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Ability to tag contexts Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Quote:
Originally Posted by tacartwright
I think this sounds good, but I’m unclear about one thing. What does it mean to filter contexts by more than one context? Does it mean that ALL selected contexts must be on the task or ANY?

And do you have any interface thoughts for context selection? My big thing is that I want to see multiple contexts at once — all of the ones that apply now. Mine tend to overlap a lot. I’m not sure how multiple contexts and contexts tags would work together. What do you think?

— Tim
I was unclear with the filtering contexts by more than one context.
The simplist application of this is... filtering tasks by more than one context. The filtering contexts by contexts I'll explain at the end of this post.

Example:
projectA
-relable router: @work, @intern

projectB
-ship video server: @work

projectC
-call client: @work, @calls

projectD
-call friend: @home, @calls

If I am at work, in the task list I select the @work context
@work
relable router
ship video server
call client

If I am at a phone and want to focus on work calls I select the @work & @ calls context
@work, @calls
call client

If I am at a phone and want to focus on all calls.
@calls
call client
call friend

If a new intern is thrown at me and I need to give them something to do:
@intern
relable router

As far as seeing the multiple contexts at once...
If you have a @work context, and all tasks have that context, you'll see everything that you have @work.

If you have a @all context, and everything has an all context, then you'll see everything.

Although, I'm not sure why you would want to see everything at once. Except maybe to scan through and pick what you want to start working on. Everything in GTD principle is context based.

As for interface,
my first thought is to have a dropdown box up at the top of the task list. You select the first context.
A second drop down box appears next to it,
listing only those contexts that can be chosen with the first context.

Using the same example:
The user selects @work for the first context.
Another dropdown appears to the right of @work and has these selections:
@calls
@intern

The user selects @calls. The top of the task list shows...
@work @calls

If the user is finnished with @calls, they click on a small x to the left of the calls (like a safari tab) and the context disappears.

Now the user is seeing all @work items.

As a context is selected, the contexts that can be selected are filtered down to only what the two share.

The interface is just an idea, I'm sure Omnipeople will be able to come up with a beautiful and super efficiant interface for choosing contexts.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by michelle
What if you had a flat list of contexts, could select more than one context and any task assigned ANY of the contexts gets listed? Example: Select contexts "Home" and "Hobbies" and see all tasks assigned to either context. Would this eliminate the need to assign multiple contexts to the same task?

I'm not saying this is how it will be. Nothing is set in stone yet. We're just trying to figure out what will meet people's needs.
This is a good idea, and if you want to see an example of this check out Life Balance.

While this can be nice, I find the problem with GTD is not showing more, it's showing less. It's filtering so a person doesn't have to scan their tasks.

There are certain nice reasons why you would want to have inclusion. If you want to get really fancy, how about creating a "link" button on the top of the task list for each context. If you click on the link, then two contexts are linked and in programming terms, an Or operator is used instead of And.

This would be really cool. And doesn't have to clutter up the task list, just a little link button on top that would show the user is filtering based on,

(@work or @errands) and @calls

Although, If I had to choose between inclusion and exclusion, I'd choose exclusion. I would get so much more out of the tool by being able to narrow down and focus, than see both @work & @errands.

Once you have 200 projects you are tracking, it becomes critical that you can narrow down to see only what you need to see at the time and do it, instead of narrowing down to 50 tasks, and then scanning them to think, hmm... can I do this now, nope, because frank isn't here, what's the next one.

Time is another context that no GTD application has filtered by yet. But there are times when I have 15 min free and it would be cool to see the tasks on the computer that i can complete in 15 min.

Last edited by SpiralOcean; 2007-02-13 at 06:42 AM..
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by michelle
What if you had a flat list of contexts, could select more than one context and any task assigned ANY of the contexts gets listed? Example: Select contexts "Home" and "Hobbies" and see all tasks assigned to either context. Would this eliminate the need to assign multiple contexts to the same task?
Ah, this is good — I think my questions from yesterday elicited exactly the conflicting responses I was hoping for! Let me see if I can spell out the proposals.
  1. There is a flat list of contexts. In the “Projects” view, each task is assigned no context or exactly one context. In the “Next Action” view, the user can select 1 context. A task is displayed iff (a) it is the project’s next action, and (b) it is assigned the selected context.
  2. There is a flat list of contexts. In the “Projects” view, each task is assigned no context or exactly one context. In the “Next Action” view, the user can select 1 or more contexts. A task is displayed iff (a) it is the project’s next action, and (b) it is assigned ANY of the selected contexts. (I think that this option corresponds to kGTD now, because you can expand/collapse contexts in the Next Action view to show any number of contexts.)
  3. There is a flat list of contexts. In the “Projects” view, each task is assigned 0 or more contexts. In the “Next Action” view, the user can select 1 or more contexts. A task is displayed iff (a) it is the project’s next action, and (b) it is assigned ALL of the selected contexts. (I think that this corresponds to SpiralOcean’s basic request, yes?)
  4. There is a flat list of contexts. In the “Projects” view, each task is assigned 0 or more contexts. In the “Next Action” view, the user can enter a Boolean expression of contexts. A task is displayed iff (a) it is the project’s next action, and (b) it matches the Boolean context expression. (Is this SpiralOcean’s more complicated example?)
  5. There is a hierarchical tree of contexts. However, I simply don’t understand what the rest of this option would look like, so I’ll stop here.

I don’t know that I see anyone asking for Option 1, perhaps in part because it is a trivial subcase of Option 2. I was asking for Option 2. I think SpiralOcean is asking for Option 3 or 4. Option 5 seems to have died a quiet death in this thread.

