[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

Action groups are due for a makeover soon; they'll look more like projects and less like actions, adding the parallel/sequential control and removing the context column.

...and by "soon," I mean it's in the build we just posted.

[Chris]

I notice that action groups still have a contextual menu item to set the context. Is that intended?

[kingsinger]

This is a huge improvement. Much easier to see how action groups interrelate in a larger project.

The other thing I just realized is that you can make groups of groups (at least that seems to work). Maybe that was obvious to other folks. But it wasn't obvious to me. That gives you quite a bit you can do just mixing parallel and sequential blocks within a project.

I'd still love to see a bit more dependency support. This whole waiting for issue is a big one for me. I'd love to be able to automate that further, so when I mark a waiting for item as done, it wakes up those tasks that are blocked and puts them back into active contexts instead of the waiting+ context.

That being said, it's now getting clearer to me how the action groups can be really useful (and used to accomplish at least some the dependency stuff I discuss above).

That's the thing, especially for those of us who tend to work through a similar process multiple times. Automatic handling of dependency is a real benefit the computer could provide over a paper system. If I'm waiting for a client to send me back some information that is blocking progress on the next action, and I know from experience that this always happens on a particular type of process, it would be really great to be able to account for that in a template I set up, so that actions around this particular project aren't cluttering my mind while I'm waiting to get what I need from someone else.

Question. Has anyone done an in depth discussion of action groups that I might be able to look at. It seems like it would be worthwhile, because it may be that once people understand their full power, some of the concerns raised around dependency will be met (at least that's what I'm starting to think now for myself).

[kingsinger]

I was curious about the contexts thing too.

[JohnEndahl]

Originally Posted by Craig

John, the function you're looking for already exists - it's just the interface that will be changing. If you open a contextual menu on an action group (e.g. Ctrl-clicking it) you will see a "Parallel" option that can be checked or unchecked to set up parallel or sequential actions respectively.

Obviously I'm spending too much time completing my tasks and not enough time exploring the inner workings of OF! lol

Thanks!

--> John

[snarke]

Originally Posted by kingsinger

I'd still love to see a bit more dependency support. This whole waiting for issue is a big one for me.

Me too. I read a thread from February about this, but I don't see why it would be so hard/complicated. Add some little spot on an item or project where I can drag other items/projects, and then the little icon appears that means "waiting for other things to complete." That item becomes non-active (or actionable? Or something else?) until the item(s) that I dragged onto it get(s) checked off.

Plus, of course, some window or inspector or menu from which I can remove prerequisite items.

I don't see being able to use action groups for many of the times I want dependencies, since the prerequisites are from totally different projects.