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Submitted by comvox on 2020/08/23 20:16

I have spent some time trying to figure out the grid display modes, "normal-flat list-tree view". I can't get them to work like it is shown in the help file topic, "1. Grid Display Modes", no matter which options I turn on or off. ( I have imported the sample AdrsBook grid, and tried the grid modes both on that and on some of my own test grids.)

For example, "flat list" seems to just collapse sub-items. I tried having different columns as the column to the right of "Item", thinking that might help flat list select what to display, but it didn't matter.

The nearest I can get to what I think "flat list" should be is to set "Is Tree Column" to a different column than "Item". But it is still not what the help file shows as what the flat list should be.

Do the flat list and tree view modes work properly? Am I overlooking something in how to make them work? I suspect I am overlooking something very simple, some individual switch or other, but I have tried many things and I don't know what the problem is.

Comments

I have struggled with this in the past and run tests with notes on how it works. I just checked those notes and could not understand what the hell I was trying to say.

I don't have time right now to re-figure it out (I generally have it set on outline and forget about it). But I do know of an example where things are displayed differently:

You have:
Item-1

Subitem-A.

Assign Subitem-A to the grid (check the field that is the grid source). This gives the following results:

Outline mode = sub-item appears only under its parent Item-1

Flat list = sub-item appears twice, once as a sub-item and a second time as a top-line item since it has its own assignment to the grid. If context parents are on, it will display Item-1 above it in blue. If context parents are off, it will display alone.

Try this out in your test grid to better understand how it works. Include context parents on/off as another parameter that affects how things are displayed.

Wayne

I appreciate your reply, Wayne. And it makes me think over what I might be doing.

However, flat list just doesn't seem to work for me in the way it worked for you. I have done what you said. But then flat list simply gives me Item-1, with Subitem-A collapsed. And it does so whether or not I have context parents set. In the help file, it says "Select Flat list. All contacts will be shown as top level items, even if they are at a different level in the Outline view." But I get a list of all top level items, with all sub-items collapsed rather than listed at the same level as the TLIs. So Subitem-A doesn't appear at all until I expand the items.

At one time, in my experiments with grid display modes, I think I did sometimes (not consistently) get a result similar to what you point out - with Subitem-A appearing twice. And I think that's a correct result for certain grid mode settings. But I don't get that now.

Is there possibly some IQ setting that automatically collapses all the items in a grid by default? If there is, I wonder if I accidentally set it. I don't have all the subitems automatically collapsed in normal mode, but it does that now in flat list. In order to deal with the problem of inadvertently changing a setting, I have experimented with flat list on different grids--not just AdrsBook but also with some grids of my own. But that hasn't helped.

I can't say that flat list and tree view are essential. I'm sure I will be able to make good use of IQ without them. But if they did work, they could prove useful. So if anyone has been using them, and could suggest to me what I'm doing wrong, it would be helpful.

I don't use the flat view enough to judge whether it sometimes misbehaves. Every time I have tested it, it did what I expected.

Are you sure you are correctly assigning the subitem to the grid?

Go to the manage grids dialogue and look at the source for the grid you are viewing. That is the field that the subitem has to be assigned to. With the subitem selected, find that field in the properties pane and check it.

Move focus away, then return to that item, select it, and verify that the field is checked in the properties pane.

If it still doesn't show up as a TLI in the flat view, then I'm probably out of ideas to try. Hopefully, Pierre can weigh in.

Wayne

Hi comvox,

First, a warm welcome to the IQ community forum !

When using a simple grid, most users will want to use the "normal" display mode. By simple grid, I mean a grid you created and simply started adding items to it. All main level items will have the associated field checked, sub-items won't. Items won't have any context parents either (shown in blue)

The other display modes are useful when you want to view items that have certain properties (field values). In those cases, items of any level (main items, sub-items, etc) may have a value for this field. So you may want to view:

Flat list of all items with a value for this field. If any of these items have sub-items, these are collapsed, so you can focus on the items that "have" a value
Tree view where the grid shows the same list as (1) above but tries to show the item hierarchy when present

As Wayne mentioned, first turn off context parents, as this adds another level of complexity.

Pierre_Admin

IQ Designer

I usually have an extra 'clean' copy of IQ i.e. with no settings modified.

