Moving bars and tasks vertically

You can move a bar vertically to rearrange the order of bars in the current bar chart view, and you can move tasks vertically to move them from one bar to another.

To move a bar or task vertically:

  1. Position the mouse pointer over the centre of the task that you want to move. To move a whole bar, select the bar by ALT-clicking any task on the bar then position the mouse pointer over the centre of any task on the bar.
  2. When the like a sweet wrapper cursor appears, drag the pointer up or down the view. The task follows the mouse pointer as you drag. If a whole bar is selected, all the tasks move relative to the task that you drag.
  3. Release the mouse button when the task is at the position you want. If you hold down CTRL when you release the mouse button, the bar or task is copied instead of moved. If you drag them beyond the last bar in the view, empty bars are inserted up to the bar or task that you have moved.

When moving a single task, if you drag the task off the bottom of the view, a new bar is created for it. When moving a number of tasks from different bars, all the tasks are placed on one bar when you release the drag.

If you move or copy a group of bars which are dispersed throughout the view, they are placed adjacent on the bar chart when you release the drag.

You can drag bars between different projects using the steps above. When you drag a bar onto another project, the bar will be copied and not moved. If the rows have allocation bars, they will be copied across to the destination project.

You can also move a bar or task vertically by dragging it using the right mouse button. When you release the drag, a popup menu appears for you to choose whether to move or copy the task to its new position, move the task to the new bar but keep its original start and finish dates, draw links between tasks that were originally on the same bar but which will now be on separate bars, or cancel the operation.

When you move bars vertically and you are using Asta Enterprise, the move action may fail if the bars adjacent to the destination position are locked to another user.

There are several ways to move a bar or task without altering its start and finish dates. You can:

  • Hold down SHIFT as you drag the bar or task up or down the chart.
  • Drag the bar or task using the right mouse button and select Move Here, Keep Same Dates when you release the drag.

If the line numbers column is displayed in the spreadsheet, you can also use the following method:

  1. Position the pointer over the left half of the line numbers column. The cursor shape should be an up and down-pointing sweet wrapper. If the cursor shape is an outlined rectangle, clicking will select the row rather than drag it.
  2. Drag the row up or down the bar chart and release the mouse button when the row is at the correct position.

When you release the drag, the bars are drawn at their new vertical position but with their original start and finish dates.

Related Topics:

Moving bars and tasks horizontally

Shortcuts for moving and copying bars