Negative search for tags within descendants

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#1

So I know it’s possible to search for items whose ancestors meet a search criteria. Is there a similar way to search for ancestors and get results back if the none of the decendants meet a criteria?

For example, my projects are all tagged@project and have tasks underneath (some nested several levels deep). Within each project I use @next to identify the next actions to complete. Because I often complete items without worrying about the greater project some prejcts are left without a next action to move them forward, so I want to create bookmark to show all projects where none of the descendants have a next action. I’d expect something like @project -child:@next.

Any ideas to make this work?

#2

If I understand you correctly, you should be able to get that by searching for ancestor:@project -@next.

Basically, search for all items under @project but excluding those that contain @next.

#3

Initially I thought that would work too, and that does work as you describe, it shows all items without the @next tag underneath @project headings. But when I got that working I realized that’s not what I’m hoping for.

In this search I’m looking for projects that don’t have a next action. I want to see only the item tagged with @project and only if none of the descendants have the @next tag. If even one item underneath @project is tagged @next then that project has a next action and I don’t need to assign one.

PS, thanks for your quick response. I’ve been reading through the Dynalist forums and am super impressed with your teams involvment. I always expect this kind of service from larger scale apps (Evernote, Trello, etc) and they always disappoint. It’s thrilling to see such good work from a small team.

#4

Try the
-has:children
parameter perhaps?

#5

Ah, I see. Sorry I don’t think Dynalist can search for something sophisticated yet. Sorry about that