[jdh]

Originally Posted by eurobubba

At that point, what's the difference between this Review context and the existing Stalled filter/perspective that's already available in 1.7, other than whether it shows up in planning or context mode?

I guess the short answer is the place where it's reviewed and actioned. I do most of my work in context mode, switching back to project mode only during planning phases where I need to expound upon a specific project, or during my weekly review.

IMHO, this new behaviour is more useful for Action Groups than Projects, although it works for both. It's easy to pick up on closed/completed/stalled projects in the Planning mode, but action groups can be a lot murkier since they're in-line with everything else.

Originally Posted by eurobubba

Am I understanding this right, that the only purpose of showing parents within context views is to keep them from stalling by alerting the user that a parent's last unfinished action was just finished? If so, why not just alert the user directly by putting up a dialog when the last available action is checked "done" or deleted? That way contexts are kept uncluttered and conceptually clean.

IMHO it's a bit more complicated than that. What if I don't want to complete a project, or more importantly an action group, right away simply because the last task is completed? Frankly, if I do, then OF has already had that option for some time in the form of the 'Auto-complete' checkbox for any given Project or Action Group. However, leaving the parent item around in a more appropriate context until the next time it can be "actioned" can be very useful in a number of scenarios.

To put it another way, a dialog box requires an immediate response, which is much different than leaving an action in-place that can be handled at a more appropriate time.

Likewise, often it's important to note that a project is completed and/or awaiting more actions more immediately than simply waiting for the next time you're in planning/review mode.

Originally Posted by Lucas

Versus squeezing a yet another field into action groups with a function that is at least not immediately obvious, plus another default in the preferences, is all of that really easier than just adding an action to the end of groups that you so choose to review them and make sure they’re done?

This is what I've done in the past and it mostly works well enough. However, this new method has a couple of advantages that I can see:

Firstly, it avoids requiring yet-another-task in the project as a placeholder that needs to be managed. This extra task can be very inconvenient if you're regularly updating the project, especially via methods like quick-add or even simply drag-and-dropping items in from the inbox -- they'll end up below that placeholder task, which you'll then have to repeatedly move downward during your regular reviews to keep it at the bottom, or risk thinking the project is "complete" while there are still other tasks below it.

Secondly, it's even less efficient for somebody who wants to take the approach that the majority of their projects or action groups are actionable and completed separately. A placeholder task works fine as a one-off on occasion, but having to insert them into dozens or even hundreds of projects can quickly get unwieldy compared to simply having the software handle that for you automatically.