Functional Significance of Parallel vs. Sequential
 

I toggle a project between parallel and sequential, and the only change seems to be in the appearance of tasks. All but the first turn gray and italic but remain editable and can be "checked" as completed. Is there some functional significance of changing a project type from parallel to sequential? I don't see any.

-Steve

Non-first actions of a sequential project are not considered available; non-first actions of a parallel project are. If you are viewing "remaining" actions (as it sounds like you are), then you will indeed still see all of those tasks either way; but if you switch your view to "available" then you will see the setting changing not just the formatting but the actual actions that appear.

Ok, so it's simply a flag used by the program to filter actions for specific views?

If that's the case, then there appears to be a minor bug. Make a project Sequential and view Available. Only the first action appears. That's expected. Now, without changing the view, make the project parallel. All non-first actions appear. Again, expected behavior. Now toggle the project back to sequential. The non-first actions still appear, but their appearance changes to grayed and italic. Note that the view should still be showing only Available actions. Toggle between parallel and sequential, and nothing but the appearance of text changes.

Can anyone else confirm this behavior?

Yep.... the actions don't appear to be dynamic. Same thing happens if you create a new project and immediately add a new action. The project name remains in italics. You have to switch to another view or edit the project name to get it to show up in bold.

I'm pretty sure this is a recent regression.

You should file feedback.

[QUOTE=Shotster;26366]Ok, so it's simply a flag used by the program to filter actions for specific views?

If that's the case, then there appears to be a minor bug. Make a project Sequential and view Available. Only the first action appears. That's expected. Now, without changing the view, make the project parallel. All non-first actions appear. Again, expected behavior. Now toggle the project back to sequential. The non-first actions still appear, but their appearance changes to grayed and italic. Note that the view should still be showing only Available actions. Toggle between parallel and sequential, and nothing but the appearance of text changes.

Can anyone else confirm this behavior?[/QUOTE]

Yes, and it will persist until you Clean Up or change a filter. There was a long discussion of this behavior some time ago, and the upshot is that there are those, like me, who don't want to see actions immediately disappear if we have changed something that's not a filter. In the past, items that you checked off would also disappear immediately if the filter was set to Next, Available, or Remaining actions. That drove me and many others nuts. The current behavior when you change a parallel project to sequential is related to the current behavior when you mark an action as complete.

I think Omni has plans to change it, but not for 1.0 because of the other, more important, things they have to get done.

[QUOTE=brianogilvie;26585]there are those, like me, who don't want to see actions immediately disappear if we have changed something that's not a filter.[/QUOTE]

But the parallel / sequential toggle is essentially that - i.e. a filter - is it not? The sequential setting filters out all but the top-most action of a project. The parallel setting removes the filter.

The issue just seems like a list refresh bug to me.

-Steve

[QUOTE=Shotster;26591]But the parallel / sequential toggle is essentially that - i.e. a filter - is it not? The sequential setting filters out all but the top-most action of a project. The parallel setting removes the filter.

The issue just seems like a list refresh bug to me.

-Steve[/QUOTE]

I agree -- hopefully it's a list refresh bug!