Projects Implementation #118
Replies: 16 comments 24 replies
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Hi, I'm going to give my point of view at this point, even though I've already expressed it here and there. It's good that you enabled the discussion space for this and other things 😄
This should be a property of course, but not only that. In the form of a list allowing you to possibly link several "project" files to the same task.
For me, yes. If the projects are notes, this allows you to have a view (obsidian's "graph" function or "excalibrain") of the project's connections including tasks and allowing you to filter them. The "project note" also has a "project" tag. This note can also be used to summarize information for the project with Bases, dataview, etc.
Yes, that would be ideal, but Obsidian's "graph" view or native backlinks can already help.
Yes it could be a good idea, but a lot of things can be solved with transclusion/embedded functions. What I would like to see happen most is the possibility of seeing the project in the different tools that you have developed...:
Here are the answers to your questions... and my shopping list 😃 |
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Quick thought here about a Project note … could have a property indicating type of project a la OmniFocus. In particular, identify a project as “sequential” (one task at a time, with each task being a dependency to the next, impacting “available” status of that next task) or “parallel” (there are no dependencies between tasks in the project, and they can all be available/completed in any order). |
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This is an interesting idea. |
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Having the option to mark tasks as 'parallel' would also be useful because it would allow subtasks to be sorted automatically. |
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To create subtasks for my project notes, I use the 'parent' property, a template, and the 'instant convert' feature. I write a basic Obsidian task in my project note and then convert it. This makes it easy to conceptualise subtasks as simply 'the tasks I write in the note body of other tasks'. While this is a nice, simple mental model, sadly it's not how it actually works behind the scenes. For example, if I were to remove the link to one of my subtasks from my project node, it wouldn't magically cease to be a subtask of my project. This simply feels wrong to me. In my opinion, either subtasks should be created in a way that is similar to how the information is currently stored, or the way the information is stored should be similar to how subtasks are currently created. Unfortunately, I don't have any specific examples or solutions. This is a tough topic that requires a lot of thought. Let me know what you think. |
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In fact, I think I'm going to leverage the {{parentNote}} idea, and use a project property in the frontmatter. While it is intuitive for a project to be composed of all the links in its body, I'm worried that not all links are hierarchical. For example, you might include a link in the body of a task to indicate that the two tasks are similar. It would be annoying if that relationship was always interpreted as the relationship between project and subtask. |
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And hopefully some further UX/UI improvements will make it clear that that key determines the relationship between the notes. Hopefully this will diminish the way deleting a link to a task from within the body of another task feels like you should be severing the subordinating relationship between the two tasks. |
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If I understand correctly, the idea would therefore be that the content of the note does not determine the hierarchy, but rather that it is the properties that allow it. There would be {{projectNote}} and {{parentNote}}? {{projectNote}} would refer to a "project" note which would have a dedicated #project tag {{parentNote}} would refer to a task or note that indicates not a context but a hierarchical dependency? |
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Why not also have something like {{childNote}} that would allow you to indicate that a task is a subtask of another. This would avoid having to always create subtasks from the main task... not to mention that some tasks are not linked to any project. |
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But maybe I misunderstood the idea. |
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Although 'linking out' to subtasks in project notes seems more intuitive, I believe it is more difficult to query using Dataview. Creating a DQL query that shows all subtasks of the current note is quite straightforward with the current setup: |
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Another thing I've been thinking about is the following: The status property doesn't work perfectly with projects. I believe that projects are primarily defined by their subtasks. For example, I would only ever say that I am working on a project if I am working on one of its subtasks. Similarly, I would never say that a project is complete if there are still open or in-progress tasks. Likewise, I would never say that my project is still open if I have finished all its subtasks. These illogical states could be avoided if projects did not have a status property. Instead, status information could be derived from the subtasks. However, rather than devising a complex way of determining whether a project is open, in progress or complete based on all the subtasks, we could simply introduce something different. Rather than statuses, project tasks could simply display the percentage completion of their subtasks. This would provide a much clearer indication of a project's status and distinguish it from regular tasks. If you want to skip certain tasks in a project and still have it show as 100% complete, users (or developers) could introduce a 'skipped' subtask status with the 'mark as completed' box ticked. One issue with this approach is that it would not be easy to query a project's progress using Dataview. However, I'd love to know what you think! |
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Yes, I quite agree. That's why I think the project note should be defined by a tag and the tasks are linked to this note and linked to each other. |
