"Active Contexts" showing with no "available" actions?
 

I'm pretty sure this must be a bug and not by design, because otherwise it completely messes up my workflow!

In 95365, "Active Contexts" only showed contexts which had actions in them you can do, that is they were "available" or "next".

But now in 95492, "Active Contexts" appear to be showing me the same set of contexts as "Available Contexts" which is not useful to me at all!

Can someone confirm this please?

Thanks.

Confirmed. Send a note to the tech support elves.

Done! Thanks for the confirmation.

(Grumbling off to the corner.)

This was almost certainly broken by my fix for <bug://bugs/41967> (Context does not at first appear under Active filter when the context's parent does not have any actions assigned to it), but I don't yet see how...

Oops; should be fixed in 95577. =)

Nope, this piece is (still?) broken in 96262:

* Context (contains action)
** Context 2 (contains no action)

shows both contexts. This seems the opposite of

[quote]Fixed the 'Active' Context filter. This wasn't correctly showing leaf contexts with available actions if their parent context had no
actions. I sure thought I fixed this a while ago...[/quote]


[OG #246599]

The regression in the Active filter should be fixed in 96277. There is still something slightly funky going on in a case like:

* grandparent (no action)
** parent (action)
*** child (no actions)

Adding and removing actions to the middle tier doesn't update our database summary correctly; I'll log this and try to avoid breaking the more common cases when fixing this =)

Edit; actually I can't get this 3-tier case to fail now either.

I'm still seeing "Active" contexts with no actions showing up in in my Contexts list, under 96776.

I've rebuilt the db, with no success.

I've sent in a reduced test case (it came down to a single project, with no actions). The bug was originally filed 12/14 under OG #246599, and I responded to the autoresponder message.

If I delete that project, the Context doesn't show up as expected, including if I add other projects (without actions) under this Context.

Interestingly, even through the Context shows up in the left pane, if I'm grouping by Context on the right pane, the context doesn't show up in the right pane....

And, I just determined that the magic bit seems to be the Default Context setting. For this project, it had a default context of the context that was showing up. If I set it to "none" the Context no longer shows up under Active.

Indeed, if I set the project to another default context, *that* context incorrectly shows up as "Active".

I wish there were a way to search all my actions and projects to see what else has a default context to see if that's the cause of all of the incorrectly displaying contexts....

Update: I just selected all my projects and changed the default context to "none". All "incorrect" contexts no longer show up.

This is a response to my own thread from two years ago. I know. Sad.

Unfortunately "active contexts" still shows contexts with no actions. This is particularly problematic when I am focused on a subset of my projects. I don't want to see a dozen contexts on the sidebar.

It's always bugged me, but never enough to mention it again beyond having filed the bugs a couple years ago. I powered through. But recently I've been revisiting my workflow to make things simpler and more frictionless, and this is one of those things that stands out as an issue.

The way I *want* things to work is that my Active Contexts shows only the contexts that actually have an action in them. When I'm Focused on my Personal projects, I don't want to see a list of my Work People.

Of the 26 "Active Contexts", 11 don't have any actions in them while I'm Focused on Personal. Why are they showing up?

Anyone have any explanations that make this a logical decision, or is it really Still Just A Bug™?

I would guess because they have available actions somewhere - even if not in a focused project. I see your point about your preference. I personally deal with this by grouping by context so that I can see only the bands of the contexts where I have something to do.

Sorry for the confusion here. Any context that isn't set to on hold, set to dropped, or deleted still counts as available so you can drag actions to that context and assign the actions to that context.

[QUOTE=Brian;74482]Sorry for the confusion here. Any context that isn't set to on hold, set to dropped, or deleted still counts as available so you can drag actions to that context and assign the actions to that context.[/QUOTE]

That doesn't appear to be the case, as I have many Contexts that show up under "Remaining" but don't show up under "Active".

The difference is that the ones that show up under Remaining but not under Active don't currently have any actions in them at all.

Actually, even my last statement isn't quite accurate, as Remaining shows contexts that *do* have actions, but those actions aren't yet available, as well as contexts that have no actions at all.

Available shows contexts that have actions that can be, well, acted on, regardless of whether they're in my current Focus or not.

Gah, go me - I was describing the behavior of the "Remaining" sidebar filter in Context mode, not Available. I'm sorry about that.

