Sep 23, 2008 10:07pm
Ricardo SIGNES
103 post(s)

I would like to be able to open a project folder and see its contents in the order they are currently scheduled. Right now, their ordering appears fairly meaningless. I do not want to order them manually in the project folder view. I want to see what order they’re currently in, so I can drill down to a project and see in what order its contents are going to be completed.

I know this can be accomplished by viewing in task list view and limiting by project folder, but I want to do this when I’m already doing work in the project folder view, so I’d rather not switch back and forth.

I can’t tell how the project folder view is ordered, or if there is a reason that this would not be a good idea.

Sep 24, 2008 6:17pm
Adam Sanderson
administrator
149 post(s)

So this is something we have thought about, and argued about quite a bit. What it comes down to is whether there is value in allowing an arbitrary order in the Folder view. Right now, the Folder view is ordered just by the user. Ordering by the priority from the other tree makes a lot of sense for tasks, however it gets a little awkward when you think about where to display the folders themselves, because their priority is a little less defined, or at least not as obvious.

Also, if we ordered by priority, people would probably expect to still be able to drag and drop things, which breaks down when you drag across boundaries from the other tree. Imagine:

(Tasklist)
_V1
__Task A
__Task B
_V2
__Task C
__Task D

(Folders)
__Task A
__Task B
__Task C
__Task D


Now imagine being in the Folder view, and dragging A under C, and then D under B. The effect on the other tree gets really weird.

It would probably work if we didn’t allow people to drag and drop in the Folder view. This is no doubt a discussion that will be had many a time in our office ;)

Sep 25, 2008 11:27pm
stevew
25 post(s)

What I’d like to be able to do is to choose my sort order for folders. Currently I end up dragging items around to put them in the order that I want. It would be nice if I could multi-select a range of items in a folder and then sort by priority or developer or end date or whatever. This would allow me to see the data the way I need to see it at any particular time. Icing on the cake would be a sort that restores the order to the last order that I manually set up.

Sep 26, 2008 3:01am
Ricardo SIGNES
103 post(s)

The order of display in folder view is only useful for browsing. It doesn’t affect anything. That means that being able to re-order all the time is not a problem. Provide n options for sorting: sort by X, sort by Y, sort by manually established order. Drag and drop re-order only works in MEO. Otherwise, it’s ordered for you.

I would always leave folders in MEO, but I can see others wanting them to follow the sort rule. It wouldn’t phase me if they did.

Sep 26, 2008 6:01am
Charles Seybold
administrator
433 post(s)

@stevew – the multi-select and sort is interesting. Ricardo’s point is important however. There is a difference between viewing and changing. The later generates change notification and I don’t think we’d want to generate lots of changes just to view things from a different angle. As the new group by button suggests, we are thinking of additional grouping features (eg. by person by priority).

That said – multiple select and edit is done and is going through final testing now. I would not be overstating it to say it transforms the experience of using LiquidPlanner. You can reorganize, reassign, mark done, and much more incredibly quickly.

Sep 26, 2008 6:00pm
Adam Sanderson
administrator
149 post(s)

There are a number of good points here.

I think I prefer the idea of sorting your view of the Folder View since they manually established order (MEO as per Ricardo), does not actually have any impact on scheduling. I actually think it could be rather interesting. I personally would want to see the folder view alphabetically most of the time. There are certainly a lot of interesting options for grouping and sorting mechanics.

Jun 8, 2009 10:45pm
Ricardo SIGNES
103 post(s)

This thread has never left my mind! Today I realized how useful a sorted Organize view could by while writing about how I’d like to be using folders: http://rjbs.manxome.org/rubric/entry/1770