things-cli anytime lists projects as well as tasks

[cjchapman]

@AlexanderWillner said this issue I first reported in thingsapi/things-cli#11 would be better discussed here, so here it it:

---

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

things-cli anytime

lists both tasks and projects.

Expected behavior
A list of only the tasks that show up under "Anytime" in Things, not the projects.

Additional context
Compare with:

things-cli today

which lists only tasks.

[mikez]

@cjchapman I stil have an older Things, so the behavior may have changed.

In my version, I can mark entire projects to be "Today" or "Anytime", and they'll show up in Today or Anytime; both within the Things app itself, and also for the things.py library.

Technically speaking, if you check the README.md of this library and the SQlite database, then a task is one of three types:

• 'to-do': can have checklists;
• 'project': can have to-dos and headings;
• 'heading': part of a project; groups to-dos.

they all support the start field, which can be set to 'Inbox', 'Anytime', or 'Someday'.

If you do want to see just to-dos and not projects or headings, then you can use the command:

>>> import things
>>> things.anytime(type="to-do")

and

>>> things.today(type="to-do")

(/cc @AlexanderWillner to confirm if this behavior is the same in the newer Things)

[AlexanderWillner]

Compare with:

things-cli today
which lists only tasks

I'd say by default both methods return projects as well:

% things-cli today|grep "Project in Today"
- Project in Today (2023-05-24 | Anytime)
% python3 -c 'import things, json; print (json.dumps(things.today()))'|jq '.[].title'|grep "Project in Today"
"Project in Today"
% python3 -c 'import things, json; print (json.dumps(things.anytime()))'|jq '.[].title'|grep "Project in Today"
"Project in Today"
% things-cli anytime|grep "Project in Today"                                                   
- Project in Today (2023-05-24 | Anytime)

So at least it is coherent. Both could be filtered on the things-cli side if this is requested. Via API:

% python3 -c 'import things, json; print (json.dumps(things.today(type="to-do")))'|jq '.[].title'|grep "Project in Today"
% python3 -c 'import things, json; print (json.dumps(things.anytime(type="to-do")))'|jq '.[].title'|grep "Project in Today"
% 

[cjchapman]

To clarify:
When I do things-cli anytime I see the names of the projects themselves as individual line items.
When I do things-cli today I do not.

[mikez]

Thank you for clarifying, @cjchapman. I now understand.

Here is an example.

Assume we have a project P which has to-dos A, B, and C. We mark A as "today", but not P, B, or C.

Behavior in things-cli
Running things-cli today will only return A.
Running things-cli anytime will return P, A, B, and C… possibly in a random order.

Behavior in Things
Clicking on Today will only show A.
Clicking on Anytime will show P as a heading and A, B, and C as subitems.

@cjchapman : does the example correctly reflect your concern?

[cjchapman]

Yes, I am surprised by the inclusion of P in the output of things-cli anytime in your example, as I only expected A, B, and C.

[mikez]

@cjchapman My hunch is that this can easiest be addressed by the https://github.com/thingsapi/things-cli library itself, by ordering the to-dos differently, and grouping under the project heading to mimic the Things app. (/cc @AlexanderWillner)

[AlexanderWillner]

to mimic the Things app.

I think I see the confusion. In Things P shows up as a heading in Anytime and things-cli (probably our lib as well?) returns P as a project in Anytime.

In case P would be marked as "today", it shows up as a project in Today in Things and I think not anymore in Anytime, right?

So...I've not a strong opinion here - just filtering out projects in things-cli anytime would be sufficient?

[mikez]

In case P would be marked as "today", it shows up as a project in Today in Things and I think not anymore in Anytime, right?

Today implies Anytime. The property start is one of: 'Inbox' (not sorted yet), 'Someday' (future opportunity), or 'Anytime' (I've committed to doing this... either on a fixed date, today, or no date).

So...I've not a strong opinion here - just filtering out projects in things-cli anytime would be sufficient?

Not filtering out, rather you might consider grouping to-dos and projects together like Things.app does it.

[mikez]

@cjchapman @AlexanderWillner Closing this, as it relates to things-cli.