The 4-diamonds prefix for each group’s heading is not shown.
Was it always this way and I just never noticed? I’ve only just started making regular use of this panetype. So not sure if this post is a bug (missing prefix) or a request (plz add prefix)!
Prefixes in Group-by-project Panes?
9 days later
It’s always been that way.
But I’m with you - I find it a little disorienting to see my projects without their prefixes - so I would also prefer the project prefix was there in Project view.
4 days later
Ok I’ll just move it to the requests pile, thanks!
I’ve used project grouping for a long time in part because it looks cleaner and one reason is that it doesn’t have the prefix, unnecessary since I know the section headers are projects based on the pane definition.
andrew That’s an interesting perspective. For me, projects get a lot less useful when I can’t quickly zoom via the bullet. In fact, my “definition” for whether something should even be a project is “will I want to zoom into this regularly?” So I find the lack of bullet not just visually inconsistent but functionally lacking.
The project prefix can be “hidden” by way of changing its opacity; without the bullets the only use I have for G-B-Project panes would be to sort my project by # of items or possibly alphabetically.
The purpose of group-by is to pull items out of the outline hierarchy into different logical groups, whether projects, tags, priority, contacts, etc. If you want the outline hierarchy, you would just use the outline view without grouping. I guess you could use group-by project with the option to include “Projects anywhere in the hierarchy” turned off, but then again, you would be better off not grouping by projects, but just filtering by project (is:project) in a non-grouped outline view.
All this said, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, just think the idea of zooming into a project in group-by project isn’t particularly consistent with the group-by design. There are also some bugs associated with it that are too long to get into here (eg, zooming a project in List>Group By Project has issues) that should be fixed if this is the encouraged approach.
I also probably wouldn’t mind the visual aspect of it as much if the project icon were meaningful and not the random split diamong thing… but that was a debate from a few years ago.
andrew I agree with your whole first paragraph. And the fact that many Panetypes (not just this one) get squirrely in certain filter/config/zoom conditions.
Not being able to zoom quickly leaves either manual navigation (no way) or “open in new pane” for quickly narrowing focus to a single Project. I have never made good use of “Open in new Pane”, and I think that might be the key to working out of group-by-Panes (for me), which I have been missing. I tend to think of Boards as static, which is limiting me.
I actually do like the Project icon, but I get that it’s not for everybody 
a month later
In the latest update I set it to show Heading icons for the group by Heading panes. But you can hide them (as before) with the new “Hide icons in inactive items” setting.
What do you think of that?
8 days later
4 days later
@Jay, I wanna mark this solved but I don’t really think I can.
The option you created to hide Headings’ prefixes as part of the Headings/Project change seems like something people did want, but this thread brings up quite a few issues that setting doesn’t address at all:
- The text of the setting confuses me. Why say “inactive items” when it seems to really mean “Headings”? And it’d be nice if it used the term “prefix” instead of “icon”, for consistency. Maybe “prefix icon”?
- The setting operates across all Panes/viewtypes, not just in the GBProject (or Heading) View which was the original topic.
- The setting only toggles prefixes for Headings, not Projects. At the time, Projects were becoming Headings but now they both exist and seem like should get the same treatment?
- I was asking for the prefixes to remain visible in GBProject panes – and I got that – but @andrew wanted the ability to hide Project prefixes (keep it as it was). Now he can hide HEADING prefixes – but not the Projects originally discussed…that doesn’t seem like a win?
Jerud andrew wanted the ability to hide Project prefixes (keep it as it was).
At the risk of sounding like I’m contradicting myself, this is not as much of a concern for me now that we have both a heading type (with icons that can be hidden) and a project type. I was using Projects as both headings and projects so it looked cluttered. Now since I can selectively use the Project type just for actual projects, it looks much better.