Views

A view is a table of one kind of thing in your workspace, such as work items, people or time slices, with the columns you choose (see How Grindstone thinks). This topic covers the views panel, the system views Grindstone relies on, creating and editing views, and working with the rows a view shows.

The views panel

The panel on the left of the window lists your views below the Dashboard. Beside each view’s name is the number of entries it shows. Type in Search to narrow the list to views whose names contain what you type.

The toolbar above the list has Create View, Edit View, Duplicate View and Delete View. Right-click a view for the same commands, plus Copy and Copy with Headers, which copy the whole view to the clipboard (see Exporting).

Views are sorted into two folders:

• User Views are the views you work with day to day. You can create, edit, duplicate and delete them.
• System Views are views Grindstone uses to do its own work, in the folders Selection, Traits and Active. You can edit them, but you can’t delete them, and they can’t have parameters.

A warning icon beside a view means its filter or visibility couldn’t be worked out for some entries or people. Open the view to see which.

Selection views

There is a Selection view for each kind of thing, including each of your lists. Whenever Grindstone asks you to pick one of something, such as the work item in a field or the value of a parameter, it offers the entries of that kind’s Selection view, labeled by the view’s first column and in the order you have the view sorted. Anything the view’s filter leaves out isn’t offered.

The first column of a Selection view is also what Grindstone shows wherever another view, an alert, a copy or an Excel export refers to one of those things.

Traits views

There is a Traits view for each kind of thing that can have traits, including each list. Its first column names the fields you see when you create or edit one of those things, and the fields appear in the order you have the view sorted. See Traits.

The Active Assignments view

The Active Assignments view, in the Active folder, decides where your time goes. Its filter decides which of your assignments are active, and its ordering which one your time on a work item goes to: the first of yours it shows, otherwise a new one.

Creating a view

1. Click Create View and choose what the view shows: Assignments, People, Time Slices, Traits, Work Items, or one of your lists.
2. In the Create View dialog, give the view a Name.
3. Add columns, and set a filter or anything else you want (described below).
4. Click OK. The view appears under User Views.

A new view starts with no columns.

Editing a view

Select a view and click Edit View, or right-click it and choose Edit. The Edit View dialog has the same parts as Create View. Nothing changes until you click OK; Cancel leaves the view as it was. Next to anything you’ve changed, Undo puts it back.

The filter, visibility and each column are formulas. Click one (or its Edit button) to open the formula builder. The filter and visibility also have Clear, to empty them. See Formulas.

Filter

Entries appear in the view when the Filter is true. Leave it empty to show every entry.

Visibility

Visibility is an optional formula. You can leave it empty.

Columns

Click Add Column to choose a pattern, a saved pattern, or Write a Formula to start from an empty formula. Patterns ask a few questions and build the column for you; see Formulas. When there are no patterns for the kind of thing the view shows, Add Column goes straight to the formula builder.

Each column has a Column Name and a Display formula, which is what the column shows for each entry. Beside each column:

• Change Answers, shown when Grindstone recognizes the column as one of its patterns, reopens that pattern’s questions. See Formulas.
• Duplicate Column adds a copy named after the original with “Copy” on the end.
• Save as Pattern saves the column’s formula as a pattern you can reuse in views of the same kind of thing. It appears once the formula is complete, in views of a kind of thing that has patterns. See Formulas.
• Delete Column marks the column for deletion. It stays in the list, struck through, with Restore, until you click OK.

A system view must keep at least one column. Its first column has the special meaning described above.

You can also right-click a column heading in the view itself. Add Column opens Edit View to add a column; when you click OK, the new column goes right after the one you clicked. Delete Column opens Edit View with that column marked for deletion.

Parameters

Parameters let the people looking at a user view supply values its formulas use, such as a date range or a work item. To add one, enter a New Parameter Name, choose a Type (and, for a List Value, the List), and click Add Parameter.

The types are Single-line Text, Multi-line Text, Integer, Floating Point Number, Decimal Number, Boolean, Date & Time, Date & Time Range, Time Span, List Value, Person, Work Item, Assignment, Time Slice and Trait.

Under each parameter’s name, Grindstone shows its type and which formulas use it. Delete Parameter warns you if something uses the parameter, because deleting it replaces those uses.

To use a parameter, refer to it in the filter or a column; see Formulas. To fill one in, see “Setting parameter values” below.

Alerts when something is added

Turn on Alert people when something is added, unless they choose otherwise to have Grindstone alert people whenever an entry newly appears in the view, whether it was just created or has just started matching the filter. Each person can still choose for themselves with the bell in the view’s toolbar: Alert Me When Something Is Added turns alerts on, and Stop Alerting Me turns them off.

