Hi, i’m using OF3 for mac and just realized that it is hiding parent tasks in tags, Could you please help?
i use nested parent/child hierarchies of tasks all the time and am also using tags alot now in OF3. For some reason, OF3 is greying out each ‘parent task’ and not showing it in the view of the tags that it is tagged in. I tried making a test hierarchy of tasks to show you what i mean.
Here is the test hierarchy of tasks that i just made in the inbox.
None of the parent tasks are here. I tried searching the whole ‘review’ tag and its nowhere to be found here. I checked the other tags i applied and saw the exact same thing. The only place that i could find the parent tasks was the miscellaneous project, which i understand that tasks with tags but no projects are automatically sent to. The parent tasks are still greyed out here:
A parent task will be black when all of its children have been completed - OmniFocus is helping you focus on the next steps.
Your review tag is one you’ve made yourself, in the review section - the coffee cup, the whole task hierarchy will be shown, in this case in the miscellaneous project.
Tags show tasks based on which tags they have - logical! As such your hierarchy isn’t shown and the tasks which need completing first are shown.
But it’s illogical to hide the parent task. I use many repeating tasks that are similar, and rely on the parent task to inform me. Hiding a parent task is not useful for me, and should be optional.
Simply make the parent task a project in its own right then it will show up and conflicting naming issues are addressed as well
I try to avoid sub tasks for repeating things, I just create a repeating project instead.
Parent tasks are not really tasks they are placeholders for the child tasks below so really they should autocomplete when the children are all completed, again I would say 9 times out of 10 IMO you should consider using repeating projects first and then look at a child/parent task setup.
Yea i agree with hinky, “Hiding a parent task is not useful for me, and should be optional.” Would appreciate that option , but i’ll just remember to make every parent task into project for now. thanks for explaining!
Wait actually i think that means that i can’t add parent/child tasks to be inside of other projects and still have them seen in tags view… thats not cool for my workflow, would really appreciate the option in an update soon!
Hey @danklim — thanks for your comments. It is possible to configure OmniFocus to show these parent tasks in the built-in Tags perspective right now, through a combination of two options:
In the View settings for Tags (the eye icon in the toolbar), change from Available to Remaining
In OmniFocus’s overall Organization preferences, uncheck the box labeled “In Tags and Flagged, exclude projects and groups”
The reason OmniFocus works like it does by default is that it considers any child task to “block” its parent task — that is, the app thinks every child task in a group has to be completed (or deleted) before the overall group can be completed. (This makes sense from a planning perspective: I can’t, for example, prepare some vegetables and preheat the oven, but then call my dinner done! I still have to cook it.)
Groups that are blocked in this way have the status Remaining, but not Available, so changing the view filter and including groups in Tags brings those items in. I hope that fits better with your workflow, but if not, please send in an email letting us know a little more.
The only issue that i’m finding is that my tags and projects keep reverting/switching back and forth between ‘remaining’ and available views. I almost always want to keep tags in ‘remaining’ view so i can see the parent tasks, but i usually want to see the projects in ‘available’ view. Not sure whats causing it to keep switching back and forth, I think it maybe it’s changing when i use search but haven’t tested yet. Do you know why this is happening and is there any way to stop these views from switch back and forth between available and remaining for all my tags and projects? Or do i need to use custom perspectives?
