Project management

[bepolymathe]

Hi @callumalpass ,

Thanks again for this great project. I had already tried to have a one-file = one-task approach a few years ago, but I stumbled after a while on project management. How do you envision project management? Only with tags? According to belonging folders? 

I am curious about the planned developments because I find that this plugin could be very useful in combination with Obsidian Web Clipper to capture tasks from the browser with the useful content.

[bepolymathe]

To clarify my thoughts a bit. Currently, if I use tags to manage projects, I cannot filter by tags in the "task view". If I use contexts to manage projects (which is normally not desirable), I can filter by contexts but I cannot combine contexts (pro + project1 for example). I wonder if it would not be useful to have a new entry managed in the Yaml for projects 🤔

[callumalpass]

Hi bepolymathe.

This is a good question.

I think that there a couple of ways to manage projects in this plugin. One way is, indeed, to rely on "contexts". You can group and filter tasks by context in most of the views of this plugin, so I think that provides a lot of the functionality of projects.

A perhaps more powerful way to handle projects is to make use of linking between Tasks. I added the Inline Task Widget functionality (the functionality whereby links to TaskNotes get rendered as Tasks in the editor) with this in mind. I thought it would be helpful to have a "project note", which links to lots of different "sub-tasks"; from this view, you can manage a project.

You might also find the template variable "{{parentNote}}" helpful in this regard. If you create a TaskNote by converting from a checkbox task, like this:

- [ ] this is a checkbox task (in TaskNotes, it will have a little button for conversion)

upon conversion, the {{parentNote}} variable will resolve to the path of the note in which the task was converted (to its parent note, to put it plainly).

You can use this variable in templates, so that you have sub-tasks with a wikilink to their parent note a "parent" or "project" property. I added this feature with the idea that you could make Bases views that filter for tasks with certain "parents" or "projects" in their frontmatter. That way, you'll be able to see all the tasks in a particular project in the Bases view.

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I'm open to suggestions on how projects could be better handled, though. This is one of the trickiest UX aspects of this plugin to get right, I think.

[callumalpass]

Can you please say more about not being able to combine contexts? I'm not sure I follow there. You can add multiple contexts to each task, and you can filter for more than one context at a time. Do you mean something different?

[bepolymathe]

Can you please say more about not being able to combine contexts? I'm not sure I follow there. You can add multiple contexts to each task, and you can filter for more than one context at a time. Do you mean something different?

I'll answer that first.
For example, I have 3 notes that are tasks that correspond to a personal context ("perso"), one of which must be done in a specific place ("garden"). I also have a task that corresponds to the professional context ("pro") and which must be done in the same place ("garden").

contexts:
  - perso
  - garden

If I open the "open task view" command and filter by the "perso" context, I have three tasks. If I filter by the "garden" context, I have two tasks. If I try to select "perso" and "garden," I have four tasks instead of two (3 "perso" and 1 "pro").

In short, the filter works with the OR option and not AND .... and I can't change it currently.

[callumalpass]

That's a great point--and definitely something to think about. I think there are some clear improvements that can be made to the filtering system, and this should be at the top of the list.

If that filtering system were fixed, what else would you like to see in terms of projects?

[bepolymathe]

From my point of view, there is a difference between the context and the project. Maybe because I apply a kind of GTD logic... For me, the context must remain exclusive (personal, professional, etc.), that's why I found it logical not to be able to combine filters (as mentioned in the message above)... and hence my question about project management.

The addition you suggested to provide the creation context with the template via {{parentNote}} is very useful. I'm currently testing it. I was doing something similar with the Quickadd plugin before...

The other option of managing projects via tags isn't very practical because I don't find it easy to manage the titles... you have to use CamelCase with names like #PreparationMeetingBerlin2025, which isn't very attractive in the different views (or in Bases). But it's powerful.

[callumalpass]

Thank you for that explanation; it is helpful. Your sense that contexts should be exclusive is understandable.

I'll have a think about this some more.

If you need any guidance on how to use {{parentNote}}, it is best documented, for the moment, in issue #30

[bepolymathe]

For project management, I will find very useful:

• to be able to filter/sort my tasks by project with or without taking the context into account.
• to be able to assign a period (start/end) to a project which allows you to visualize the tasks of this project over time (we could imagine in the form of a Gant or calendar)
• to be able to isolate tasks that do not belong to any project
• to have an "inbox" type view which corresponds to a sorting station for tasks without status which are noted on the fly and then sorted (also very inspired by GTD).

I'm also thinking about it myself. I'm available to help discuss/test.
Have a good day.

[bepolymathe]

Another idea just came to me. Project integration would complement the timeblocking feature very well by allowing you to dedicate time to a specific project...

[bepolymathe]

I wonder if the easiest way to integrate project management wouldn't be to use statuses. A note with a status of "project" would be interpreted as a note to which the task would be linked... a bit like {{parentNote}}, there could be {{projectNote}}. 🤔

Tasks not linked to any {{projectNote}} would be presented as "standalone" or "one-off".