An alert carries the view’s name and the new entry’s label. When Grindstone’s window is in front, the alert appears inside the window; otherwise it appears as a Windows or macOS notification. Click it to open the view. Alerts from statuses are covered in Statuses and alerts.

While Grindstone has time away to ask you about, it holds these alerts. Once you’ve answered Welcome Back or chosen Decide Later, it shows the ones whose entries are still in the view. See When you step away.

Duplicating a view

Select a view and click Duplicate View. The Create View dialog opens with a copy of everything: the name with “Copy” on the end, the filter, visibility, columns, parameters and alert setting. Change what you like and click OK.

Duplicating a Selection view or Active Assignments gives you a user view of the same kind of thing. Traits views can’t be duplicated.

Deleting a view

Select a user view and click Delete View. Nothing the view shows is deleted, only the view. This can’t be undone.

Working in a view

Select a view to show it beside the panel: its name, its toolbar, its parameters and then its rows. Long views are split into pages, with the pager at the bottom.

Selecting rows

Click a row to select it. To select several, click Toggle Multi-Selection and check the rows you want. Select All (Ctrl+A) selects every entry the view shows, on every page, and turns multi-selection on. Unselect All clears the selection. For every key that works in a view, see Keyboard shortcuts.

Creating, editing and deleting entries

• Create (Ctrl+N) opens a dialog for creating one of the things the view shows. Turn on Keep Creating to have the dialog start over after each OK, so you can enter several in a row. In a Traits view, the new trait starts out as a trait of that view’s kind of thing.
• Edit Selected (Enter), or double-clicking a row, opens the selected entries for editing. With several selected, a field whose values differ shows Multiple Values, and choosing a value changes all of them.
• Delete Selected (Delete) asks you to confirm first and can’t be undone. You can’t delete yourself.

What you’re asked to fill in comes from the traits of that kind of thing; see Traits. Deleting some things takes others with it, and the confirmation says so:

Sorting and arranging columns

Click a column heading to sort by that column. Click it again to reverse the order, and a third time to stop sorting by it. Drag a column heading to move the column.

Sorting and column order are yours alone: other people looking at the same view keep their own. Because a Selection view’s order, a Traits view’s order and the order of Active Assignments matter to Grindstone, how you sort those views changes what you see elsewhere.

Setting parameter values

A user view with parameters shows a field for each one above its rows. Fill them in to change what the view shows; empty a field to clear it. A Date & Time Range parameter has a start and an end, and both are needed. The values you choose are yours alone, and Grindstone keeps them.

The filter conditions Grindstone writes for you (below) ignore a parameter that’s left empty, so the view shows everything until you choose.

Filtering from a row

Right-click a cell and open Filter by followed by the column’s name. Depending on what the cell holds, you can choose:

• Only Show Rows Like This or Hide Rows Like This
• Only Show Rows At Least This or Only Show Rows At Most This (for dates, Only Show Rows On or After This or Only Show Rows On or Before This)
• Let Viewers Choose the column, which adds a parameter for it and sets the parameter to this cell’s value. For text, the view then shows rows whose column contains what you enter.
• Let Viewers Choose a Range of the column, which adds parameters for a minimum and a maximum, or a date range for dates.

Each choice opens Edit View with the condition added to the filter; click OK to keep it. The Let Viewers Choose choices are only offered in user views.

When the column already has a parameter, the same menu also offers to set it from the cell, such as Set a parameter to This, to This Day or to This Range.

Show In

Right-click a row and open Show In to see what’s related to it in another view, such as the time slices of a work item. Choosing a view sets that view’s parameter to this row and switches to it.

Views listed with “…” don’t have such a parameter yet. Choosing one opens Edit View with the parameter and its filter condition added; click OK and Grindstone shows the view.

More in the toolbar

• In views of work items, assignments or time slices, including Active Assignments: Start Timing and Stop Timing, and Change Timing while you’re timing something. See Timing your work.
• In views of time slices: Split Time and Merge Selected. See Editing recorded time.
• Actions, when there are actions for what the view shows. See Actions.
• Export CSV. See Exporting.
• Show Chart and Hide Chart. See Charts.

The row menu (right-click a row) repeats the timing, time-slice and Actions commands, along with Copy and Copy with Headers (for the selected rows), Select All and Unselect All.

When a view can’t work something out

If the filter can’t be worked out for some entries, or the visibility for some people, a warning above the rows says how many and why. Edit the view to fix the formula.