I would recommend opening the new/sample file using the clean IQ copy and messing around with that. In that file, the address grid AdrsBook display view is Source Items (Tree view). This view will only show items that meet the source (AddressBook field). If they are subitems, they will show as sub-items. Initially only top level items (TLI's) meet the source in this grid.

Change to Flat list view -- there is no change. Now try ticking the source field for one of the sub-items when using Flat list and then refresh the grid (F5): the item will now show at top level.

I dont know if that's any help. (I rarely use Flat view myself.) At that stage, if your file/grid is responding differently, you could start by comparing display settings (under menu: Grid >)

Hi !

Items in IQ are different than in most other outliners. They have parent-child relationships but it is not essential to their existence:

In Windows Explorer, delete a folder, all sub-folders are gone too. Not so in IQ

In fact, you must view items as individual, like you and me. We exist. We have parents and children but each have a separate existence and each have distinct properties.

Viewing items in hierarchy is often useful, but at times, you don't care if Person A has a parent or not (e.g. when you're about to hire someone for a job... I know, sometimes who's the father does impact, but most cases it doesn't

)

So Flat view is there for those cases, where you want to view items, in a list, sorted, filtered but without any parent messing the list. Think of Excel lists

HTH !

Pierre_Admin

IQ Designer

Pierre,

I believe he is saying that he understands how the flat list is supposed to work but it's not working that way and he's trying to figure out why.

Wayne

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Wayne!!! Just as you say, the items that show up in flat view of AdrsBook are those which have the field AddressBook (which is the source grid of AdrsBook) marked. That explains so much!!!

I had been totally mystified how, in the examples shown in the help file under "1. Grid Display Modes", IQ distinguished between those items which were "contacts", and those which weren't. I guessed, wrongly at it turned out, that it had something to do with which column is immediately to the right of the "Item" column. Actually, it is those items that have the field AddressBook marked. I am going to take some time once again to look over "1. Grid Display Modes", and see if everything works once one understands that. If so, I will probably suggest a certain change in the help file, consisting of explaining how IQ knows which are the "contact" items.

Well, it would also be good to explain which items will automatically have the AddressBook field marked, and which not (Pierre's comment deals with some of this). It depends, I think, on the settings for "Auto-assign field list for all top level items (TLI) added in this grid (read-only)" and "Keep source field values when demoting TLI" in the grid properties. (I don't yet understand what the "read-only" means in this context.) Maybe some other settings are involved too. And of course, one can manually set the field settings.

Or to restate it. As I understand it, in IQ, a grid has all the items from its "source", but also has items which are added manually to the grid. So AdrsBook not only has all the items from AddressBook, but items that are added later. Those later items may be marked in the AddressBook field (in which case they are now in the AddressBook grid too), or may not, in which case they are only in AdrsBook. This is distinction is why IQ grid display modes are able to distinguish between different types of items, those from the source grid and those not.

Thank you, Pierre, for your welcome and your comments. I have to think over some of the things you wrote. For example, you say that "The other display modes are useful when you want to view items that have certain properties (field values)" in which case one may want a "Flat list of all items with a value for this field." But so far, it seems to me that one can only deal with the source field, such as AddressBook for the AdrsBook sample grid. Are you saying it is possible to deal with other fields instead?

Finally, there may also be occasions where one wants to see all the items in a grid, no matter what fields are checked, in a flat display. So far, the main way I see to do that is set another column, not "item", to be the "Tree Column" by using "Column>Is Tree Column", and then expand all the items. That should be fine, although perhaps there is a more direct way to do it.

And thank you to everyone who has replied to me.

[quote=comvox]"The other display modes are useful when you want to view items that have certain properties (field values)" in which case one may want a "Flat list of all items with a value for this field." But so far, it seems to me that one can only deal with the source field, such as AddressBook for the AdrsBook sample grid. Are you saying it is possible to deal with other fields instead?[/quote]

there are various possibilities here:

within the grid expand all items (Ctrl+Shift+9 will expand to ninth level -- I dont have any hierarchies that are deeeper but believe there is an expand all shortcut).
use column filters (2. Filtering) to filter visible items. See also menu: Grid >Column filter
(I'm not sure that flat list would work as you wish with column filtering -- you would have to apply flat list view first, and then filter)

A suggestion to explore possibilities:

create a new grid, name it eg Temp -- a field named Temp will be created and used as source
Show the sourcebar: menu: Grid [Show]>Sourcebar

The Sourcebar shows you the Source field on the left -- if you create a new grid using the name of an existing field, that field will be used as source. In the Sourcebar you can change the field showing on the left-hand side -- this will change items displayed. Note this would not normally be done, but gives a basic understanding. Without a field in the Source, all items will show.

