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I agree with the OP that it is at least initially puzzling why items with due dates not too far in the future don't appear in displays where it seems like they should. I also don't think that the value I use for "due soon" styling is the one I want to use to control how far into the future a display showing due dates will extend.

From a UI standpoint, the status filter has the following values:
  • Any Status
  • Flagged
  • Unflagged
  • Due Soon
  • Due or Flagged
  • Due and Flagged
  • Due and Unflagged

A view showing all items which either have a due date or are flagged is a perfectly reasonable thing to want, and there's nothing in that list that suggests choosing Due or Flagged isn't going to give you exactly that. Why should a "Due or Flagged" view only show items due in (at most) the next week, but include flagged items from next month or year?

In my opinion, there's a failure in labeling, a failure in documentation, and a failure in design here. The Status Filter labels ought to be Due Soon + <option> to correctly describe what they do, if the current functionality is retained. The documentation for the Status Filter does not disclose that the Due combination items only show Due Soon items (and also fails to mention the Due and Unflagged option entirely). The design fails to accommodate those who want to use a short Due Soon window but still wish to use the combination filters and see a bigger picture of upcoming due dates. In my opinion, it's better to have more data than you need than to not have enough. An inexperienced user who doesn't want to look at a due list stretching off into the future can probably figure out that they just shouldn't scroll or look past the data that concerns them; figuring out (never mind installing and using) that someone might have written the mother of all Applescripts to build a search facility that they could use to overcome the design decision to only show the "due soon" portion of the list is a whole 'nother matter!

Last edited by whpalmer4; 2012-07-17 at 09:28 AM.. Reason: Update link