Nested Tasks (or lack thereof)
 

I must first admit that I have not read David Allen's book yet; I'm learning these methods vicariously thus far.

The current iteration appears to disallow nesting projects, and/or nesting tasks. Is this by design, and if so, why? (or does it/will it support this)

The folders more or less cover the need for nested projects, but what about instances where it makes sense to, say, break down a task into a sequential set of subtasks.

For instance:

Repair the Shop ([i]parallel[/i] project):[LIST][*]Buy Tablesaw[*]Build Shelving ([i]sequential[/i] sub-project, or sub-task):[LIST][*]Buy two-by-fours (should break down into another parallel project/task)[*]Buy painting supplies[*]Assemble shelving[*]Paint shelving[/LIST][*]Replace window[/LIST]
If we were restricted to just folders, that seems a bit clunky to me (they're just larger tasks)

Is there a better, more GTD-centric way of accomplishing this?


Edit: after rereading this post, I'm arguing more for nested tasks than projects

If you look back at the blog post with the [url=http://blog.omnigroup.com/2007/04/20/omnifocus-screenshot-and-feature-overview/]OmniFocus screenshot[/url], you'll see that OmniFocus does in fact have nesting tasks. (In the project "The School of Athens", there's a task group called "Preparation" which starts with the task "Measure frescoable area of wall".)

Aha! Perfect.

Now, the video doesn't convey a simple way of dragging tasks "into" a parent task: I notice that when Ethan is dragging his "Fix lightbulb in hall" task, the positioning cursor is snapping between tasks.

Also, what about the ability to specify whether these 'parent' tasks are composed of parallel or sequential sub-tasks? [b]Edit[/b] and Answer to this question: [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=12746&postcount=4"]Yes[/URL]

It works exactly like OmniOutliner: drag a little to the right, and it indents and becomes a child task. Drag underneath, and it becomes a peer. Drag to the left, and it becomes a parent (which means that it can become its own separate project, if you drag it to become a peer of the project itself).

Task groups can be either parallel or sequential, but the UI is currently missing on task groups themselves. (Right now you can set that state by temporarily making one a project, or by using AppleScript, but before long you'll be able to do it directly on the task group just as you can on projects themselves.)

[QUOTE=Ken Case]It works exactly like OmniOutliner: drag a little to the right, and it indents and becomes a child task. Drag underneath, and it becomes a peer. Drag to the left, and it becomes a parent (which means that it can become its own separate project, if you drag it to become a peer of the project itself).[/QUOTE]

Ahh, shows I need to play around with OmniOutliner, that sounds like a great way of going about it.

[QUOTE=Ken Case]Task groups can be either parallel or sequential, but the UI is currently missing on task groups themselves. (Right now you can set that state by temporarily making one a project, or by using AppleScript, but before long you'll be able to do it directly on the task group just as you can on projects themselves.)[/QUOTE]

Seems to me like this should be something that's placed in the inspector, and not an icon on the parent task (how often would one use the feature?) - the user could infer the type via italics, or normal, on the non-active tasks. I would think that arrows along-side each parent task might be a bit too cluttering/grab more attention than necessary. (or maybe, if they are to be used, in a softer shade)

[QUOTE=Nevir]Seems to me like this should be something that's placed in the inspector, and not an icon on the parent task (how often would one use the feature?) - the user could infer the type via italics, or normal, on the non-active tasks. I would think that arrows along-side each parent task might be a bit too cluttering/grab more attention than necessary. (or maybe, if they are to be used, in a softer shade)[/QUOTE]

I would use this feature all the time. I quite often have subtasks that are parallel within a project that is sequential. Though I concur with displaying such information in muted tones.