[watchit]

Excuse me if this has been covered or is obvious but I'm not seeing it....
is there any way to have a view or perspective that shows only Actions that have Start Dates?
I see that the Status filter enables a view that shows only Actions that have Due Dates by selecting Due Soon and adjusting the definition of "soon" in Prefs, but I can't find a way to get a similar view for Start Dates - that is not showing Actions that don't have a Start Date or those with Start Dates prior to Today or any other date.
Any ideas? tia

[malisa]

I often look with the 'no start date' section collapsed. That's all I can offer.

[watchit]

Thanks malisa, but you have me at a loss... what/where is the 'no start date' section?

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by watchit

Thanks malisa, but you have me at a loss... what/where is the 'no start date' section?

The grouping selector in the view bar has as one of its choices Group by Start. If you use that one, it will divide up the displayed projects or actions by start date, with sections for things starting today, tomorrow, yesterday, this past week, etc. including a section for all of them that have no start date. If you close that section and save the display as a perspective, you'll have the closest thing you can get at the moment to a display of only things with start dates.

Note that the grouping is done by the earliest date only. In other words, a project that has a start date of 3 months ago, but has an action that has a start date of yesterday, will only show up in the "started 3 months ago" section. OF does not sprinkle the actions into all the possible sections where they might occur, only the earliest one. Reasonable people can disagree over this behavior, but like it or not, it is something to be aware of in the current product.

[watchit]

Thanks whpalmer4,
I had tried that option but, although it does divide up displayed Projects by Start Date, it does not divide up Actions by Start Date. That is, Projects which do not have Start Dates but do contain some or all Actions with Start Dates will be group under "Start any time" as if the Actions had no Start Dates at all.
Besides the display limitations you quite rightly pointed out, this leads to a schizoid methodology of having to set Projects by Start Date and Actions by Due Date just to be able to have a Perspective that represents anything like a view of all Actions with a Start Date. And if there are any Actions that cannot be started until a specific date that are contained within a Project that this method has forced to list as already started so that it is displayed in the "Started by X" Perspective.... well, like I said, Schizoid. :( Surely there's another way! Anybody?

[brianogilvie]

Watchit: you should be in Context mode when you group by start date. That will do what you want, if I'm understanding correctly.