The Active sidebar filter setting will show any context with one or more actions assigned in your database. Like lucas mentioned, other filter bar settings may cause that context to appear empty in a particular window. We keep it visible, though, in case you need to add more actions.

Try doing the following:
Select Perspectives -> All items
Select View -> Context Mode
Select View -> Sidebar Filter -> Active

You should be able to click through the contexts in the sidebar now and see which actions have been assigned to those contexts. (If you complete those actions, the context should disappear from the sidebar.)

I wasn't able to find any empty-but-visible contexts in my database using those settings, but if you have some, get in touch with the [EMAIL="omnifocus@omnigroup.com"]support ninjas[/EMAIL]; if there's a bug, we definitely want to fix it.

I tried duplicating this with the information from your earlier post.

I made a "Test Empty Context" context, then made a project which has that set as the default context but has no actions. The context in question isn't showing up in my context view sidebar with Active set. Are you still seeing that happen in your database?

Looks like there is a feature request in the dev database on the preference you mentioned - I'll add a link to this forum thread, but other folks that want to see this added should email the [EMAIL="omnifocus@omnigroup.com"]support ninjas[/EMAIL], as well.

This is what I see under 1.8.

The context filter

Active seems to only show only context that have action items that are currently available. You can use "remaining" or available" filter within the context to show items that fall under different conditions, but this does not change the context filtering.

Stalled seems to show context that have any future action items as well as empty.

Hold seems to all contexts that are on hold (assigned to hold status).

Is this correct?

One thing that is confusing is the context that falls under stalled. If I have action items that are available in the future, the context is not really stalled in a sense it's not moving forward. It is moving forward at certain time in the future, which is different from contexts that have no action items assigned period.

I wish there is a way to distinguish these two different contexts. Perhaps one should be called "Stalled," while the other one might be called "Scheduled."

Thanks.

[QUOTE=Brian;74493]
The Active sidebar filter setting will show any context with one or more actions assigned in your database. Like lucas mentioned, other filter bar settings may cause that context to appear empty in a particular window. We keep it visible, though, in case you need to add more actions.

Try doing the following:
Select Perspectives -> All items
Select View -> Context Mode
Select View -> Sidebar Filter -> Active

You should be able to click through the contexts in the sidebar now and see which actions have been assigned to those contexts. (If you complete those actions, the context should disappear from the sidebar.)

I wasn't able to find any empty-but-visible contexts in my database using those settings, but if you have some, get in touch with the [EMAIL="omnifocus@omnigroup.com"]support ninjas[/EMAIL]; if there's a bug, we definitely want to fix it.[/QUOTE]

The issue isn't that the Active Context shows a Context when there's nothing in that Context. Rather, it's that when you're Focused on a particular Project or Folder, the Active Context shows Contexts that contain *no items for the particular Focus*.

You can test this as follows:

1. Create two Contexts, "Test Active Contexts 1" and "Test Active Context 2"
2. Create two projects and related activities, and assign them to the Contexts
- Paint Living Room
-- Buy paint supplies (Test Active Context 1)
- Clean House
-- Sweep floor (Test Active Context 2)
3. Focus on the Paint Living Room Project
4. Switch to Context mode and change to Active Context

Note that both Test Active Context 1 and 2 show up as "Active". "2" is correctly "empty", but it shouldn't show up as a Context.

If you select the top-level Contexts folder, you'll see only one Context: Test Active Context 1. That is what the sidebar should look like.

The logic of showing Active contexts on the sidebar so you can drag items to them falls apart because in theory you'd want to drag to *any* Context, including those not currently showing in Active (but that would show in Remaining).

[QUOTE=ksrhee;74495]
Active seems to only show only context that have action items that are currently available. You can use "remaining" or available" filter within the context to show items that fall under different conditions, but this does not change the context filtering.[/QUOTE]


The issue for me is that "Active" on the sidebar ignores the Focus, and shows you Contexts that have no items for the current Focus.


I just realized that one of the reasons things stopped "working" for me is that I was using a Perspective that hid the sidebar and had the Context header selected, so I only saw the truly actionable items I had. I dumped my Perspectives when I wanted to reevaluate my workflow, and this is one of the things that popped out.

