Postpone the earlier of the scheduled and due date

[fabrguer]

⚠️ Check request is valid.

• My request is about the Tasks plugin for Obsidian.
• I am only requesting a single feature in the Tasks plugin. Multiple changes should be split into individual requests, with links between them.
• I believe my requested feature will be generally applicable to other Tasks plugin users, not just me: it is not uniquely tied to my personal workflow.

⚠️ Please check that this feature request hasn't been suggested before.

• I searched previous Tasks plugin Ideas in Discussions didn't find any similar feature requests.
• I searched previous Tasks plugin Issues didn't find any similar feature requests.

🔖 Feature description

Context

All my tasks have a scheduled date (I use the "use filename as scheduled date" function), but only the few tasks with a hard deadline have a due date. My dashboard shows tasks based on the earlier between due and scheduled dates.

Problem

When tasks have a due date, clicking "postpone" only updates the due date. This is the opposite of what I want: the due date is usually some hard deadline that does not change, while scheduled is what I use to decide what I work on every day. This issue forces me to have manually fix the incorrectly adjusted due date and change scheduled date. So I end up not using the postpone button much for this reason.

✔️ Solution

Current logic

• Due date, if present.
• Scheduled date
  • if no Due date is present.
• Start date
  • If no Due or Scheduled date is present.

Proposed new logic

When both due and scheduled date exist, the proposal is to update the earliest date, making sure that scheduled is always <= due (which makes sense). So sometimes both will be adjusted.

if (due && !scheduled): due = new_date
else if (!due && scheduled): scheduled = new_date
else if (due && scheduled):
    if (due <= scheduled): 
        due = new_date
        scheduled = min(scheduled, new_date)
    else: scheduled = min(due, new_date)
else:
    start = new_date

❓ Alternatives

No response

📝 Additional Context

No response

[claremacrae]

Honestly my heart sinks when I see feature requests and bug reports on the Postpone feature.
There have been multiple different requests, and not always self-consistent.

[fabrguer]

Sorry for adding to the pile of requests -- I checked already posted requests, I did not see one matching mine, but I could be wrong.

The postpone button feature is good one (1 UI element vs up to 3), but I find myself reverting to modifying directly the due and scheduled dates because of the behavior described above. I do love that clicking on the due/scheduled icon I can modify the date via a mini calendar, much faster than going via the edit modal imo.

[claremacrae]

Indeed - I added left-click and right-click features on all the date fields as a more flexible alternative to Postpone, for those who don't like Postpone's behaviour.

I checked already posted requests, I did not see one matching mine, but I could be wrong.

Yes, there are a lot to chose from:

• Open
• Closed