Traits

Traits are the fields you fill in when you create or edit something in Grindstone, such as a work item’s name or an assignment’s due date. This topic covers adding traits, the types of value they hold, list traits and their values, and how the Traits views decide which fields you see and in what order.

What a trait is

Every trait belongs to one kind of thing, called its subject: assignments, people, time slices, traits, work items, or the values of one of your lists. Each thing of that kind can have a value for the trait, and when you create or edit one, the trait appears as a field. For how traits fit with everything else, see How Grindstone thinks.

Trait fields are never required. Leave one empty, or click Clear to empty it (for a Boolean checkbox, click it until it’s unset). After you change a field, Undo puts it back.

Some fields aren’t traits but part of what a thing is, such as an assignment’s Person and Work Item or a time slice’s Assignment and Time. These appear first, above a divider, and must be filled in.

Adding a field

1. In any dialog for creating or editing something, click Add Field.
2. The Create Trait dialog opens with the Subject already set to the kind of thing you were editing.
3. Choose a Data Type and fill in the trait’s own fields (see below).
4. Click OK. You’re back where you were, with the new field added and ready to fill in.

You can also create traits in a view. Under System Views, open the Traits folder and select the view for the kind of thing you want, then click Create (Ctrl+N). The new trait’s Subject starts out as that view’s kind of thing. In a user view of traits, you choose the Subject yourself: Assignments, People, Time Slices, Traits, Work Items, or one of your lists.

A trait’s Subject and Data Type can only be chosen when you create it.

A trait’s own fields

Traits are things too, so they have traits of their own. In workspaces made from Grindstone’s built-in presets (see Presets), each trait has:

• Selection Name: how the trait is labeled when you pick a trait from a list.
• Field Name: the label on the trait’s field.
• Field Display Order: where the field appears among the others. A new trait starts one past the highest number among traits of the same subject, so its field comes last.

Data types

In a Single-line Text, number or Time Span field, pressing Enter is the same as clicking OK (see Keyboard shortcuts).

Picking from a list

Fields that refer to something, and List Value fields, open a list with a search box. The choices are the entries of the Selection view for that kind of thing, labeled by that view’s first column and in the order you have it sorted. See Views.

If a field already holds something its Selection view doesn’t show, it’s listed as hidden, such as Hidden Work Item.

To add a new choice without leaving the dialog, click the Create button beside the field (for example, Create Work Item). Once you click OK, the new one is chosen in the field.

List traits and their values

A trait whose Data Type is List Value has a list of values all its own, for example a Client trait whose values are your clients. Each list gets its own Selection view and Traits view under System Views, and its values can have traits of their own, added the same way as any other.

In workspaces made from Grindstone’s built-in presets, creating a list trait also sets the list up for you:

• Its values get a Name trait.
• Its Selection view is named after the list followed by “Selection”, with a Label column showing each value’s name.
• Its Traits view is named “Traits of” followed by the list’s name, with Field Name, Type and Field Display Order columns.

The list is named after the trait’s Selection Name, or its Field Name if that’s empty. If you rename the trait later, Grindstone renames the two views and the Name trait’s Selection Name to match, as long as you haven’t renamed them yourself.

To add values to a list, click Create beside any field of that list, or select the list’s Selection view and click Create. See also How Grindstone thinks.

How fields are named and ordered

Which trait fields you see, what they’re called and their order all come from the Traits view for that kind of thing:

• The view’s first column is the field’s label.
• Fields appear in the order you have the view sorted. In workspaces made from the built-in presets, the Traits views are sorted by Field Display Order.
• A trait the view’s filter leaves out doesn’t appear as a field.

To move a field, change the Field Display Order of the traits involved: double-click each one in the Traits view and give it a new number. That moves the field for everyone who keeps the view sorted by Field Display Order. Sorting the Traits view by another column changes the order only for you, because each person sorts a view their own way.

Renaming and deleting traits

To rename a trait, edit it in its Traits view and change the field its label comes from, such as Field Name.

To delete a trait, select it in a Traits view and click Delete Selected. All of its values are deleted with it. Deleting a list trait also deletes its list values and the traits that describe them. Deleting a single list value removes it from every field that held it. None of this can be undone.