[chandler-users] [Bulk] Sorting

[Fritz Meissner]

Hi Keith,
That certainly helped me a lot to understand this under-documented aspect of
Chandler. Can I suggest that you put this info into the wiki ? I don't think
that this is there yet, and I think that it is essential info for all new
Chandler users.

Regards,
Fritz

2008/10/28 Keith Winsor <kjwstuff at btopenworld.com>

>  Hi Ann,
>
> Comments below, but first a little background info.
>
> As you rightly say, sorting has been discussed in a few posts. The basic
> premise of Chandler organisation is that items are triaged into three
> sections: Now, Later, Done. Items can optionally have alarms set and, when
> those alarms in Later trigger, the item automatically pops into the Now
> section. Un-alarmed Later items pop to Now on their due date, so you can do
> the GtD thing of forgetting about stuff until it gets 'tickled'.
>
> Sorting into the appropriate section is achieved by simply clicking
> repeatedly on the Now/Later/Done icon. The problem is, if you click on
> something flagged as Now, you don't want it disappearing into Later
> immediately, if your intention was to click twice and mark it as done. So
> the operation is carried out in two stages: first you change the status of
> all the items you want to change, then you hit the Cleanup button
> (originally marked 'Triage') to despatch them to the appropriate section.
>
> When alarms fire or when an item is edited by someone else, that item jumps
> back to Now, even if it is marked as Later, to bring to your attention that
> *something* has changed. These items jump to the top of the Now section,
> regardless of their actual due date. Similarly, items passing their due date
> change automatically to Done, unless they are marked as Starred (i.e.
> tasks). So an appointment passing its due date is marked as Done, but a task
> passing its due date is only Done when you say it is. There are a few bugs
> in this behaviour, mostly to do with repeating items, but that's the theory
> of how it all hangs together.
>
> Having got that out of the way, on to sorting...
>
> Mimi summarised sorting proposals like this on October 1st (my comments
> interspersed):
>
>  *NOW*
> - Continue to sort NOW by *triageStatusChanged* (aka when an item becomes
> NOW)
> - Allow NOW items to be manually re-ordered.
>
> So at present Now sorts by the date the item was stamped Now, *irrespective
> of its due date.*
>
>  *LATER*
> - Continue to sort LATER items that have custom-date tickler alarms and/or
> events to the top of the LATER section, leaving date-less Someday Maybe
> items at the bottom.
> - Change the way Someday Maybe items are sorted by sorting on the "Edited
> on" date, aka the date that appears in the Date column.
>
> and Later sorts by event date/alarm date, with undated items sorting to the
> bottom
>
>  *DONE*
> - Sort the DONE section by whatever appears in the Date column: Custom-date
> tickler alarm, Event date, Edited on date.
>
> At present, I think there is a lot of confusion caused by sorting on fields
> that aren't necessarily even visible, such as the Last Edited Date.
>
> For me, the logical solution would be to follow the traditional
> secondary/primary sort method: click on title column header then date column
> header results in 'sort by date, then title'. Except Now items that have
> been automatically changed by the system in some way, or edited by someone
> else, which should sort to the top. In addition, a lot of people have
> requested the ability to manually sort the Now section...
>
> Later is a can of worms, as this Bugzilla page<https://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8939>attests. Do you sort by due date? What about those items with an alarm a
> fortnight before their due date - should they be sorted by alarm date
> instead?
>
> Done should be sorted by completion date, the date the item was marked
> Done.
>
> The real difficulty is, bearing in mind each section is sorting on a
> potentially different set of criteria, how do you display this in table
> view? Ideally, the top of each section would display in some way the sort
> criteria being used.
>
> Ann Norcross wrote:
>
> I have some questions about sorting.
>
> I know that sorting of the Triage list has had a few posts, and I'm sorry to start off with such a negative attitude, but I have to say that I am so totally confused by the sort mechanism that I really don't know how I can use the Dashboard or any of my collecitons. Seriously.
>
> Here's a run-down of what I do, what I expect, and what happens, in case it is at all useful...
>
> Any hints on how to understand the sort would also be helpful to me.
>
> From Dashboard view, I press ...
> ... the little squiggly triangle at the top of the last coulumn until the NOW items are at the top.
> ... the bigger squiggly triangle labeled CLEANUP at the top of the screen
>
> I expect...
> ... to see a series of NOW items sorted by date.
> ... that if I press the little sguiggly triangle again, I'll see all my LATER items at the top, sorted by date.
>
>
>  Now I would have expected this to reverse the sort, so Done came to the
> top, with Now at the bottom.
>
> ... that if I press the little sguiggly triangle a third time, I'll see all my DONE items at the top, sorted by date.
>
>
>  The closest Chandler offers at the moment is to click downward-facing
> arrow adjacent the word Now in the grey section header. This hide all the
> items in that section. Click again to view. I generally leave my Done
> section hidden, as it makes the scroll bar bigger.
>
> Instead, I see...
> ...  a series of NOW items sorted arbitarily, not by date, not by title, not by person... I have absolutely no idea what I am looking at, what is most important, and what I should pay attention to next.
> ... my LATER items sorted with all the alarmed items at the top, soonest to farthest away, followed by all the rest of my LATER items sorted arbitrarily, with some TODAY items  at the top and some at the bottom.
> ... my DONE items sorted in no particular order that I can discern.
>
> So, perhaps Triage sort is not useful for me. Ok, no problem, I'll try sorting by DATE, if that's what I want....
>
> From Dashboard view, I press ...
> ... the DATE column-title
>
> I expect ...
> ...  to see all my NOW items sorted by ascending or descending date.
> ... that if I press the DATE heading again, the sort order will reverse.
>
>
>
>  There's a strong argument for clicking on Date respecting the triage
> status and sorting just within each section.
>
> Instead, I see ...
> ... all my items (NOW, LATER, and DONE) merged togther and sorted in one column in some arbitrary order, not date, not title, not user. Again, I have no idea what I am looking at and what is important.
>
>
>  Again, it's the sorting on a value you can't see that causes the
> confusion.
>
> So, I press ...
> ... DATE a second time, and it brings all the alrams to the top, in no particular order... it looks like today's alarmed items are on the bottom of the alarmed-items-group and the rest of the alarmed items start at the top with farthest in the future and the deadlines get closer as the list goes down.
>
> At this point, I start making lots of individual collections, hoping to get the sort granualr enough that I can use it. That doesn't work, either. I am frustrated, and retreat to my email client as a task manager. Help.
>
> ann
>
>  I think the key to successfully using Chandler is to keep the Now section
> down to immediate 'Next Actions', and triage to Later (with alarms for when
> you need to be reminded of them) all the 'soon but not yets'. By keeping it
> small, the somewhat (apparently) arbitrary sorting becomes less of an issue:
> you can still see the imminent items. Anything undated becomes
> 'Someday/Maybe', reviewed as and when you feel the need.
>
> Hope this explains, if not exactly clarifies. Let us know if you need more.
>
> All the best,
>
> Keith
>
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