Any way to sort the tasks by the modified time of the file?

[harnoorsaini]

Hi, thanks for the plugin! I am in the process of switching from dataview.
I am listing my tasks via something like:

not done
(tag does not include tag1) AND ((tag includes tag2) OR (tag includes tag3))
hide task count
group by folder

Which works great, but it would be nice to have that sorted so the most recently created tasks were at the top. This need not be at the per-task level, but rather at the file level. So something like SORT file.mtime from dataview.

Thanks!

[claremacrae]

Hi, thanks for the question. No, sorry at the moment this isn't possible, though I'm sure it would be popular.

I believe I've seen other requests for this or similar things, and I would love to see it done.

Searching for file.mtime in the repo, there is this early reference to filtering by the same property: #93, and someone mentioned sorting by it too.

[Cito]

Alternatively, there could be an option to store creation and/or modification dates as part of the task, similar to the other dates. These could be optional for those who do not want them. And to not clutter the task views, they could also be styled with a smaller font and less visible color, or even hidden by default. Then views could also sort by creation and modification dates of individual tasks.

[claremacrae]

I'm a bit confused by this. I read this request above as being about the modification date/time of the file containing tasks, so I'm guessing it's association of ideas - which is absolutely fine!!! 😄

Elsewhere there is a suggestion for storing the creation date of the task, likely with another signifier emoji. That's been partially done in tasks-x.

If someone really wanted to track modification date of the task itself, by all means log it, and we can see how many votes it gets...

[claremacrae]

Just to add to what you said...

There have been so many requests for both sorting by file.mtime and file.ctime, that these are definitely worth doing.

And also, there have been multiple requests for tracking the creation time of individual tasks, which would be done by emoji, and tasks-x has started using a articular emoji, so it would be good to be consistent.

I don't remember seeing any requests for emojis to track per-task modification time, but that doesn't mean there haven't been any!

[Cito]

Sorry, yes, this was only meant as an alternative solution.

Generally it may be more helpful to sort by the date of the task instead the date of its file which could contain dozens of other unrelated tasks and information. Knowing the creation date of a specific task can also sometimes give valuable context when you don't remember what the text of the task actually meant (yes, this happened to me more than once). This should be a bit better in Obsidian Tasks than in pure task managers because tasks here are often embedded in notes which give context, whereas in a normal task manager the context is often lacking.

But I also understand that there may be cases where the date of the file is interesting as well, and can give additional information, e.g. when the file contains additional info regarding the task. So it may still be useful being able to sort by file date, even if Tasks would support creation/modification dates.

[claremacrae]

Thanks very much. Yes, totally agreed. Thanks.

[claremacrae]

This has a useful list of related topics: #684.