gtg-user team mailing list archive

[Zach Shepherd <eightball1989@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 18:46, Bertrand Rousseau <bertrand.rousseau@xxxxxxxxx
> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 4:13 PM, Lionel Dricot<ploum@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> 2. Sequential tasks
> >>
> >> Currently, I see no way of creating subtasks that are dependent on each
> >> other, like, for example, do A ->  do B -> do C. The problems are (in my
> >> point of view):
> >>     - in the standard view, subtasks are sorted by the order they were
> >> created and have to be reordered by drag&drop, which is cumbersome.
> >>     - in the work view, no sorting method is appropriate
> >>     - in the work view, all subtasks are shown, although only one task
> >> has to be performed before we can jump to the next one. It's not needed
> >> to show "do C" if "do B" has not been completed.
> >> One could allow for sequential tasks by providing an enumerated list in
> >> the task edit view. This would fix the order in the standard view even
> >> after editing. In the work view, one could only give the next not yet
> >> completed subtask, indicating how many further tasks are left to
> >> complete the parent task (by, for example, appending a string of the
> >> form "(x more)")
> >
> > This is a very complicated problem and we are facing it since the
> earliest
> > mockup of GTG.
> >
> > Firstly, you have to understand that you can do it : A will be a child of
> > B and B will be a child of C. There cannot be any "order" in the workview
> > because, by definition, the workview shows you all tasks that you can do
> > *right now*.
> >
> > If you inputed A and B as children of C, it implies that you can do A
> > without doing B and vice-versa. You cannot break that because that's the
> > base of GTG itself.
> >
> > The problem is in fact not there. The problem is that, when you enter a
> > list of subtasks, you *sometimes* enter a list of ordered tasks and
> > *sometimes* not.
> >
> > Example :
> > Task "changing the light bulb" :
> > - Taking out the old ligtbulb to see the model
> > - Going to the store and buying the same model
> > - Putting the new lightbulb in
> >
> > Task "be ready for the party" :
> > - Cleaning the whole appartement
> > - Installing the sono and choosing the music
> > - Borrowing lights
> > - Buying cakes and drinks
> >
> >
> > As you can see, one task is sequential, the other is not. But there's no
> > way to know if the task is sequential or not. Worst : the same task could
> > contain sequential and non-sequential items!
> >
> >
> > A few months ago, I did a gtg branch that had this feature when you could
> > indicate sequential subtask with a tabulation. So it would be :
> >
> > Changing the light bulb:
> > - Taking out the old ligtbulb to see the model
> > ____- Going to the store and buying the same model
> > ________- Putting the new lightbulb in
> >
> > After two weeks of crazy work, I realized that it was simply unusable.
> > Firstly, it would make the Task Editor a lot more complicated and with
> > imprevisible (at least non-intuitive) behaviour.
> >
> > But, worst of all, I realized that, in the task browser, the order is
> > inverted!!!! It's like :
> > Changing the light bulb
> > +- Putting the new lightbulb in
> > +++- Going to the store and buying the same model
> > +++++- Taking out the old ligtbulb to see the model
> >
> >
> > So, pointing out the problem is easy. We all did. Finding and
> implementing
> > a solution is not. In this particular case, we deliberately choosed to
> > *NOT* provide a good solution because every solution we can think of was
> > worst than the actual solution. So if you have a solution, please share
> it
> > with us but take the time to really describe the solution with all the
> > details for yourself before. I'm sure you will quickly understand why it
> > is so difficult ;-)  Once you don't see any remaining problem, share that
> > with us :-D
> >
> > I repeat : actually, you *can* do it in GTG. It's just cumbersome because
> > you have to open every task to type the subtask in it. But it's possible.
>
> This is related to this bug also:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gtg/+bug/345575
>
> If I remeber well, ploum also posted a mail in the mailing-list about
> that issue. My guess is that there are two manners of expressing
> dependancies: through a sequence or through a priority.
>
> Actually GTG allows to express dependancies by priority by allowing to
> insert subtasks. I think we should enable support for ordered tasks
> (sequence of tasks) as well in the future. That could take the form of
> a numbered list in the editor for instance.
>
> >>
>
>
> > Lionel
> >
>
> --
> Bertrand Rousseau
> Place communale 1, 1450 Chastre, Belgium
> e-mail : bertrand.rousseau@xxxxxxxxx
> tel : +32 485 96 69 86
>
>

It seems like one solution to this might be to modify the formatting that
indicates sub tasks.

Currently, it's something along the lines of "---> Foo".

What if it were modified to be "# Foo" or "* Foo" where "#" indicated an
ordered task and "*" indicated an unordered task? (similar to the way
ordered/unordered lists are marked up in other contexts)

Any thoughts?

Regards,
Zach