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Another thought: As I can't think of many projects with subtasks that have varying contexts, it seems unnecessary to require the user to specify the same context for each one. Perhaps projects could have a 'default context' property that all subtasks could inherit from on creation. However, if users do want unique contexts for their subtasks, they could simply edit the relevant subtasks themselves or simply leave the 'default context' field empty |
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This could also be applied to tags: have a 'default tags' property that automatically assigns specific tags to all subtasks upon creation. |
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Project support has been added in 3.11.0. I'd be keen to hear any feedback on the implementation! I haven't added any inheritance rules yet--I'd be curious to hear if you think it is necessary (it might be difficult given that a task can belong to several projects). I've made it possible for any note to be a "project" note. Project notes are simply those that are linked to in the project property. Project notes appear in the filter bar for each of the views. |
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Great. Thanks a lot! That looks great. So, have you removed the automatic creation of a {{parentNote}} link with inline ? |
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{{parentNote}} still works! It should be compatible with the projects feature if your template includes |
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Ok, I had a syntax problem in my template 👍🏼 |
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I just did some tests. It seems great to me, thank you very much. One thing that could possibly be improved is that my project file names are often quite long, but they all have a synthetic alias. If Task View could display the alias rather than the full link, it would save a bit of space. But that's for visual quality only. Otherwise, it works very well, and I can live with that ;-) |
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This is looking great! What's the best solution for listing a project's tasks on the project note? DQL? Also, a minor thing ... but could the projects property be stored as true link so that it would show up as a backlink on the project note? (Am also thinking about compatibility with other plugins that use links as properties, like Make.md, but that's probably a nice use case.) |
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@bepolymathe , here's an example 
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Ah I understood, I had a problem with my "Project" tag in the file... it works fine! |
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@callumalpass |
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I just realized this is automatically placed in project files and that is brilliant!!! Thank you! |
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Note: (for anyone else wondering) In my experience, this doesn't show up in project file if the note is empty. At the bare minimum, there must be YAML. |
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The projects implementation is wonderful so far. Just what I was hoping for. The only thing I would add on is being able to have the project search modal only show files tagged #project or something to that effect. Maybe people could customize whatever their filters are (a dataview query perhaps?) |
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I'm pretty happy with the current project implementation. There's still some pain points (that I've created issues for), but overall I'm quite pleased. Especially the subtasks widget is just fantastic. feels so native to obsidian and works great! |
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Any thoughts about property inheritance? (see also #214). E.g. I would want to put a project on-hold by setting I'm guessing the filter functionality could be expanded to look one level deep e.g. to the Any ideas where you would think development could best go? Having this ability to set project properties for all subtasks would greatly enhance the use of TaskNotes for project management |
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Where is the best place to post a bug? In the latest update, the H1 heading shifts to the far left. I'm just using the Minimal Theme. Haven't tried it on other themes yet. |
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is this related to Projects ? |
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One thing I would find helpful is the ability to have multiple TaskNote templates (e.g. one for Task notes, one for Project notes). My Project notes have many of the same properties as my regular tasks, but there are some differences. If there were an ability to have a separate Project template stored that I could toggle to in the modal or trigger with a separate command that would be awesome. |
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I'm encountering an "undocumented feature" (I think) with the projects property. Can someone confirm, deny or tell me what I'm doing wrong? For background, my vault uses "relative path to file" for new link format and relies heavily on aliases.
Because I uses Bases a lot with TaskNotes, if I make a change or addition to the projects property from Bases, I sometimes (somehow) get one of the following: Of course, even if I have the shortest path without an alias for the projects property, if I move the projects note, Tasknotes and/or Obsidian updates the property and uses the absolute path (without alias) ... which creates readability problems in both Bases and in the TaskNotes task view. I think if the projects property could play nicely with aliases, all would be well :) Jack |
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Following up this discussion I've created a FR for a better ability to filter based on project hierarchy #356 |
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I feel a GANTT / Timeline view, integrated with bases would work wonders here |
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There have been ongoing requests for dedicated project management support in Tasknotes. While my previous recommendation has been to use linked notes for this (context, here), it's clear there's a desire for a more integrated solution.
I'm opening this thread to discuss how to best implement a "projects" feature. To make this productive, I need to understand what users in fact envision.
How would you want to use projects?
project:property on tasks?Please share your ideal workflows. What would a project feature and changes to the data model allow you to do that is difficult right now?
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