Sort tasks grouped by task.start.moment.fromNow()

[paolo-santucci]

Hi,

I'm grouping some tasks by using the function task.start.moment.fromNow().

It works fine, but I can't find a way to sort the groups by date descending.

For example:

2 months ago

• task 1
• task 2

one month ago

• task 3
• task 4
• task 5

20 days ago

• task 6

10 days ago

• task 7
• task 8

[claremacrae]

Current documented behaviour

I would love to have this too.

When documenting group by function I tried quite hard it get it to work, and could not find a way.

Hence writing this in the documentation.... (all the examples are in Due, but apply to the other date fields as well)

https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Queries/Grouping#Due+Date

Making a feature request...

Feel free to make a thorough Feature Request for this, via Issues, if you would like built-in support for this via this, with proper sorting:

task.start.fromNow()

as opposed to:

task.start.moment.fromNow()

Possible workaround to achieve the goal

Looking at the documentation of moment().fromNow() ....

You might be able to string something together using this documented technique:

So if you recognise that the string contains year(s), month(s) or day(s), you can add different hidden text at the start of the group, to control the sort order.

If you might show future tasks, you might also want to consider distinguishing between in ... and ... ago.

If you get anything working, please do note it here, and I will add it to the docs.

[claremacrae]

It's non-trivial, but I am thinking of building it in to the main Tasks date grouping commands with something like:

group by happens format:fromNow
group by happens reverse format:fromNow

Figuring out how to build it in to task.happens.fromNow() for scripting is going to be a bit harder, because the desired behaviour for filtering by that property is going to be very different from the desired behaviour for grouping by it.

[paolo-santucci]

I tried it out with a light variation, to use happens...

This could be really nice for my tickler file!

In a year is in the wrong position because using the split function you are passing the arguments 1 and a to the subtract function, and it should give you today's date (instead a year ago), I think.

In a year splitted by " " gives you the array [In, a, year], In is replaced by 1 because is not a number.

You should remove the %% comment to understand what's happening with the dates.

[paolo-santucci]

OK, I got it completely wrong: the problem is that .fromNow(true) doesn't tell you if the date is past or future!

We should find a way to parse the string from .fromNow() in order to sort correctly past and future dates.

[paolo-santucci]

I'm sorry, I'm sort of brain storming here...

We know if happens is before or after the current date, so to fix the sorting you should use:

.add((isNaN(task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[0])?1:task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[0]),task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[1]).format("YYYYMMDD")

for future dates and

.subtract((isNaN(task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[0])?1:task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[0]),task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[1]).format("YYYYMMDD")

for the past ones.

...it's gonna be a huge function...

[claremacrae]

I've implemented use of variables in expressions now... (not yet merged...)

In order to test it, I incrementally refactored this working version based on your examples above:

group by function (!task.happens.moment) ? '%%4%% Undated' : result = task.happens.moment.isSameOrBefore(moment(), 'day') ?'%%1%% ' + ("%%"+moment().subtract((isNaN(task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[0])?1:task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[0]),task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[1]).format("YYYYMMDD") + "%%" + task.happens.moment.fromNow()): result = task.happens.moment.isSame(moment(), 'day') ? '%%2%% Today' : '%%3%% ' + ("%%"+moment().add((isNaN(task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[0])?1:task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[0]),task.happens.moment.fromNow(true).split(" ")[1]).format("YYYYMMDD") + "%%" + task.happens.moment.fromNow())

... and got it down to:

const date = task.due.moment;
if (!date) return '';
const now = moment();
const words = date.fromNow(true).split(' ');
const multiplier = isNaN(words[0]) ? 1 : words[0];
const earlier = date.isSameOrBefore(now, 'day');
const groupDate = earlier ? now.subtract(multiplier, words[1]) : now.add(multiplier, words[1]);
const sorter = earlier ? 1 : 3;
return '%%' + sorter + '%% %%' + groupDate.format('YYYYMMDD') + '%%' + date.fromNow()

Which collapses down to:

group by function const date = task.due.moment; if (!date) return ''; const now = moment(); const words = date.fromNow(true).split(' '); const multiplier = isNaN(words[0]) ? 1 : words[0]; const earlier = date.isSameOrBefore(now, 'day'); const groupDate = earlier ? now.subtract(multiplier, words[1]) : now.add(multiplier, words[1]); const sorter = earlier ? 1 : 3; return '%%' + sorter + '%% %%' + groupDate.format('YYYYMMDD') + '%%' + date.fromNow()

Clearly it needs to be a built in option - but it is at least usable like this, until then...