While I understand SpiralOcean’s need to limit the number of next actions visible, I do not care for Options 3 and 4 myself. In general, my context list is such that I am in more than one context at a time. Right now, I am in my Office, Computer, Phone, and Agendas contexts. To limit my view to a single one of those would give me a completely false view of what I can do now.

Further, I think Option 4 is simply too complicated for a typical consumer application.

So, here’s a proposal for a hybrid option: There is a flat list of contexts. In the “Projects” view, each task is assigned 0 or more contexts. In the “Next Action” view, the user can select 1 or more contexts AND select whether the contexts are inclusive or exclusive. A task is displayed iff (a) it is the project’s next action, and either (b1) the inclusive option is set and the task is assigned ANY of the selected contexts or (b2) the exclusive option is set and the task is assigned ALL of the selected contexts.

Now, Option 1 is the same as assigning only 1 context per task, picking either inclusive or exclusive, and selecting 1 context. Option 2 is assigning only 1 context per task, picking inclusive, and selecting 1 or more contexts. Option 3 is assigning 1 or more contexts per task, pick exclusive, and selecting 1 or more contexts. Option 4 and 5 are not supported.

Comments?

— Tim
 
I see where you are coming from now.

Although I would like to play Devil's Advocate.

You are coming from the perspective of, what are the things I can do now, very GTD. And it's true... you can do all those things at your desk. But in reality, you can only do one thing at a time. It could be argued, that a person can be talking on the phone and also answering emails, but from a GTD perspective, one thing at a time.

When you are in a context that can have multiple contexts, you could switch to computer, and just work from your computer. If you want to clear out calls, switch to calls, and make calls. The context becomes more than what is available to me, it becomes, what do I want to do now.

If you can see all your contexts at once, then I believe a person looses some focus. You talk to John about project A, then You make one call to jill about project C. Then answer an email about project D. Then call joan about project F. Then go find john again about project E. Instead of...
calling jill about project C
calling joan about project F
answer emails about project D.
talking to john about project A & project E.

Contexts are meant to be worked through, not cherry picked.

Here's another example:
When running errands you can also be making calls on the phone. You would say that both calls & errands should be in the errands context. I would argue, if you want to make calls while running errands, switch to the calls place to make calls.

You may want to check out LifeBalance if you haven't already. They do this type of place inclusion.

Here's a mock up of how the linking of contexts could look. Although it's hard for me to see why a person would want to combine contexts instead of separate. ;-)

http://www.mandarinpictures.com/misc/OmniFocusMock.png
 
Just thought of another reason for tagging contexts...

Let's say I have projects that involve showing john a project proposal A and also calling him to ask a question about project B.

projectA
-show john proposal: @work, @agendas, @john

projectB
-call John about moving forward: @work, @john, @calls

Now let's say I have a meeting with John. If the system were on a pda, I could select
@john

for my context

and see
-show john proposal
-call john about moving forward

In a system where one tasks only has one context. I would switch to
@agendas
and see
-Ask Jane about projectC
-talk with george about why ac isn't working
-show john proposal:

notice I have to scan to find the task. With three items this is fine. But with 20 items, trying to find everything that relates to john becomes tedious. And john doesn't want to sit there waiting, while I'm scanning through my tasks looking for those pertaining to him.

My other alternative in a system where one task has only one context, I could do this.
@agendas-Jane
@agendas-John
@agendas-george

But that is extremely inefficient, and soon my contexts are overwhelming.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by michelle
What if you had a flat list of contexts, could select more than one context and any task assigned ANY of the contexts gets listed? .
If I had to choose between ANY and ALL (or and and operations) I would choose the ALL. It seems more useful to drill down and exclude items from view than to expand. I would use that more when I'm trying to be productive, and it would help me focus.

This applies only if a choice has to be made between the operations. It would be nice to have both options. The best (in terms of accurate filtering) would be to have an advanced feature to use multiple logic operations in combination ((A or B) and C). But I think it would be tough not to clutter the UI, and I see the risk of it being more of a fiddling distraction than useful aid for most people.

Perhaps a middle ground would work: you can choose multiple contexts, and at the top of the list is a toggle for ANY/ALL. I imagine that would scratch the itch for the majority of users and not be excessively fiddle-risky.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpiralOcean
Contexts are meant to be worked through, not cherry picked.
Clearly, we disagree on this point, and that’s why I recommend a easily toggled setting. Then we can both get what we want!

And realistically, I could see myself wanting different options at different times — I really can imagine using the exclusive option now and then. And in those cases, multiple contexts per task make sense.

Also, I see Hoff had the same basic recommendation — an ANY/ALL (inclusive/exclusive) toggle.

OmniGroup: What sayest thou? Is a toggle OK? Are multiple contexts per task OK?

— Tim
 
This is great feedback and we are in the process of figuring out how to implement it. You brought up some scenarios we hadn't thought of and we are trying to figure out if our current approach will work. I'm excited about it and I think you will be pleased, but as someone mentioned, you really need to see it to understand it. When we go into beta you'll all have a chance to try it out and give us additional feedback. We really are listening!

. . . and unfortunately, no, I can't tell you when the beta will be released :)
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by michelle
This is great feedback and we are in the process of figuring out how to implement it. You brought up some scenarios we hadn't thought of and we are trying to figure out if our current approach will work.
Thanks to all of you at Omni for listening to us hash out our ideas!

— Tim
 
I've debated posting as SpiralOcean has pretty much made the points about being able to tag NAs, but I've decided that more posts is better so Omni doesn't conclude that tagging only matters to a few people. I believe tagging matters alot to people who want the feature; and, at least on the basis of the frequency with which it comes up in the 43 folders forums, there are more than just a few people who need this feature. For the latest thread on this see: http://board.43folders.com/showthread.php?t=1414

As tacartwright says, thanks for listening. :)
 
 


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