Bonsai Filter Help

  • Thread starter Thread starter 8Kids
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8Kids

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I would like to have a filter that would let me see the Parent if none of the Children of that Parent are linked to my "To Do" list in DateBk5.

This would ensure me that I have at least one Next Action linked for every "project" (Parent).

Any suggestions on how I could set up this filter?
 
This is a feature of Shadow Plan - it has a built-in filter called "Items linked to ToDo or DB" which does the trick. I doubt you want to dump a great program like Bonsai for this feature alone, but if it's critical, Shadow Plan may be an option.

-MB
 
I'd be actually looking for Parents whose children have NO links. Does that feature exist?
 
Shadow Plan provides the ability to create such a filter by naming a filtering criteria 'To Do Link Present = "No". It presents all non-linked items, so if a top-level item is your project (not linked), and it has children that are not linked, the filtered list will show the unlinked project and its unlinked children.

Any projects with linked children appear with an expansion arrow (so you know linked children are there), but the linked children are not visible. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell those with no unlinked children when the project has BOTH linked and unlinked children unless you manually number items and look for missing numbers (autonumbering does not work because filtered lists are renumbered).

I have another idea, though - Shadow allows you to highlight items when certain conditions exist, and one highlight setting is for "Items linked to ToDo or DB (includes address and calendar links)". I set it to highlight these linked items in blue (you can use any color), then I visually scan the list to see those projects with no blue (= no linked) children. It's not a clean-looking filter, but it's a good way to flag Projects meeting your criteria in a manner that makes them easily identifiable visually. I seem to remember that Bonsai has a similar highlight feature, but I'm not sure if it offers the 'linked item' option - you'll need to check this out.

Let me know how this turns out...good luck!

- MB
 
I don't think there is an easy way to do this via a filter - Natara are aware that there are deficiencies with the filter system and are planning a major overhaul sometime in the future.

I ran into the same problem and worked around it. First I set up a filter that only showed linked items, then when I want to check every project has an NA:
1/Look at the item number of the last project (with the filter turned off)
2/Turn the linked item filter on
3/Look at the item number of the last project

If any project doesn't have an NA it won't appear in the filtered list and the number of the last item will be different.

Tony
 
Thanks! This will really help.

If I may...

So if you look at the list and see that the last number is different, you would flip back and forth between filter on and off (very easy on desktop--a little tougher on ) to see how they differ (and then you'd find the offending Parent w/out child)?
 
Yep, if the number of the last item is different then I'd look at one halfway down, then either 1/4 or 3/4 etc.

Regards,
Tony

8Kids said:
Thanks! This will really help.

If I may...

So if you look at the list and see that the last number is different, you would flip back and forth between filter on and off (very easy on desktop--a little tougher on ) to see how they differ (and then you'd find the offending Parent w/out child)?
Click to expand...
 
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