Hi, John. Reading your description I now have a better understanding of what 
you are trying to do but no better understanding of why it does not work for 
you. My profile is fairly complex but it may have fewer levels that I’m 
guessing yours might have. ByDueDate has (as far as I can see) three changes 
from the Alltasks view (1) hierarchy is turned off, (2) Advanced filter selects 
items with due date (3) items are grouped by due date.

 

Remember that a hierarchical view presents a collection of one or more trees, 
where trees that overlap are merged. Main and advanced filters, sorts and 
grouping apply only to the top (root) level item in each tree. I believe that 
when you turn on the hierarchical view the default config is to show parents 
(with no parent filter) but not children. So the specification you have given 
asks for items that have a due date together with all parents of each, with the 
trees merged whenever they overlap, with the whole thing grouped by the due 
date of the item at the top of each tree.

 

First of all, I cannot imagine that grouping by the due date of the root is 
useful. I would suggest turning it off as it seems to make the result a little 
more confusing.

 

Second, remember that your view is made up of merged trees. Many of the items 
that qualify for inclusion are also parents of items that qualify for 
inclusion. Once the merging of trees is complete, those items are not shown 
because they passed the primary and advanced filters. Rather they are shown 
because they are parents of an included item, and passed the parent filter. 
When you throw out some of the bottom-level items because they are completed, 
that will also throw out any item that’s there only because it is somebody’s 
parent.

 

Consider this tree:

  A     D  

 / \   / \ 

B   C E   F

 

If every one of these items is uncompleted and has a due date, your view will 
show all of them. If you complete B, C, and D they will drop from the listing 
but so will A. That’s because A was included as an item in its own right 
because it is uncompleted and has a due date, but also because it is a parent 
of B and also because it is a parent of C. In the merge, it survives as a 
parent. If B and C are then eliminated from the view because they are 
completed, A is eliminated because it has lost all of its children. D remains 
because it is the parent of uncompleted task F.

To get the view you want, I think you have to go at it from the other end. 
Instead of “show uncompleted tasks with due dates, and their parents” how about 
“show projects and all of their uncompleted children with due dates.”?

 

To do this, start with an unmodified All Tasks view. Set the general filters to 
Actions:all, Hierarchy: yes, completed: yes. Set the hierarchy config to: 
parents: clear. Child items: checked. Child filter: ((DueDateTime 
exists)AND(not(Complete))). I do not understand the Continue Searching item and 
it seems to make no difference in this case so ignore it. Back in the main 
screen, set advanced filter to (IsProject). Clear any groups and sorts.

 

Is the result what you want? If not, please be specific about what’s different 
from your expectation.

 

-Dwight

 

 

On: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 1:54 PM, John Lewis Fitzpatrick wrote:



Thank you for your time in responding to my query.

 

So if I understand correctly (and apparently I don't), under the Filter menu 
the "General" tab (Actions / Hierarchy / Completed) should take precedence over 
the Advanced Filter near the bottom. That would make sense given its location 
in the window, however when I started with a new view and used the Hierarchy 
Config button to Include Parent and Child items, with the Filters both set to 
"DueDateTime exists" only a hand full of incomplete tasks showed up, none of 
which were for the Project I'm trying to focus on and none of the Project 
Folders are visible to see what project the tasks are in (I've got all Personal 
and Business Projects in one file, maybe that's the issue).

 

Starting again with the "By due date view" which seems to be a partial success 
(hey MLO, what's due on each of my Projects?):

*       Show Actions: "All"
*       Show Hierarchy "Yes" / Config Default on "Include Parent Items" and 
"Include Child Items" (I had not used this before because the "Config" text is 
not wrapped within the button and is illegible)
*       Show Completed on "Yes"
*       Advanced Filter default "DueDateTimeExists" for this view.

With these settings on one of my Projects I've been reviewing the view shows 
Nine (9) incomplete tasks which matches the Outline View, of course all 
completed tasks are also shown which I have to scroll through to see the 
incomplete tasks. So why not just look at the Outline View?

 

If I want to just focus on just incomplete tasks within a certain Project I go 
back up and select Show Completed: "No" and the same Project now only shows One 
incomplete task out of the Nine in the Outline and previous Show Completed: Yes 
view. So where are the other Eight incomplete tasks? They're in the Outline 
View, and show up when all complete tasks are shown, but they still are not 
complete and I need to see them whether I see the incomplete tasks or not. 
What's the secret to a usable To-Do view?

 

I've tried General Filter options and Advanced Filter Options with Rules and 
Sub-rules either in combination with General Filters or separate, that by their 
descriptions should work but nothing has. I've also tried Sorting the View, 
either separately or combined with Filters. These views were further off the 
mark.

 

If I get time I'll either post my profile or create a test profile to post, but 
for now I'm still scrolling through completed tasks. Hardly seems like the 
To-Do view is worth it, just scroll though the Outline which is the only view I 
really trust that doesn't hide incomplete tasks.

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