Dashboard: option to have multiple #sections and hide items in multiple sections

[dwertheimer]

When you do get around to React, I would love to see the dashboard have multiple sections for tags (e.g. #home, #work) and an ability to hide items that exist in that section from other sections. For instance, I don't need to see "#home" items in the "Today" section when I am at work. I only want to see them in the context of when I'm #home

As an aside, I don't think having multiple sections needs to be slow for most people because you are first pulling open items and then segregating them by tag, which should be lightning fast for most people.

[jgclark]

Agreed. Once we've moved to React.

[dwertheimer]

@jgclark I realized that there's also a bug caused by the multiple renders of the same task in the today section and the #home section. When you click "done" on the task in the top section, it fades and goes away but the one in #home stays there (until you refresh). This can easily be addressed in React, but only if you realize that this task is in multiple sections and needs to be removed from the data structure in multiple sections. Something to think about.

[jgclark]

Interesting point, @dwertheimer. It makes me wonder whether a better (and faster) approach to the duplicate problem is to accept that both copies show in their respective sections, but instead get smarter about removing all copies when an item is closed. How does that sound?

[dwertheimer]

@jgclark Yes we should make them both disappear, but I'd like to have a setting (that can be toggled with a keystroke like your other settings) that hides it from all sections except the tag-focused section. And I am willing to do the coding and PR it since it's important to me but clearly not you. My use case is this: I tag things #home that I want to do when I am at home. It's often 4-5 things during the day. I like being able to see those things when I am actually home. But for 50% of the day, it's clutter in my todo list that I constantly have to look past. So for me, I think i would be a lot better to be able to hide/show those items. So in my case, my preference would be to have them not in the today section, but underneath the #home section (ideally collapsed until I click to expand it). Again, I'm happy to do the coding if you're open to it.

[jgclark]

Aha. In which case I think this is part of a different requirement again, and one which I'd got on my long list to think about. I think there's a case to be made to have NP operate in different 'modes' or 'zones' (or better wording), including the Dashboard. There's already the ability to ignore certain folders, and to "Ignore items in calendar sections with this phrase", but with a little more scaffolding this could be made more comprehensive, with toggles to make it very easy to shift between the different 'modes'. I suspect it will need a separate HTML view to manage the settings for it. Are we thinking along similar lines?

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[dwertheimer]

@jgclark Ah that's interesting. An easy way to do what you describe would be:
a) have a setting in plugin settings for "Quick Filters" and in my case I might put "@home,#clientA,#clientB,supermarket" (then we don't need to build an HTML page to manage it)
b) on the dashboard we have a pulldown for Quick Filters, and if I select @home, it shows me only tasks that match this string. Super easy to do in React. No page refreshes required.

Note that the last example is a simple string "supermarket" showing that you could use any text string, does not have to be a # or @

[dwertheimer]

Maybe something like the "multi" version of this:
https://react-select.com/home

I already have this component in the repo

[jgclark]

I think perhaps the word I'm after is having multiple Perspectives than we can select between. Each would have what you describe above, plus I was thinking of going further and letting the user hide/show certain sections.

[jgclark]

Another thought has occurred to me. I'm keen that this 'Perspectives' requirement can apply to both Dashboard and Projects. Why? Because this feels particularly relevant to users like George C and myself who are managing >100 projects/areas, and large collections of tasks. It would be great to be able to switch perspectives more 'centrally' and for it to be picked up by a number of relevant plugins.

So, @dwertheimer, while I appreciate your implementation suggestions, I'm trying to hold back on that, and discuss the requirement in more detail first. We really want to be able to write the text now that will go at the top of the README summarising in one sentence what this feature offers users.