TASKS – sorting by priority works alphabetically

[adrianjenkner]

Hi,

What I’m trying to do

I would like to have tasks sorted and grouped from the highest priority to the lowest, and within each priority group, an additional grouping – IN PROGRESS before TO DO.

Things I have tried

not done

group by function task.priorityName.toUpperCase()
sort by function task.priorityNumber

group by function task.status.name

short mode

The above works almost well, and I’m almost satisfied with it, but the tasks are grouped alphabetically by priority instead of from the most important to the least important.

[claremacrae]

Sure....

sort by function task.priorityNumber

It's simpler, and equivalent. to write:

sort by priority

However, if you are grouping by a property, there is generally no point also sorting by it.

This is because the sorting only applies to tasks within each group....

And if grouping by that property, all the tasks inside the group have the same value, so the sort has no effect....

group by function task.status.name

It's simpler, and equivalent. to write:

group by status.name

group by function task.priorityName.toUpperCase()

See https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Queries/Grouping#Priority

Here is an annotated copy of that:

You can see examples of those values here:

https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Scripting/Task+Properties#Values+for+Other+Task+Properties

So try:

group by function task.priorityNameGroupText.toUpperCase()

[claremacrae]

However, if you are grouping by a property, there is generally no point also sorting by it.

This is because the sorting only applies to tasks within each group....

And if grouping by that property, all the tasks inside the group have the same value, so the sort has no effect....

Oooohh - Actually, I should have added a caveat on that...

The above is true unless you also use limit.

This is because limit is applied before the grouping - and so the sort ensures that the limit would retain the tasks nearer the top of the list...

So disagree with my earlier self above, it probably is safer to to include that sort by priority in case you ever add limit in future....

[adrianjenkner]

I'm very happy with what I have. The only thing I would still try to change is the priority icons. I tried to tackle this and got pretty close, but in the end, I couldn't make it work -> ⏫

[claremacrae]

Change the priority icons where?

[adrianjenkner]

Like everywhere with CSS. But this issue is not about this plugin but tasks in Obsidian in general.

[claremacrae]

For Tasks specifically, CSS styling options are covered here:
https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Advanced/Styling