This post is an explanation of how Scheduled Smart Lists work with start dates.
Normally for any Smart Lists, all tasks are shown on List view.
On Day, Week and Month views, you'll see tasks that are due on that selected time frame. If you have 'Settings - General - Type: Date' option as 'Advanced', tasks that have start date passed but not due will be shown too.
(Edited: Use Start Date option has changed to 'Settings - General - Type: Date - Advanced)
Scheduled Smart Lists work similar to this. For example, let's assume it's 'Today' filtered scheduled smart list. On List view, tasks that due today are shown.
If you have 'Settings - General - Type: Date' option as 'Advanced', it'll also show tasks that start date has passed but due date has not. But there is an option on 'Edit List : Filter - Scheduled - Today' named 'Ignore Start Date' where if you turn it on, tasks that are only due on that date will be shown. (Edited: 'Due date' option has changed its name to 'Ignore Start Date')
You can see details by example on below image (Sorry about bad writing )
If I understand correctly, tasks with a start date will only show up in day view in any list when its start date is the current date? You cannot see in advance if there are tasks with a start date coming up? You can only see due dates in advance? Thanks.
What I would want is to see tasks with start dates in my scheduled lists, not only in my today list. But I guess that doesn't work since they would have to appear twice; on their start date and on their due date.
Tasks that have different start date with due date will be shown in all timeframe between start date and due date.
For example, if a task has start date of Oct 12 and due date of Nov 2, this task will be shown on day view from Oct 12 and on. It'll also be shown on week and month view that includes Oct 12~ rather than be shown on Nov.
This also should be affected in list view of scheduled smart lists. (It is shown but is ordered by due date)
Ah, I see now that the task is indeed shown also in week and month view, but not sorted on the start date. It’s shown last until its due date is included in the chosen time frame.
Would be cool if such a task could show the actual start date within the brackets and also a count down to due date, e.g (start date, 5d left) Now it shows the number of days between start and due date but it is static.
Edit: or ideally, it should show only the start date UNTIL it starts, then it should show the days left
And also to have the tasks sorted by start date too.
I find start dates useful to hide tasks that I cannot work on until a certain date so that they don’t clutter my lists and take my attention when I cannot work on them yet e.g. a monthly expense report due on the 15th of the following month cannot be started until all expenses are incurred, which would be by the first day of the month. Beyond that, I would’ve find any utility in additional sort options, countdown timers, etc.
Things around start date has been in the list to consider for long time but didn't get much attention. It increases complexity throughout the app and default Reminders app doesn't support it well which made the delay.
Still there are lots of other things to come first but I'll surely revisit start date and other related features later on.