Add a 'has start date' filter to only show tasks that have a start date

[HyperEpsilon]

I have a habit of schedule tasks for the future, then forgetting about them and being completely blindsided when they pop up on their scheduled time.

I tried to filter for tasks that starts after today, however that gave me every task.

If there was an filter that worked like has start date, then one could use that to find any tasks that have a future start date, but haven't crossed it yet.

[schemar]

Thank you for the idea @HyperEpsilon!

[FilSalustri]

Yup, this would be a real winner for me too. I have lots of "pet projects". None of them have necessary due dates. I can't work on them them all. So I use the start date to indicate which ones I'm working on at the moment. Being able to select from only those tasks that actually have start dates would allow me to filter such project tasks.

This functionality is available in a number of task management apps, like Remember The Milk. I think adding this option would be a big help for those - like me - trying to integrate their tasks into Obsidian.

[claremacrae]

@HyperEpsilon @FilSalustri As a workaround, this is already possible with searches like this:

starts after 1970-01-01

It turns out that this does not work for start date searches:

When filtering queries by start date, the result will include tasks without a start date. This way, you can use the start date as a filter to filter out any tasks that you cannot yet work on.

[FilSalustri]

Well, the doc reads:

When filtering queries by start date, the result will include tasks without a start date. This way, you can use the start date as a filter to filter out any tasks that you cannot yet work on.

I was hoping that bracketing the start date from both ends would circumvent that. Apparently not.

[FilSalustri]

As far as my use case, I have tasks with start dates and no due dates.
Some start dates are in the future. I want to be able to distinguish between tasks I have started and tasks I haven't started.

However, in my workflow, a task without a start date is in a "job jar". It's a task to be considered later, whether I want to do it at all, etc. So I need to distinguish between tasks that have a start date and those that don't.

My workaround so far is to set the scheduled date to the start date. Since it seems that the rule I quoted above only applies to start dates, then using scheduled performs the filtering I need. Not really a good solution, but it seems to be a viable workaround for now.

[claremacrae]

Well, the doc reads:

When filtering queries by start date, the result will include tasks without a start date. This way, you can use the start date as a filter to filter out any tasks that you cannot yet work on.

My apologies, I did not know that - so my recommendation for this workaround specifically does not work on 'start date'.

Thank you for pointing that out.

The code specifically says that if there is no start date, the task matches the query.

https://github.com/schemar/obsidian-tasks/blob/133b8fad5387eee7fe209ae2506916ca1c8a396d/src/Query.ts#L309-L319

So there is actually no possible way right now to search specifically for tasks without start dates.

[claremacrae]

My workaround so far is to set the scheduled date to the start date. Since it seems that the rule I quoted above only applies to start dates, then using scheduled performs the filtering I need. Not really a good solution, but it seems to be a viable workaround for now.

That is a good workaround.

Sorry not to be able to give you a better answer right now.

[FilSalustri]

Well, at least it ain't just me doin' somethin' stoopid. :-)

[claremacrae]

See also #618

[claremacrae]

Proposal for implementing this:
#618 (comment)

[claremacrae]

Happy to report that has start date was implemented in PR #629, and so will be included in the next release (after 1.5.1)

[FilSalustri]

Excellent!

[claremacrae]

This was indeed released in 1.6.0.