The test output looks like this

%%1%% %%20150531%%8 years ago
%%1%% %%20170531%%6 years ago
%%1%% %%20220531%%a year ago
%%1%% %%20220731%%10 months ago
%%1%% %%20220831%%9 months ago
%%1%% %%20220930%%8 months ago
%%1%% %%20221031%%7 months ago
%%1%% %%20221130%%6 months ago
%%1%% %%20221231%%5 months ago
%%1%% %%20230131%%4 months ago
%%1%% %%20230228%%3 months ago
%%1%% %%20230331%%2 months ago
%%1%% %%20230430%%a month ago
%%1%% %%20230506%%25 days ago
%%1%% %%20230507%%24 days ago
%%1%% %%20230508%%23 days ago
%%1%% %%20230509%%22 days ago
%%1%% %%20230510%%21 days ago
%%1%% %%20230511%%20 days ago
%%1%% %%20230512%%19 days ago
%%1%% %%20230513%%18 days ago
%%1%% %%20230514%%17 days ago
%%1%% %%20230515%%16 days ago
%%1%% %%20230516%%15 days ago
%%1%% %%20230517%%14 days ago
%%1%% %%20230518%%13 days ago
%%1%% %%20230519%%12 days ago
%%1%% %%20230520%%11 days ago
%%1%% %%20230521%%10 days ago
%%1%% %%20230522%%9 days ago
%%1%% %%20230523%%8 days ago
%%1%% %%20230524%%7 days ago
%%1%% %%20230525%%6 days ago
%%1%% %%20230526%%5 days ago
%%1%% %%20230527%%4 days ago
%%1%% %%20230528%%3 days ago
%%1%% %%20230529%%2 days ago
%%1%% %%20230531%%20 hours ago
%%3%% %%20230531%%Invalid date
%%3%% %%20230601%%in 4 hours
%%3%% %%20230601%%in a day
%%3%% %%20230602%%in 2 days
%%3%% %%20230603%%in 3 days
%%3%% %%20230604%%in 4 days
%%3%% %%20230605%%in 5 days
%%3%% %%20230606%%in 6 days
%%3%% %%20230607%%in 7 days
%%3%% %%20230608%%in 8 days
%%3%% %%20230609%%in 9 days
%%3%% %%20230610%%in 10 days
%%3%% %%20230611%%in 11 days
%%3%% %%20230612%%in 12 days
%%3%% %%20230613%%in 13 days
%%3%% %%20230614%%in 14 days
%%3%% %%20230615%%in 15 days
%%3%% %%20230616%%in 16 days
%%3%% %%20230617%%in 17 days
%%3%% %%20230618%%in 18 days
%%3%% %%20230619%%in 19 days
%%3%% %%20230620%%in 20 days
%%3%% %%20230621%%in 21 days
%%3%% %%20230622%%in 22 days
%%3%% %%20230623%%in 23 days
%%3%% %%20230624%%in 24 days
%%3%% %%20230625%%in 25 days
%%3%% %%20230630%%in a month
%%3%% %%20230731%%in 2 months
%%3%% %%20230831%%in 3 months
%%3%% %%20230930%%in 4 months
%%3%% %%20231031%%in 5 months
%%3%% %%20231130%%in 6 months
%%3%% %%20231231%%in 7 months
%%3%% %%20240131%%in 8 months
%%3%% %%20240229%%in 9 months
%%3%% %%20240331%%in 10 months
%%3%% %%20240531%%in a year
%%3%% %%20290531%%in 6 years
%%3%% %%20310531%%in 8 years

[claremacrae]

group by function is so incredibly flexible, it's really a great feature.

I think that the option to use variables could make it really perfect.

I agree... However, unfortunately, I just don't have time to keep up with converting related requests adding inside tickets to their own tickets, to track them.

If you have time to log that request use of variables as a separate feature, it would be a great help, and increase the chances of it happening significantly.

[claremacrae]

I agree... However, unfortunately, I just don't have time to keep up with converting related requests adding inside tickets to their own tickets, to track them.

If you have time to log that request use of variables as a separate feature, it would be a great help, and increase the chances of it happening significantly.

Cancel that - I added #2156

[claremacrae]

OK, I got it completely wrong: the problem is that .fromNow(true) doesn't tell you if the date is past or future!

indeed.

Another approach to this would be to provide a way to sort the groups independently of the group names.

in this case, once the tasks are grouped by a date, sorting the groups by corresponding date value of first task in each group is easy and will give the correct behaviour, and will remove the need for faffing around with %% comments.

The only issue with that idea is I haven’t been been able to come up with any syntax to combine group and sorting of groups into a single line instruction.

[claremacrae]

Sorry for breaking the threads - something something clicking on links on iPhone….

I reckon we should pair on this, to chat and likely code as well.

It’s really pushing the limits of what is possible in Tasks currently - as such, I feel that it needs a little rethinking of what tasks offers.

And talking is much higher bandwidth.

My email is in my profile, if you’d be happy to try it out.

[claremacrae]

Just to note that I've started work on this - and credited you as co-author @paolo-santucci in the relevant commit - since I couldn't have written this without your work above...

[claremacrae]

This is now released in Tasks 4.9.0.

group by function task.due.fromNow.groupText

(and starts, scheduled etc..)

https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Scripting/Task+Properties#Values+in+TasksDate+Properties