Dangling task warning

[rmichela]

When I took the PDMC, Juval said that every task must contribute to the final delivery of the project. There shouldn't be any dangling tasks upon which nothing depends. Can you add a check or warning that alerts when a task exists that isn't depended upon?

[countincognito]

It is certainly possible to label such activities. But I would be hesitant to exclude them or flag them as problematic. I will think about how best to incorporate the information into the outputs.

[LarsKemmann]

It is certainly possible to label such activities. But I would be hesitant to exclude them or flag them as problematic. I will think about how best to incorporate the information into the outputs.

You could convert the "Dummy" column into a multipurpose "Status" or "Indicators"/"Info" column, with the ability to show one or more of the following icons (with hover tooltips) -- all emojis are purely illustrative and should not be construed as visual design advice... 😅

• "Start" (no incoming dependencies) ▶
• "End" (no outgoing dependencies) ⏹
• "Dummy" or "Milestone" (zero duration) Ⓜ
• "Critical" (zero total slack) ❕

Then, you could also add a Microsoft Project-style ⚠ or ❌ icon and cell color (with hover tooltip) to activities that violate any rules, such as:

• more than one "End" activity ('dangling' activity)
• any activity-specific compilation errors

You would need to design the cell in a way that ensures each icon shows up in the same horizontal offset, regardless of any other icons in the cell, so that all the icons for one particular type of indicator are vertically aligned in the table.

[countincognito]

I think I have found a way to label activities with no successors or predecessors (I call them "Isolated"). It will be in the next release.

I like the idea of using icons for status labels. But I will need to think carefully how to do it :-)