about quick note-taking and note access.
Consequently, tags are sufficient to cover all three. You can always
distinguish a set of notes from another which share the same tags by
adding more tags which refer to the project name or metadata. The
motivation for the square bracket notation is, i guess, that one can
immediately see the association with projects, since, in one's mind, one
might like to think of the "project" as a hierarchically higher concept
than "tags". But, underlining this hierarchy is perhaps not really a
design principle of nts.

So, from a practical and philosophical point of view for nts,

+ a note (tag1, tag2) [project]

is equivalent to

+ a note (tag1, tag2, project)

and "+ a note (tag1, tag2) [project1, project2]" is equivalent to
"+ a note (tag1, tag2, project1, project2)"

For etm, this is not the case because etm is motivated by the GTD
principle towards completing projects, and the act of marking a task as
finished, or seeing the sequence and dependencies of tasks in a project
are important. I'm still wondering if it's sensible or all that
important to have the ability to associate a task in etm to more than
one project. The implementation would be tricky.

Anyway, that's just my twopence.

[Jostein Berntsen]

I agree with Alexander here. My suggestion would maybe complicate nts
too much. I can rather use a notation like this: + MSM710 upgrade
2011-02-22 (HP,switch, F-MH_PM-11) to indicate the project.

Jostein