I got a bug report today from someone who is evaluating Tasks Pro™ for use with his business. This fellow is actually a friend from school that I’d done some development work with, so his report had much more of a ‘what the heck is going on?’ tone than a ‘THIS IS BROKEN DAMNIT!’ tone. It turned out not to be a bug after all, but it is a design decision that is a little complicated to understand.

The problem: I created a bunch of sub-tasks, then went back to the home screen. The sub-tasks are all there at the top level instead of being under the task I put them under. In fact, the task I put them under isn’t there at all.

The explanation: This is actually a feature. This occurs when you don’t own the task you put the sub-tasks under, and you are viewing the Home screen with your name selected in the filter drop-down list. I promote all tasks that you own, but that are under a task you don’t own, to top level tasks in your view on the Home screen so that you don’t miss something that is assigned to you. To see the proper tree structure, select the appropriate group view (or All Groups Combined) in that filter list.

This is one of those situations where I think I’ve made the right decision with this behavior, but it isn’t transparent to the user what is going on.

What are some ways I could improve this? Perhaps showing the hierarchy (the same as is done in lists if the feature is enabled) for those tasks so the user can see they are not top level tasks would help?

Post your ideas in the comments…

This post is part of the project: Tasks Pro™. View the project timeline for more context on this post.