I feel silly asking this, because I know I must be missing something. Still, this is at least a usability issue (since I couldn’t figure it out) if it isn’t an omission.

I’ve entered a bunch of projects and created actions for each. Now, I want to add a new action, and have it show up in a particular place in the list of actions. I can edit actions, delete them, and mark them as completed, but I don’t see any way to change their order.

Here’s what I’m doing:

1. Click the “projects” tab.
2. Tracks shows me the list of projects. *These* I can reorder at will through drag + drop.
3. I click the linked name of a project to get the project view.
4. Tracks shows me all of the actions for the project in a box on the left. On the right, I see all of the current projects.
5. I click on an action for this project… I can’t drag it. I edit, but can’t affect its position.

Thanks,

Patlaj

Hi Patlaj,

You can’t re-order actions in Tracks right now. If you use the app a bit, you may find that the concept of “order” for an action is not so clear. If you have an idea about how this might be implemented cleanly and consistently, post it here for comment!

Cheers from NYC,
Luke

Hi Luke, thanks for your reply. It’s true I had only been using tracks for a couple days when I ran into that issue. I’m not sure if my expectations would make sense with more experience with the application, but maybe listing what I thought would happen will be useful in looking at the design of the functionality.

When I enter my actions for a project, I list them in the order that I intend to do them. So, if my project was “Find a good task list tool,“ I might choose actions like:
1. Write down my basic requirements.
2. Research software tools in this category.
3. Winnow out tools that don’t meet my requirements.
4. Install and try remaining tools.
5. Migrate current tasks to the winning candidate.

If I did number 1, then my next action is number 2. I want my task list tool to tell me what all of my next actions are for all projects. And certainly if I view that project’s details, I want to see my tasks in order.

Now, if I later decided I really needed a, “Setup servers to try out web app versions” step in between 3 and 4, I’d just put it there. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to do that with Tracks. So, it shows up at the bottom of the list where it doesn’t make any sense.

Functionally, I expected to be able to drag actions around when you’re on the page that lists all of the actions for a project.

Thanks again for responding - Tracks is very close to meeting my needs, so I hope my issue makes sense to people.

Pataj

Patlaj: I do appreciate the problem, and it makes perfect sense. What you’re really talking about is dependencies. That is, you can’t paint the living room until you have bought the paint. We’ve had a few discussions about dependencies on this forum and on the mailing list, and we will be adding some kind of dependency editing to Tracks. So ‘paint living room’ would be marked ‘deferred’ (and therefore not shown on the home page) until the action it is dependent on (‘buy paint’) has been completed.

The problem is that dependencies can be complex, and it’s difficult to decide how to design the interface so that dependencies are clear, but not create a big mess!

Thanks Bsag - lots of people seem to be happily using Tracks, so clearly my implementation is a bit different. My understanding was that the “next action” was a fundamental part of GTD - though you have a list of actions in any project, there’s always only one next action. When you complete one, the next is brought to your attention. If this is your method, then the order of the actions is crucial. This is why I thought I must be missing something in Tracks.

If I understand the Tracks approach to actions then, are they more a collection of actions that need to be performed to complete a project, but with no preference given to which is the “next” one?

For implementation - Tracks already maintains the order of the actions as you entered them. Every time you view a project they’re in the same order they were entered. So, instead of needing to introduce the concept of dependent actions, maybe either a) allow the user to re-order by manipulating the attribute that actions are currently sorted on (I understand that this might be undesirable if it’s the date/time added), or b) create a new attribute for each action (sort_key or something like that).

Thanks for your patience in looking at my issues,

Patlaj

patlaj - 27 November 2006 03:42 AM

Thanks Bsag - lots of people seem to be happily using Tracks, so clearly my implementation is a bit different. My understanding was that the “next action” was a fundamental part of GTD - though you have a list of actions in any project, there’s always only one next action.

This is, I think, a common misconception about GTD (in part, because the description is a bit ambiguous in the book). Next actions (irrespective of whether they are stand-alone or part of a project) are supposed to be things which, if you had unlimited time and nothing else on your plate, you could physically do right now. So projects may have more than one next action if there’s more than one thing you could possibly do in the project right now (without having to do anything else first). So, for example, you might have ‘buy paint’, ‘prepare walls for painting by washing down’ and ‘paint walls on your list. You could do either of the first two (the order isn’t particularly important), but you can’t do the third until you’ve done both 1 and 2.

patlaj - 27 November 2006 03:42 AM

For implementation - Tracks already maintains the order of the actions as you entered them. Every time you view a project they’re in the same order they were entered. So, instead of needing to introduce the concept of dependent actions, maybe either a) allow the user to re-order by manipulating the attribute that actions are currently sorted on (I understand that this might be undesirable if it’s the date/time added), or b) create a new attribute for each action (sort_key or something like that). Patlaj

Projects are sorted by due date and creation date (if I remember rightly). However, your solution of using a sort key wouldn’t allow the more complex types of dependencies I mentioned above (i.e. one action is dependent on two others, two are independent etc…)

Hm, interesting - I had been using actions in an ordered way for about a year now, and thought it was really useful. But it’s true, sometimes it doesn’t matter much which you would do first. (In those cases though, I just order them the way I’m planning to do them.) Anyway, I’m going to try to do it the way you describe for a while and see if it works out for me.

Thanks!

Patlaj