Metadata Nodes

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David A Coales

• June 04, 2020 20:07
• Edited

Could we allow child nodes of the form name::value to be used as metadata for the parent node (the double semi colon being the indicator that the value to the left is the metadata property name and the value to the right is the metadata property value. Ideally these nodes would be shown in a different style to other sorts of nodes so they are easily identifiable as metadata.  This metadata can be used for a variety of things:

a) We could add a third display option to nodes - "Table" - which would use the metadata property names of all immediate child nodes as column headers, the child nodes themselves as the row labels and the metadata property values as the cell contents. Ideally we could then edit the metadata property values in the table directly. Clicking on the row label would zoom into the node as normal.

b) For "Board" nodes we could add a "groupBy" metadata property whose value is the name of a metadata property on the grandchild nodes (i.e. those nodes that will become the cards on the board).  For example if I add the metadata property groupBy::assignedTo to the main board node, then the metadata property assignedTo::John to one set of grandchild nodes (i.e. cards on the board) and the metadata property assignedTo::Jill to another set of grandchild nodes then the board can have a horizontal divider with the label "John" above the first set and "Jill" above the second (ideally a collapsible divider).  Obviously this divider would run across all the columns on the board so that all nodes related to John would appear in the same section regardless of which column they were in (Jira is a good example of this kind of kanban board).

I recognise that (b) is probably more complicated than (a) which might also be difficult to display nicely in the GUI but then I never expected boards and they turned out great :-)

cheers,
David

BTW I can't take any credit for this idea as I think I've seen it (or at least something similar) elsewhere.

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  Alfred Peters

  • June 04, 2020 20:47

  I love it for some reason... :P

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  Frank (Workflowy Support)

  • June 05, 2020 00:20

  Hi David,

  I'm not sure whether you're already part of the WorkFlowy Users Group on Slack... if not, please shoot me an email at help@workflowy.com.

  This is the exact thing that the community there can wrap their minds around and there your proposal would get the attention it deserves :-)

   

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