Formatting Gantt bars

[Wombat]

I'm using a real project to test OmniPlan against, and it's proving quite helpful.

In terms of producing a graphic which I can use to explain how the tender would go, there are several formatting options which would be quite helpful.

One would be the ability to use differnet colours/shades for different groups of tasks. This would highlight different project phases very well.

Two would be the ability to distinguish various elements like group bars and milestones with different colours/shades. This would complement the style options for the text.

Three would be the ability to control the level of detail shown on the chart. For example, I don't need to show the time against a milestone in the text to the right of the milestone.

[Tom Bunch]

Under the project inspector there is a Styles tab where you'll find styles for a variety of gantt entries, including tasks, milestones, and groups. Select one and these can be modified with the Appearance inspector.

If you want to override the behavior for the class of entry, the Appearance inspector will also modify a selection in the Gantt chart instead of the Project: Styles inspector.

This information is kind of wildly spread around right now - I'm in the middle of a rewrite that should simplify it and group it closer together.

Finally, the ability to turn off the date display of your milestone is found in view options under Gantt Chart, intuitively labeled "Assigned Resources". I'm thinking perhaps we should have a separate setting for milestone date and any other textual information we might display for other entry classes.

-Tom

[Wombat]

Tom --

Thanks for the bar colour formatting advice. I hadn't realised the Gantt Bar colour could be set for a selection: I thought it applied to the whole chart.

Finally, the ability to turn off the date display of your milestone is found in view options under Gantt Chart, intuitively labeled "Assigned Resources". I'm thinking perhaps we should have a separate setting for milestone date and any other textual information we might display for other entry classes.-Tom

I had the assigned resources ticked on, so as to show who's working on which bits of the project. That was good.

I strongly agree on the separate settings for the milestone (kilometer-stone?) text and other info. At this point, it's all or nothing.

[kaan]

I found out how to modify the appearance of the Gantt chart, and that works fine. But the change is not document-wide, so any new tasks I create (top-level task or child of existing) have the old style.

It seems like I ought to be able to make an appearance change like that and have it stick to the document (or even better, make it application-wide so that all of my projects can have my own default chart appearance).

thanks,
Kaan

[Lizard]

The UI is changing in beta 6 to make this clearer. There will be a Project: Styles inspector where you can select "Tasks", "Milestones" or other things and then modify the colors and font settings for all items of that type. Look for beta 6 later this week.

[kaan]

Sounds great! Looking forward to the new version.

[jasper502]

Row lines... a big gantt chart can be hard to read.

Why can't you specify the colour of completed milestones?

Why do milestones show the date & time when the show resources is turned on?

Why can't you print the group shading?

Also the MS Project feature is handy where you can specify a colour for your critical path tasks.

[Lizard]

Row lines -- try using the "Alternate Rows Background" in the Project: Colors inspector

Completed milestones -- there is no way to even mark a milestone completed; should there be?

The milestones' date & time visibility setting should be separate from the resources -- we know about that bug

group shading -- we should print that if it's shown. I'll file that bug.

critical path coloring -- we do have a "glow" you can turn on for critical path tasks; is there a reason you want to color the tasks themselves?

[ajrichardson]

Just a note to say that in the beta the new method of controlling/separating global style changes on bars (vs individually changing them) is much improved. Now very intuitive.

Adam

[jasper502]

The alternate rows only works on the data table on the left not the gantt chart. If you have a huge print out of it's scaled down small it is easier to 'slide across' to the corresponding gantt chart item. Perhaps I am just being picky.

The milestone just stands out to me if it is always the default colour. Again just a preference. It just would be nice to at least have the option. If you wanted it to be the same colour you could just leave the 'completed milestone' style undefined.

The critical path 'glow' is a nice feature but I can't seem to get it to display properly. It seems that only some of the tasks and connecting line actually glow. Group tasks do not 'glow'. It just might be my MS Project background talking but I found it easier to follow when I had all my critical path tasks red (blue default and green complete).

Row lines -- try using the "Alternate Rows Background" in the Project: Colors inspector

Completed milestones -- there is no way to even mark a milestone completed; should there be?

The milestones' date & time visibility setting should be separate from the resources -- we know about that bug

group shading -- we should print that if it's shown. I'll file that bug.

critical path coloring -- we do have a "glow" you can turn on for critical path tasks; is there a reason you want to color the tasks themselves?

[Lizard]

Since there's no way to set the completion of a milestone to 100% anyway (maybe there should be, I've filed a bug), I thought up a mildly hackish way to get your 'Completed Milestones' styling.

1. Open Project: Styles inspector
2. Click the '+' button to add a new named style
3. Change its name to "Completed Milestones"
4. Set the Task Bar color for this new style to the same color as your "Completed Tasks" (or another color if you prefer)
5. When a milestone is complete, drag the "Completed Tasks" style onto the milestone in the outline view.

[gillesp]

Completed milestone is something I would really like to have.

[sunshine]

This would be especially good for a milestone only view (hope this gets implemented) and milestone reports. The majority of progress reporting on large projects and programmes is at milestone level.