Another grid in the sample file is 'Journal': the Journal grid filters items by their date -- there is no source, so it filters all items.

Re Flat list view, you say:

there may also be occasions where one wants to see all the items in a grid, no matter what fields are checked, in a flat display. So far, the main way I see to do that is set another column, not "item", to be the "Tree Column" by using "Column>Is Tree Column", and then expand all the items. That should be fine, although perhaps there is a more direct way to do it.

I dont understand what you mean here (I didnt think it was possible to show all visible items in a flat view, but I may be wrong there).

Re expanding items:

Ctrl+9 will expand focused item's sub-items down to the ninth level

Ctrl+Shift+9 will do the same for all items in the grid

Tom, thanks for your useful comments.I'll try out your suggestions about flat views today or tomorrow. And thanks for reminding me about the useful shortcuts. I'm going to have be a bit more systematic about remembering them!

[quote=Tom]

Re Flat list view, you say:

I don't understand what you mean here (I didn't think it was possible to show all visible items in a flat view, but I may be wrong there).

[/quote]

If one wanted to see absolutely everything, and in in absolutely flat form, then I think what works is using the "Is Column Tree" command. This is in the Column menu, and described in "4. Grid Columns and Column Sets". See pt. 13, which says "Is Tree Column: Normally, the Item column is used to show the outline. InfoQube however lets you choose any other column."

I tried it out, and found that, if one changes to a different column and goes into *outline view*, it results in seeing every item, not just source items, in a flat form. Everything is shown in the Item column as if it were a TLI (but in the column that is operating as the tree column, it is indicated whether they are sub-items or not). However, if one then goes into "Source items(flat list)", one will only see the source items. Maybe there are other significant things about what happens when one changes the Tree Column with the "Is Column Tree" command, but so far this is what it seems to me. Of course, I'm doing this by trial and error, so I could be missing something. The important thing seems to be, if one wants to see everything, then, after changing the Tree Column, stay in "Outline View".

Hi !

I updated 1. Grid Display Modes to make it a bit clearer

Your comments are welcome of course !

Pierre_Admin

IQ Designer

Pierre,

Wow, you work fast!

I think the problem I had with the different display modes is that I didn't understand the term "source item". From Paul J. Miller's great reviews of IQ, I was aware from the start that items are not part of a grid, but only displayed by a grid, and that one had to always remember that and take it into account This is a strength of IQ but also a significant difference fromr other outliners or PIMs. But from my experience with other outliners, it didn't register with me that there could be both be "source items" and other items (is there a nice name for non-source items?) in a grid. I did know that one could add items to a grid, separate from what it had from its source property, but somehow it didn't register with me that this difference with respect to how items became the ones displayed by a grid would be significant with respect to various other ways IQ worked.

Now I think I understand the term "source item", and when I look back I see that the help file and the grid menu refer to "Source Items (Flat list)", not just "flat list" and not "Items (Flat list)" or "Grid (Flat list)". But I didn't understand the significance of that previously. And I assumed the term "Source items(flat list)" meant pretty much just "flat list".

But now that I see how IQ's flat list works, it is another neat feature!

Regards,

comvox

I'll update the sample IQBase with grids and items from that Doc pane. It will be easier to experiment, and see the various display modes in action.

Indeed, the Source defines what items are shown. A grid displays all Source items (unless a column filter is applied of course) plus 2 other "types" of items:

Sub-items of Source items. Grids may open / refresh with all items collapsed, hence hiding sub-items, as in Flat List view
Main Parents of Source items (if context parents display is On)

BTW, if you add items to a grid, these will be Source items, meaning they will get a value for the Source field (unless the item added is a sub-item)

Having the Properties pane open, showing the Values section is a great way to "get" IQ and how / why items are displayed

Pierre_Admin

IQ Designer