Uhhh I wonder how did you discover @Shida is a girlā¦ maybe his name is too feminineā¦
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I think Iām looking for a similar function. My main file is to track all my various projects. Most of them donāt need attention on any given day, but then a few get very active. I want to keep the main project organization. And, I also want to filter for the hot items that need doing now. Tagging and filtering gives me a list of just those items, but no way to prioritize within that.
What I really need is a flat list of immediate priorities (based on tags), without the parent info (as described here). Then, I want to be able to reorganize those items in terms of my work for the day / week. So, itās really a separate list of items Iām working on now, linked to my master project list.
Ideally, the flattened priority list would have 2 additional features:
- I could mouse over any item to see the parent (as reminder), and
- I could click on the parent info to get back to the full project list for that project, when needed.
I can cobble together some of this now, but canāt figure out how to have 2 separate lists: 1 for project details, organized by projects, and the 2nd with a subset of immediate action items, without parent info, and able to be manually rearranged on the fly, as well as linked back to the source.
Hope thatās clear. I think itās close to what is being described, but a slight variation. Thanks!
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That sounds like a dream. First, it would be good to have something like the FlatFlowy view for a tag search. But I canāt see logically how it would be possible to manually re-order those without messing with their respective internal hierarchies, unless it was an autonomous view with its own sort.
In the short term, you can make a list with a shortcut to every project and order this.
Thanks for pointing this out, @Kevin_Murray.
@Alex_Moss: this is the biggest concern I have for what you envisioned as well. After being flattened out, the flat item no longer reflect the actual hierarchy. Although it would be fine if you want to modify the content or add a color label, rearranging wonāt work (Ctrl+Up/Down and drag and drop to move), simply because the entire picture isnāt visible.
For example, say you have the list:
- Parent 1
- Test 1
- Something 2
- Test 3
Now say you search for āTestā. āTest 1ā and āTest 3ā gets matched. If you were to drag āTest 3ā above āTest 1ā, itās not clear what should happen. Should āTest 3ā be right above āTest 1ā, or above āParent 1ā? The concern is that without the full hierarchy, rearranging in the partial picture can be misleading. This is the simplest example; things can quickly go wild if there are more levels and your search term matches multiple items in the same search chain.
Ya, that makes sense. Maybe you can see a better way to do what Iām trying to do, Iām sharing a bit more about my own use case to see what Iām wrestling with:
My work is project based, I have dozens of projects over the course of the year, different ones active at different times. The point is to have a short-list of action priorities, from a range of the active projects, and to have a view where I can sort the action priorities on the fly while leaving the main project organization alone. I enter data into the projects (or into a scratch outline, which I then put into the projects as time permits.) Point being: the info is organized by project; the workflow doesnāt follow that exactly.
For managing my workflow: now, I have a separate bullet up top for high priority work. Under that, I create links back to the active pieces of each project, each link points to the action items for each project. I can sort the links however I want, as I constantly juggle my workflow, complete tasks, bump other items around, etc. I use those links to go to the source info which is still organized by project. I think this is essentially what you suggested, @Kevin_Murray.
Thatās a lot of back and forth (MUDA, as someone pointed out). Iām not working with the actual data in the workflow. Priority tags / filtering doesnāt work for this, I just get a messy context/parent intensive list that I canāt sort.
Analogy: think about a paper notebook system. Iād have a section for each project, where Iām constantly monitoring what needed. I want to look on the front page / first section, before the projects, and use that for all the stuff thatās hot, w/out the context info getting in the way. Iām going to constantly rewrite that high level priority list it in the order I want to do the tasks, not in the order of the underlying projects. Iād be happy to show you a screen share, but maybe this is clear enough.
Net net: @Kevin_Murray is right, I really do want āan autonomous view w/ its own sort,ā the question is whether thatās possible.
Thanks for helping me think through the best way to handle w/in the confines of Dynalist.
Alex
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Yes, that said @Erica, there is still potential for a dashboard-like feature. Say you searched for a particular tag like #project. It would generate search results like FlatFlowy, where each item linked back to its original position. You could still manually order those in a separate space without necessarily messing with their original hierarchies.
Related to this would be an option to change tags in search results, and hide notes to make it easier to scan them.
(I wrote this before the @Alex_Moss post which does seem to suggest something similar.)
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Ya, I think what @Kevin_Murray is describing is pretty much what Iām looking for. I understand the challenge w/ reorganizing the actual data when that same data appears in the priority list up top. Iām looking for a more efficient way to manage the tagged results or links to the underlying data than what I have now, which is labor intensive = waste of time. I really do need (ok, want) both views, the stable underlying project view, and the sortable priorities view.
Thanks for helping me think about it. The FlatFlowy concept seems appealing, I just looked at it, it solves 1/2 the problem, i.e. just the hot items w/out the context. It misses the need I have to be able to sort, even if only sorting links, i.e. if there were a more elegant way to create and manage those links. To be continued w/ further suggestions, I hopeā¦
Im just reminding about this. could be added to the trello board?
Itās this one, right? https://trello.com/c/Xp5R5eNA/143-flattened-search-results-without-parents
(Sorry for the late reply! 
)
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Sneak peek: you can do this now! The view is read-only like in Search Everywhere, because the outliner structure is not preserved here.
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Nice feature.
Testing it, I noticed that some time the parents item information is missing.
Quick example to explain the rational :
a flat search on Frank leads to :
The results shows a lot of line with the same results, and the upstream items is very relevant to deliver information.
It should be easy to provide the parent path in the results. Either inline, or maybe a floating window when hovering on the items. Here is a mock-up with the two cases :
Personally I prefer the inline path because it delivers comprehensive information for every line in a single view and avoid having to hover line by line (Though it can easily be an setting option.
Ps: I suggest a short message displayed alongside the search result to indicate this is a flat one. It is obvious when the search was launched on the spot, but when bookmarked a reminder might be useful.
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Great to see. This combines nicely with the āin:titleā search parameter. Any chance that there might be at least limited editing, such as changing tags? That would make a good workflow.
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A promising start ā thank you ā but I agree with Matthieu that inline path information would make this flat search really useful.
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Erica, this is a great start! I love where youāre going with this. Itās really helpful to be able to focus on just the nodes that match without worrying about the hierarchy.
I would love a way to sort this flat list. One of my use cases is storywriting, where Iād like to collect story events from all over the document (e.g. from character histories) and see them in chronological order. For example, with the made-up document below, it would be fantastic to do a flat search for #event and have it sorted to see all the events in order!
Sorting would also be great for sorting to-do lists in due-date order, etc. etc.
Nice! Thanks 
Now all we need is for it to live update when e.g. new items that fit the terms are created / items within the list are changed so they no longer fit
Edit: OR (less good but better than nothing), a little ārefreshā button next to the search box - at the moment we have to escape the search and run it again, which is a bit cumbersome
@MatthieuPiquemal @MarcusM: thanks for the feedback! That will certainly be helpful in the future development of this feature
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Youāre in luck Craig! Sorting is what we plan to add next
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Woohoo! Thanks! Looking forward to trying it out.
This is great. I find it very useful to be able to see a todo list (amongst other things) as a simple list sourced from multiple places.
It would be even better if I could expand any items under the list though (I often put info about a todo items under the item) - is that possible or is that caused by the same issue that means we are unable to edit?
And is the ability to edit never going to be possible? (Just trying to manage my expectations)
Today I found that I can use sort option on Flat Search View.
It is very helpful and awesome.
I would like to use this function on my mobile.
When can I use this function on my mobile (iPhone and Android ) ?
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