Support for Sort Random and Limit

[uwidev]

Tasks have priority, but sometimes these tasks have a very similar priority and impact on a project. With many tasks, it can feel daunting to figure out which one to focus on. I usually just either choose the top or bottom, but then the tasks in the center don't see any work until much later.

Having support for Random Sort can make sure all tasks are completed evenly, freshen the mindset, and bring some fun. A limit might also help to for mitigating decision paralysis.

[schemar]

Sorting randomly probably wouldn't work the way you want. With a naive implementation, the randomly selected task would change every time you edit, create, or delete any task anywhere in your vault. I am not sure whether that helps. On the other hand, implementing it so that the randomly chosen tasks is "fixed" is probably too much effort, sorry.

A limit is already possible, please check the readme.

[uwidev]

That's exactly how I'd think it works. It shouldn't be fixed, but rather, it's just a dice roll to see a subset of queried tasks.

I don't know how other people have used the plugin, but I have a tag specifically to set a task as "Doing", so in this case I would just have to use the edit menu and set it as "Doing" and now that task is fixed in a separate query.

Not too sure if people work like this enough to justify this feature though.

[kmaustral]

One workaround for a single random task is with the Dice Roller plugin.

Random task: dice: #task|listItem

[claremacrae]

Just to set expectations, if this were implemented in Tasks, every time an edit was made to any line that affected the data stored for a task, all displayed tasks lists with sort random would be re-displayed in a random order.

I would think it might be quite disorienting, but assume that this is what is being requested.

[ak-42]

@claremacrae I'd also like to see support for a random task sort. I have a list of 'aspirational' tasks appended at the end of my real tasks. This way, when I finish my daily tasks and want to continue, I can work on an 'aspirational' task. Currently, with the limit set to 1, the same task is always chosen (unless already completed).

While I agree that a random task change on every edit could be disorienting, I propose implementing it by using the current date as a seed. The plugin would run it through a deterministic one-way function, generating a random but consistent sort order for that day. This way, edits would maintain a consistent order for the day, but opening the task list the next day would yield a different sort order due to the changed date/seed.

Additionally, I suggest making the seed optionally configurable. This way, users can derive the sort order not just from the date, but also from date+hour and date+hour+minute if they wanted the sort order changed more often.

I'm not much of a JavaScript programmer, so I'm sorry if this is nonsense, but unless I'm mistaken, something like this could be implemented using node.js' crypto library, maybe with the createHash function?

[claremacrae]

If anyone wanted to help out with Tasks and had the time and interest, then this may be doable by experimenting with sort by function and filter by function, without needing to know how to develop the Tasks plugin code.

If successful, it could be later incorporated in to the plugin code.

[qelo]

I'm doing something like this with a hash function on description + current date (the order changes every day and stays the same during the day):

sort by function (moment().format('Y-MM-DD') + ' ' + task.description).split('').reduce((acc, char) => ((acc << 5) - acc + char.charCodeAt(0))|0, 0)
limit 10

[claremacrae]

Wow, thanks @qelo - for future reference, could you explain how it works please, and how it manages to stay the same throughout a day?

[qelo]

The provided hash function, reduce((acc, char) => ((acc << 5) - acc + char.charCodeAt(0))|0, 0), transforms strings into random-looking numbers by mixing up bits in chaotic manner. For example 'hello' evaluates to 99162322.

This appears random but is deterministic -- the same string always gives the same number. If I apply it to task.description, the order will look random, but it will never change. Therefore, I'm adding the current date before hashing: moment().format('Y-MM-DD') + ' ' + task.description. This way each task gets a different number every day (and stable number during the day as the input to hash doesn't change).

Couple of extra considerations:

• This particular hash function was suggested by ChatGPT for shortness and I see it discussed here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7616461/generate-a-hash-from-string-in-javascript It already feels random in practice, but could be improved. It's not great for short and similar strings. In principle we want a fair distribution, so each task appears roughly the same number of times in the random daily picks as the date increases. I think I'll switch to the one discussed in the stackoverflow thread, it seems even more "random": TSH=s=>{for(var i=0,h=9;i<s.length;)h=Math.imul(h^s.charCodeAt(i++),9**9);return h^h>>>9}

• I considered a few approaches to filtering done tasks:

  • Without filtering, the random picks will include done tasks. This is nice sometimes, to appreciate what was done in the past, but also quite noisy.
  • We can filter 'not done', but then completing the task will immediately remove it from the list and replace it with another one. I didn't like that I cannot ever finish the daily picks. :)
  • So I add this filter filter by function !task.done.moment || task.done.moment.isAfter(moment().subtract(3, 'days')) This way old done don't appear on the list but completing the task keeps it on the list for that day.

• I also add filter by function !task.happens.moment || task.happens.moment.isBefore(moment().add(14, 'days')) to not see tasks scheduled far in the future (not actionable)

• it's easy to switch to different granularity by changing the format of the current date, e.g. moment().format('Y w') would give weekly random picks

• sort by function Math.random() also works but this changes on every open/edit, so it's very disorienting as you pointed out

Full snipppet:

filter by function !task.done.moment || task.done.moment.isAfter(moment().subtract(3, 'days'))
filter by function !task.happens.moment || task.happens.moment.isBefore(moment().add(14, 'days'))
sort by function \
  const TSH=s=>{for(var i=0,h=9;i<s.length;)h=Math.imul(h^s.charCodeAt(i++),9**9);return h^h>>>9}; \
  return TSH(moment().format('Y-MM-DD') + ' ' + task.description)
limit 10

Btw. thanks for the great plugin and in particular very nice flexibility in filter/group/sort "by function". 🙂

[claremacrae]

Wow, that's amazing - thank you @qelo!

[claremacrae]

This is just release in Tasks 7.11.0 - thank you @qelo.