Weird smartlist problem.
cellosubmarine says:
Hello there! Do you all have any advice for me on this one? I took an idea someone posted on this forum and made a "Trash Heap" list - it holds repeating mundane tasks. I am trying to make an "Important Stuff" smartlist that would include anything that is priority 1-3 or that is overdue or due in the next 24 hours. I want to exclude trash heap items. I have tried every combination of search terms I can think of and cannot seem to get this to function the way I want. Here is a sample arrangement I have come up with:
status:incomplete AND (NOT(list:"Trash Heap")) AND (dueBefore:tomorrow OR due:tomorrow) OR (priority:1 OR priority:2 OR priority:3)
I've tried changing the order of the search parameters, moving and deleting parenthesis, etc. Nothing has worked. Oh, and none of the "Trash Heap" items have a priority setting, so that OR:priorities stuff shouldn't ostensibly be the issue. Please help! This is driving me crazy!
status:incomplete AND (NOT(list:"Trash Heap")) AND (dueBefore:tomorrow OR due:tomorrow) OR (priority:1 OR priority:2 OR priority:3)
I've tried changing the order of the search parameters, moving and deleting parenthesis, etc. Nothing has worked. Oh, and none of the "Trash Heap" items have a priority setting, so that OR:priorities stuff shouldn't ostensibly be the issue. Please help! This is driving me crazy!
andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:
Hi cellosubmarine,
(Nice username, by the way. :)
I think the following should work for you:
status:incomplete AND ((dueBefore:tomorrow OR due:tomorrow) OR (priority:1 OR priority:2 OR priority:3)) AND NOT list:"Trash Heap"
I think it's probably best to group the due/priority parts of the search with parentheses since that's really the only part where the OR should apply.
Hope this helps!
(Nice username, by the way. :)
I think the following should work for you:
status:incomplete AND ((dueBefore:tomorrow OR due:tomorrow) OR (priority:1 OR priority:2 OR priority:3)) AND NOT list:"Trash Heap"
I think it's probably best to group the due/priority parts of the search with parentheses since that's really the only part where the OR should apply.
Hope this helps!
loudmarie says:
What is actually happening wrong? You do need an extra set of parenthesis around the last section OR stuff as you alluded to, such as:
status:incomplete AND (NOT(list:"Trash Heap")) AND ((dueBefore:tomorrow OR due:tomorrow) OR (priority:1 OR priority:2 OR priority:3))
Otherwise anything with priority 1,2, 3 will show up regardless of whether it's on the Trash Heap. Aside from that, if nothing in the Trash Heap is assigned a priority, what you have seems to work when I tested it.
I thought perhaps the system might be getting confused by "dueBefore:tomorrow" for things that were actually due prior to "today". So I tried :
status:incomplete AND (NOT(list:"Trash Heap")) AND ((dueBefore:today OR due:tomorrow OR due:today) OR (priority:1 OR priority:2 OR priority:3))
But that seems to give the same results and they look right as far as my lists are concerned.
Maybe double-check the simple stuff, like that your other list is actually called "Trash Heap" and not "TrashHeap", I've gotten caught out by that before.
Maybe if you could give some more detail of what isn't working right or showing up as you expect, someone could help figure it out.
status:incomplete AND (NOT(list:"Trash Heap")) AND ((dueBefore:tomorrow OR due:tomorrow) OR (priority:1 OR priority:2 OR priority:3))
Otherwise anything with priority 1,2, 3 will show up regardless of whether it's on the Trash Heap. Aside from that, if nothing in the Trash Heap is assigned a priority, what you have seems to work when I tested it.
I thought perhaps the system might be getting confused by "dueBefore:tomorrow" for things that were actually due prior to "today". So I tried :
status:incomplete AND (NOT(list:"Trash Heap")) AND ((dueBefore:today OR due:tomorrow OR due:today) OR (priority:1 OR priority:2 OR priority:3))
But that seems to give the same results and they look right as far as my lists are concerned.
Maybe double-check the simple stuff, like that your other list is actually called "Trash Heap" and not "TrashHeap", I've gotten caught out by that before.
Maybe if you could give some more detail of what isn't working right or showing up as you expect, someone could help figure it out.
cellosubmarine says:
Oh! Thanks, everyone! For some reason I assumed I'd get an email if anyone responded, so I had no idea people were here helping out.
All of you were very helpful, and it actually came down to using one of your suggestions (I tried them all, and I think they all work) AFTER noticing that there was a tiny error, thanks to the call to detail from loudmarie. I had put a period after the list name, so once I renamed the list from "Trash Heap." to just "Trash Heap" everything started working. Heh, I really feel like an idiot, but I'm so glad to have my list working!
Many thanks to all who commented.
All of you were very helpful, and it actually came down to using one of your suggestions (I tried them all, and I think they all work) AFTER noticing that there was a tiny error, thanks to the call to detail from loudmarie. I had put a period after the list name, so once I renamed the list from "Trash Heap." to just "Trash Heap" everything started working. Heh, I really feel like an idiot, but I'm so glad to have my list working!
Many thanks to all who commented.