[FR]: Make "Project Parents" a filter option

[mdbraber]

Feature Category

None

Problem Statement

With the current projects implementation (#118) tasks can be children of other tasks, which can be children of other tasks etc. So task can have multiple parents, grandparents and grandgrandparents etc.

In project management this is alike to a project being a part of an area, that has projects with subprojects that have tasks. To improve project management it would be great if this hierarchy would be part of TaskNotes.

Proposed Solution

No response

Use Case Examples

Create a filter option with a (virtual) field: "Projects Parents", based on the hierarchy of projects. Consider the following four notes:

Child D
---
projects: "Parent B"
---

Child C
---
projects: "Parent B"
---

Parent B
---
projects: "Grandparent A"
---

Grandparent A
---
projects:
---

The virtual field "Projects Parents" for Note C (and Note D) would be ["Grandparent A", "Parent B"]. And for note B it would be ["Note A"].

A filter for notes with the pseudo-query parents.contains("Grandparent A") would yield: ["Child D", "Child C", "Parent B"]

A filter for notes with the pseudo-query parents.contains("Parent B") would yield: ["Child D","Child C"]

This way you could filter notes by "super"-project like you would querying tasks from a certain area or project that contains other projects.

Priority/Impact

High - This would significantly improve my workflow

Additional Context

No response

[kmaustral]

I have a similar set up except the "grandparent" project is an area (it's an ongoing sphere of activity without an end date). My tasks are currently linked to projects within that area, but I add a tag for the different areas as well so I can get an area overview. Your system could save me having to do that.

[mdbraber]

In my view Areas and Projects are 'special' versions of Tasks. I'm trying to 'hardcode' as little as possible inside a Task about what it is, if it is defined by context (e.g. an Area is a Task where projects is empty).

That logic doesn't work always, because e.g. a project is defined by the number of tasks that reference this project, but sometimes I also have 'empty' projects (without any referencing tasks yet). I might add project or area as tag for projects to denote their 'special status'

[kmaustral]

One issue is the formatting of inline tasks. I find it confusing to see a project with a checkbox. I use MetaDate Menu to put icons on the project file names that enable me to edit the YAML without opening the note. Those icons don't appear in the inline tasks format.

[kmaustral]

Sorry, I replied by email. I didn't realise images don't appear in Github.

[bradleyed]

This plug-in is amazing, and I am very grateful to the developers. It's helping me make a system that will actually work for me. Thank you!

The "parent project" idea discussed here is something I have been thinking about and wanting for quite a while. I could see this idea eventually being extended into the ability to have an analytics/dashboard page so users could see the number of tasks and time spent (from tracking/Pomodoro info) by project and by any number of ancestor or descendant projects-- allowing both a high level and more granular look at how we are spending our time and energy. There would of course be complications arising from tasks or projects that have multiple parent projects, but it seems like there could be ways to handle that. Just an idea!

[renatomen]

Hi @bradleyed ,

Thank you for the suggestion. I've been contributing significantly to the plugin recently, and I consider implementing something similar. I just don't know when.

Dealing with recursive ancestors/descendants requires much more careful consideration, so it might take a while before anyone has the "courage" and the time to commit to developing that feature and, after that, offering continued support....

[callumalpass]

Just wanted to note, @bradleyed , that you can see task and project statistics by running "TaskNotes: Open task & project statistics" from the command palette. Not sure if this has all the features that you're looking for, though.