Has date filters

[chicoary]

I felt the need for filters such as has start date, has schedule date, and has due date.

[claremacrae]

Good news. There is already no due date and similar.

These are documented at:
https://schemar.github.io/obsidian-tasks/queries/filters/#start-date

[claremacrae]

Oh wait, you are asking for the opposite.

For this I would search for due date after 1900-01-01 or similar.

I do agree a specific filter would be more discoverable.

[chicoary]

Thanks for your tip.

[claremacrae]

For this I would search for due date after 1900-01-01 or similar.

Note that, as I discovered in #592, this particular workaround does not work with start date:

#592 (reply in thread)

When filtering queries by start date, the result will include tasks without a start date. This way, you can use the start date as a filter to filter out any tasks that you cannot yet work on.

[claremacrae]

See also #592

[claremacrae]

I am proposing to implement this, and want to jot down my plan, for feedback - @schemar @chicoary @ HyperEpsilon please note...

The certain ones are:

has due date
has scheduled date
has start date

---

I note that there is currently no ability to search for tasks that are completed but do not have a done date, so could add these whilst I am in the area:

no done date
has done date

A bonus of the above is it opens the option to write data consistency checks:

has done date
not done

---

Also, I have found happens (before|after|on) <date> to be very useful for searches, and so feel that this would be very useful.

no happens date     # if NONE of due, scheduled and start are set
has happens date    # if ANY of due, scheduled and start are set

[claremacrae]

Sounds great, @claremacrae! The only thing you could do differently is to use "has date"/"has no date" instead of "has happens date". What do you think?

That does read better... I think I retained 'happens' because I was thinking that 'has date' would be confusing if it did not also include 'done date'?

[schemar]

Maybe it should include the done date? You could remove done tasks using not done 🤔

[claremacrae]

Maybe it should include the done date? You could remove done tasks using not done 🤔

I think that assumes that not done and has done date are consistent. There's no guarantee of that, for example if tasks were completed before adopting the Tasks plugin, or via some other view like dataview.

I just found out about happens and eagerly await has happens date which should make my task management complete. For now 🤠 So when does it ship?

I do think that has happens date is a consistent step forward, and does not prevent the more general has date later on if there really is user demand for one that includes due too...

[schemar]

OK 👍 Let's do it that way, then.

[claremacrae]

I think that assumes that not done and has done date are consistent. There's no guarantee of that, for example if tasks were completed before adopting the Tasks plugin, or via some other view like dataview.

The reverse is true as well... If I completed a task in Tasks, and then un-completed it via another mechanism, it would still have a done date, whilst not being done...

Hence my suggestion somewhere or other that searching for not done and has done date is a useful consistency check.

[claremacrae]

Someone else has kindly beaten me to it for all but ‘happens’ and ‘done’. See #629

[claremacrae]

The following are now implemented, tested and documented - and ready for review in #739.

They will be available in the upcoming 1.7.0 release, in the next few days.

• has done date
• no done date
• has happens date
• no happens date

In case anyone would like to use it before release, you can:

1. Download the dist-verified file linked at the bottom of this validation action run
2. Decompress the dist-verified.zip
3. Copy it over the files in your current .obsidian/plugins/obsidian-tasks-plugin/ folder
4. Restart obsidian

/CC @martinsnygg

[claremacrae]

The last of these filters - on done and happens - have now been released in version 1.7.0.