Okay, it sounds like that tim was referring to is still fixed. One possibility here is that the issue had regressed; wanted to make sure that wasn't the case.

We do have a feature request open on changing that filter to behave the way you'd prefer. I went ahead and attached your original email to that item in the support database; the team will know you'd like them to change the filter to take focus state into account.

[QUOTE=Brian;74500]We do have a feature request open on changing that filter to behave the way you'd prefer. I went ahead and attached your original email to that item in the support database; the team will know you'd like them to change the filter to take focus state into account.[/QUOTE]

It's a bad habit to respond to year-old threads, I know. I'm seeing someone about that. They tell me I should go cold turkey and open a brand new thread, but I just... can't.

Any word on this issue being resolved? It's still present in 1.9. (I haven't gone looking for any sneakypeeks recently though).

This is still a frustrating hole in my workflow, especially when I'm focused on a particular work project, and want an overview of what needs to be done where/how/by who, but I see "Groceries" as a Context.

I've had to resort to a Perspective that hides the sidebar, groups by Context and closes all the Contexts, but that's just icky.

(Yes, that's the technical term. I'm in engineering.)

Coming Soon, perhaps?

I'm really sorry for the stress this is causing; I've been in that place where something like this bugs me, and I know how annoying it can be to not see the issue get the attention you want it to get.

The item is still open in the development database, but I don't have any info on when this might make it into the app. It looks like we haven't had any additional reports about this from other customers since the last conversation. If other folks are noticing this and are bothered by it, they aren't emailing us about it.

Given that, we feel like we have to spend our engineering time on issues that affect a greater number of customers. Again, I'm really sorry.

Totally understand priorities.

I'm more surprised by the lack of reports than by it not being fixed. Either folks aren't using focused projects, aren't bugged by seeing empty, unrelated contexts, or my workflow is rather unique.

This seemed like a normal everday usage: focus on a project, switch to Contect mode, see list of Active contexts with actionable items within that focus.

When I'm focused on a project, there's a decent chance it is a sequential project, and so a next action project mode view with the sidebar collapsed offers minimal distraction. If it is largely parallel in nature, or I'm focusing on a handful of projects (the most common scenario of the three for me), a context mode view grouped by context or possibly due is going to be the most convenient. In either case, the sidebar holds no useful information that isn't also found in the outline panel, so ignoring it comes naturally, and I may close it just to reclaim the real estate.

I don't understand why you regard the closed sidebar, collapsed context groups approach as "icky":

[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/screenshot20110623at834.png/][IMG]http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/8524/screenshot20110623at834.png[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/585/screenshot20110623at833.png/][IMG]http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/3163/screenshot20110623at833.png[/IMG][/URL]

The former seems cleaner to me if I'm trying to avoid distraction; no sidebar to click on, no duplication of context names, no "No Context" bin that doesn't have any relevance (to be consistent, I think you should be asking that it also not be shown if all the actions have contexts). Depending on the mix of items across the contexts, I might still go with that project mode view.

For what it is worth, I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with the behavior you propose, but I think you can already do better (given your stated reasons) with the product as it is.

i also find this annoying because in my 'focus' perspective i like to be able to focus closer on just one context by clicking it in the sidebar. this is very difficult in the current system because basically all contexts are shown in the sidebar, most of which are empty if you click on them.

i will send an email to support progress in this area.

its funny that focus is an issue for omnifocus :)

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;98855]

I don't understand why you regard the closed sidebar, collapsed context groups approach as "icky".[/QUOTE]


Mainly because I use the sidebar to select a specific context or set of contexts to further limit the view of stuff I'm acting on at any given time.

That's why having unnecessary contexts is distracting, and why hiding the sidebar, while doable, is "icky". It's a workaround to an issue we (probably) shouldn't be having.

I agree that hidden it's cleaner, and I would likely hide it after selecting the set of contexts I'm acting on.

I also agree that No Context should also be hidden if there are no items inside the No Context context. (However, I find that I rather often have no context projects so it's seldom an "issue"....)

This one just bit me. One of my "waiting for" contexts was showing in context mode, filtered by Active contexts. I had to find projects that had it selected as the default context. This cured it.

A couple of years later, the bug lives on in the latest version :(

It's not so much a bug as a tradition.