Questions & Issues (Notion)

Just some questions and issues I have solved - and not. Including related to TaskAlo 3.1.

Contingency problem

Occasionally I run into limitations that by lack of a better name, I call propagation problems or contingency problems: Choice B or situation B depends on choice A or situation A and I don't know how to incorporate that in Notion. It seems like situation where in MySQL, I would typically use double join.

Some examples:

Categories & Projects

I have Categories and Projects. A Project usually belongs to one Category. Tasks belong to Projects (and therefore automatically to the associated Category).
When I create a new card, I may first choose a Category. Subsequently, I would choose a Project. Options concerning Project should be limited to the Projects within the given Category

Hide tasks of finished projects

I have overviews of tasks, e.g., all tasks with a high priority or all tasks per Category - Such overviews are actually one of the things I most like about Notion
When a project has Status='finished', the tasks are still in these overview: I can't filter on the Project status

Collaborate?

Can I share a part of my Notion setup with others?
While still having control what he/she can do or change?
While making sure that he/she doesn't have access to stuff I don't want to share?
Preferably without having to pay an enormous amount?

Is Notion ready for business?

This is probably my major concern: Is Notion good enough for colaboration with others?

It often feels like a toy
I'm afraid that if I start using it with others, that I don't have control over my data
I'm afraid that down the road, I would make such major changes to my current datamodel, that I have to start all over again. Maybe even every couple of months.

Is Notion worth the investment?

I've spend already quite some hours on Notion:

How sure can I be, that Notion will still be around in 5 or 10 years?
Maybe better to use a self-hosted open source alternative?

De-clutter the interface?

I found some of the views a bit cluttered. Can I change that?

OK - Board view: Multiple items on a row?

Is it possible to display several items next to each other, rather than everything under each other? → Probably yes: Board view (Notion)

Board view: Include text with properties?

It must be possible to include text with properties, e.g., through formulas. Here's an example that doesn't do this exactly, but it shows the way, using something like a immediate if statement [1]: if(formatDate(prop("Date"), "W") == formatDate(now(), "W"), formatDate(prop("Date"), "dddd"), if(prop("Date") < now(), "Late", "Future")). In a more readible format:

if
(
   formatDate(prop("Date"), "W") == formatDate(now(), "W"),   # Condition
   formatDate(prop("Date"), "dddd"),                          # Action when condition is met
   if                                                         # New if when condition is not met   
   (
      prop("Date") < now(),                                   # New condition
      "Late",                                                 # Condition met → Display "Late"
      "Future"                                                # Condition not met → Display "Future"
   )
)

What's the name of the database?

→ Database name (Notion)

Peek view templates with empty name?

So far it seems that if I create a peek view template, that the name of the template is filled-in as the name of the record. I know it's only something small, but would it be possible to change that?

TA3.1: Two category fields?

Concerning TaskAlot 3.1:

Why are there two category fields?
Why are there two status fields? → Easy: One is for the task at hand (this is about tasks), and one for the status of the corresponding project: You can't have double joins (or a join over two tables), hence stuff you would otherwise know through a double join, is not copied to a dedicated field. yes, it's redundant, but this is how you have to do this in Notion, at least for now.

Why are there different tops of pages?

Some pages: Logo + title next to each other
Some pages: Under each other + lots of empty space at the top

What are those icons in the left sidebar?

Sometimes, there is a dot in front of a name
Sometimes, it's a floppy
Sometimes it's like an icon of an empty document.