reordering tasks
Submitted by shane on Wed, 09/12/2007 - 17:30.
hi, new guy shane here volunteering my assistance in testing/developing and of course feature requests.
i'm still using aC 7.1 maybe this feature is implemented, does pP have the ability to reorder tasks, like move up/down in order etc.?
Hi Shane,
this feature is included in the task list functionality. Take a look at the bottom of the task list and you will see the link "Reorder tasks". The following screen let you add some "weight" to reorder the tasks (the higher the value, the lower the task islisted).
This might be changed in later versions to more intuitive ordering, but we need a AJAX guru/volunteer for this ...
- Roland
I don't really have the skills necessary to do this, but Basecamp has a very nice ajax reordering method (basically just a drag and drop). It would be excellent if something like this could be developed for Project Pier.
Realy easy to implement and could be usefull in the future for this project ... for example in time tracking and callenadr modules
In my experience it is faster to complete the tasks that you want to move than to reorder them using the 'weight' system that was in aC0.7. If nothing else, we need to set it up so that there are buttons that have up arrows and down arrows next to each task on the reorder screen, and just refresh the page with the new order when people click on one of hte arrows. It's not an elegant solution at all, but it will probably be just as fast as the 'weight' system, and will actually make sense to people who aren't used to fighting through similar tools in Drupal and WordPress.
One plugin I use for wordpress does what I'm describing within the weighting system by just making the up and down arrows affect the weight of the object, such that things don't move directly up and down based on the arrows, but the overall effect is that messign with the arrows eventually gets things in the order you want, without forcing you to do math in your head. It also saves us having to re-organize the way the order is actually created.
Thinking about it, a bit of logic on the arrow buttons would go a long way, on the up arrow, for example, you'd get the following:
* find the task's current weight
* find the weight of the task directly above that task
* set the current tasks weight such that it will be above the task above it.
This would ensure that you never clicked on an arrow and have no result, but would still cause minor unexpected behavior (i.e. if the weight of the five things above the task you click on was the same, clicking the up arrow on that task would send it above all five objects rather than just the one directly above it.).
Anyway, this isn't the most important thing in the world, as re-ordering the tasks is more aesthetic than functional (though of course usability breads function), but I think that the current reordering system is so bad that we might as well consider it non-existent, as most users would likely rather deal with a disorganized list than the re-ordering system available to them.
Oh yeah, if we used the arrow system, we could also of course show the actual weight numbers, so that users who prefer the numbers would have them available (and be able to change multiple items simultaneously).
I too would value an ajax re-ordering system like used on 37sig's backpack! :)
Too bad PP is using YUI framework, if it would use jQuery, then using Interface plugin that feature would be a piece of cake :) - I could make patch for task reordering. But maybe somebody who has worked with YUI can make this work too. Anyone?
PS. Where (in what modules) is this YUI used any way?