UI: Filter/ Sort Dialog enhancement ideas - mockup

[linuxcaffe]

Describe your improvement idea or feature request

First of all, I can see that a lot of good work has gone into the Filter/ Sort dialog, so I'm not knocking that..

but it could use a little love! ;-)

see the mockup below, as I try to illustrate possible enhancements.

How would you like to see it implemented?

Major Filter Dialog revamping!

Put here any screenshots or videos (optional)

How can we contact you (optional)

No response

Would you like to work on this issue?

None

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• I have starred the repo ⭐ and watched 👀 it on GitHub and followed the contribution guidelines.

[SGI-CAPP-AT2]

Hey I would like to work on this one,
With some changes like,

1. Have a drop-downs instead of chips for sorting.
2. The command line feature I think should be implemented in searchbar (Which will be a temporary view)

What do you think @linuxcaffe and @Pavel401

[linuxcaffe]

@SGI-CAPP-AT2 Ok!
Dropdowns for sort?, much better!
Command line in the search box? I was thinking INSTEAD of search box, but I think I know where you're going with that.. Maybe command line in filter dialog AND search bar?
Best part is YOU working on it! ;-)

Maybe consider this one a "filter bar" containing only task CLI filter elements, and put a real "command line", where commands might be issued, in the search bar?

Personally, I like seeing the filter built as I select elements, before hitting [Apply] with the option to then go in and edit that string. Also, just firing in a filter from the keyboard, is a great option.

This is a rare occasion where using the app might help you learn the CLI !

[linuxcaffe]

Hey @Pavel401, the TaskWarrior project setup is cool, but I don't see this one in a swimlane yet ;-)

[SGI-CAPP-AT2]

I am also waiting for confirmation so I can work on this

[cfsmp3]

Since it's a non-trivial change we probably should chat about it over slack for a minute :-)

[linuxcaffe]

Great to see movement on this. It might be no surprise that I have several enhancements to this enhancement ;-)
closely related to #418

[linuxcaffe]

some more bad animated .gif action, this one to show sort ideas

[SGI-CAPP-AT2]

hey, what will multiple sorts do?

[linuxcaffe]

Sort, sub-sort, sub-sort.

Several task reports use multiple sort fields. One could theoretically use as many as you like, but there's a limit to effectiveness. Yes, supporting multiple sort fields is logical and required, if we want to support task reports

[arjav1528]

@linuxcaffe can you assign this issue to me

[linuxcaffe]

Well @arjav1528 you picked a big one, very exciting! Because the Filter dialog and the Report dialog are so interconnected, maybe start on this dialog assuming NEXT is the default report (which is the tw default) before #418 has been implemented?

AND/OR compare notes with @Saurabhsing21 ?

[linuxcaffe]

Here's my current thinking on the Filter Dialog, with some goood suggestions from @SGI-CAPP-AT2, and a fancy new date filter!

• the status bar moved up, as the coarsest filter
• the filter bar is the same, for direct input AND echoing changes in the dialog
• the new date filter has
  • expanded (more than Add) datetype dropdown, could even include "creat, done, due, mod, sched, start, until, wait", with "due" as the default
  • button cycles through "on, <, >"
  • enter date directly (someday supporting things like "eom", but for now, calendar selector)
  • calendar date picker
• project field exactly the same as Add dialog, with vertical dropdown
• priority picker, unlike Add, has no default and multiple select, which assumes operator OR
• tags field is similar to Add dialog, with direct auto-complete entry, and box-of-chips dropdown, but one important difference;
  • Add chips cycle "select, deselect"
  • Filter chips cycle "+select, -select, deselect"
• sort field seen here as next-report default

[linuxcaffe]

@arjav1528 I'm imagining how this filter could work, and it's mostly about the filter bar.
Let's say a user could start building a filter query by entering some text directly;

ClientName

then uses the tag filter function to select a couple of tags

Clientname +car +bus

clicks back into the filter bar to modify it

ClientName +car OR +bus

and back to the project filter function

ClentName +car OR +bus pro:foobar

and finally hits the Apply button and the filter query is parsed entirely from the contents of the filter bar, NOT directly from the actions of the other filter functions, which only really serve to put correctly formatted elements into the filter bar.
That's the only way I can think of to have a fusion of direct entry and filter-buttons.
Does that make sense?

[arjav1528]

@linuxcaffe I am not able to understand what are you saying.... The main issue is basically the UI right??

[linuxcaffe]

Sorry if my mock-ups and rambling description were unclear. The important thing, to me, is what can be done with The UI, not how it looks. I'm coming at it from The perspective of a long time taskwarrior user (I'm actually the original taskwarrior Designer) and I'm hoping to help you guys achieve as much of the core functionality in this app, as possible.