Add support for task dependencies or blockers
Sometimes I have multiple, unrelated tasks that each happen to have a common depedency. And in these situations, I have to munge-out where to put the common task, or just duplicate the task among my projects, which makes my flow feel kinda messy at times.
It'd be helpful if there was a dependency/blocker system so I could more-easily visualize what isn't yet actionable, and minimize having to file not-yet-actionable tasks away temporarily.
It could also be useful in situations where you have a logical hierarchy of tasks, but want a lightweight way to define the order in which to do them, without having to upset that hierarchy.
DropTask's dependency system help page -- despite DropTask not being a "plaintext" app like Moo -- might be a good example of this:
http://support.droptask.com/knowledgebase/articles/420149-droptask-pro-task-dependencies
I'd also recommend giving HollyApp a gander, since it's plaintext and supports blockers. Although its blockers are only tied to a single task (you can't complete a task and then have it automatically unblock multiple other tasks around the document), it's helpful because it allows you to easily visualize what you can't yet do:
https://hollyapp.com
Thanks.
Bapabooiee
shared this idea
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Adam Molinaro
commented
I voted for this a week or so ago. Since then, I have been playing around with ideas. I added a special tag called #!parent and a tag called #!child. You could use these for predecessor (parent) tasks and dependent (child) tasks. Then in a pane/view, you could hide child tasks with " -#child ". You could also add a task for a grandchild (e.g., #!gchild), if you wanted to differentiate between dependent tasks that also have dependent tasks (child) and tasks that simply have predecessors (gchild). I added the " ! " after the # in case I wanted to be able to filter for just inter-related tasks. I have been using these constructs a little, but not extensively yet, so I'm not truly sure if this scales well.
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Alison Stanton
commented
I also want to be able to filter so I don't see tasks that are impossible to do until the blocker task is done. It's depressing when there are 50 things that have to happen in order and I'm waiting on someone else to do the second so I can do 3-50.