# See everything the query returned, in one list

The board is a process view: it leaves out items in removed states and diverts
states it cannot place. When you need every item the board loaded, including
the ones its columns leave out, switch to **List**. It shows the same items in
the same order as the board. On a business request board, *Stop asking for
documents we already hold* is Rejected and therefore off the board; the List
still has it.

## Steps

1. Open the board and select the **List** tab, beside **Board**, under the
   header.
2. Read across the columns. A new board shows **ID**, **Type**, **Title**,
   **State** and **Tags** (tags are joined with `; `). Each one opens as wide
   as its own contents need.
3. To show other columns, select **Column options** above the list. It opens
   the board's **Settings** on the **List** tab, the one place the columns are
   chosen. There you can:
   - add any field of the board's type with **Add column…**;
   - move a column up or down, or remove it (**Title** stays, because it opens
     the work item);
   - start from the cards with **Add the fields shown on cards**, after which
     the two lists are independent;
   - go back to the five with **Reset to default**.

   Press **Save**. The columns belong to the board, like the fields shown on
   cards, so everyone who opens it sees the same ones. Numbers are aligned to
   the right with your locale's separators, an area or iteration path shows its
   last part with the full path in the tip, a person shows their name, and an
   empty value shows a dash, never 0.
4. To change a column's width, drag the divider on its right-hand edge. You can
   grab that divider **anywhere down the list**, not only up in the header row,
   so you do not have to scroll back to the top to adjust a column you noticed
   was too narrow at the bottom. Double-click a divider to fit that column to
   its contents again.
5. Or use the keyboard: **Tab** to a divider, then **←** and **→** to move it,
   and **Home** to fit the column to its contents.
6. Click a row's title, or press Enter on it, to open the native Azure DevOps
   work item form. The rest of the row is the drag handle, not a link.
7. To act on one item without leaving the List, hover its row and select the
   **⋯** button at the right-hand end, or right-click the row. It opens the
   item card's own menu, with the entries that card offers: **Open**,
   **Edit title**, **Move to top**, **Move to bottom**, **Move to column**,
   **Move to iteration**, **Move to position…**, the add entries and
   **Delete**. Some of them work differently here, because the List has no
   columns:
   - **Move to top**, **Move to bottom** and **Move to position…** count the
     whole List, including rows a filter hides and rows below **Show more**.
     The dialog says *Move to list position* and opens with the row's current
     position selected: type the new one and press **Enter**. They are offered
     on the rows you can drag, and they write the same order field a drag
     writes.
   - **Move to column** changes the item's state and nothing else. On the
     board the card also goes to the bottom of the new column, which writes a
     new rank. In the List the rank is the row's place, so it is left alone
     and the row stays where it is.
   - **Edit title** turns the row's **Title** cell into a text box. **Enter**
     or clicking away saves, **Escape** cancels.
   - **Add task**, **Add related** and the other add entries open a dialog
     with the box the card would show. What the item already has of that kind
     is listed under the box, and the new item appears there.

   Closing **Move to position…** or **Delete** with **Cancel** or **Escape**
   returns focus to the row's **⋯**, as a saved position does, so the keyboard
   carries on from the row. In an as-of snapshot the rows have no menu, as the
   cards have none.
8. To change the order, drag a row where you want it. Or do it from the
   keyboard: Tab to the row, **Space** to pick it up, **↑** and **↓** to move
   it, **Space** again to drop it. Either way the process's order field is what
   gets written, so the new order is the one everyone sees. With a filter on
   it works, and the row lands directly above the visible row below the slot,
   after any hidden rows between, or directly below the last visible row at
   the bottom. Reordering is off on a board whose type has no order field,
   while the query sorts by another field, and in an as-of snapshot. It is also off on a board whose order belongs to the backlog,
   unless that board has **Reorder from this board (writes the backlog's own
   order)** turned on in its settings. A screen reader announces a row you can
   drag by its work item ID and title, as a *work item row, draggable*, and
   reads the title link and the **⋯** button inside it as controls of their
   own. A row that cannot be reordered says nothing about dragging.
9. Narrow with the filter bar above; it applies to the List exactly as it does
   to the board.
10. Switch back with the **Board** tab. Your choice of Board or List is
    remembered per user and per board, so the view you left is the view you
    return to.

## What you should see

One dense row per item the board loaded, in the same order as the board,
including the kind the board leaves out altogether: items in a Removed-category
state. Items the board excludes for other reasons, such as items from other
backlog levels on a board set to one level, are not listed here either; the
notice above the board counts them. A long list shows 200 rows at first; the
**Show more** button at the bottom names how many are still hidden and adds the
next 200. On a board bound to a **tree query**, the List shows the boarded level
exactly as the board does: the levels around it (the root the query hangs from,
intermediate levels, task children) are the tree's structure, counted in the
notice above the board rather than listed here. Items whose state has no column
are on the board as well, gathered into **Unmapped**; here they are simply rows
in the board's order like every other item. Above the board you will have seen
the matching note: *"Items in removed states are hidden: {count}. See the List
view."*

No cards, no type icons, no checklists and no linked work. Those belong to
cards. Style rules and tag colors are not applied here either. What a row does
share with a card is its menu, behind the **⋯** at the row's right-hand end.

![The list view: the whole query result, in rank order](https://anykanban.com/docs/_img/list-view-reorder.png)

With columns of your own, the List is where a priority conversation happens.
On the demo's change request board it shows **Priority**, **Regulatory
deadline**, **Impacted system**, **State** and **Assigned To**. *Sanctions
screening on beneficiary name* has gone to the top for the nearest deadline,
and *Instant payments: 10 second SLA on the retail channel* is on its way up
for the next one. Its **Priority** still reads 3: a drag changes the order, not
the field.

![The List with chosen columns: one request moved to the top, another on its way up](https://anykanban.com/docs/_img/list-priority.png)

## Notes

**Column widths are yours, not the board's.** They are remembered per user and
per board, exactly like your choice of Board or List, so a colleague opening the
same board sees their own widths, and nothing about widths appears in the
board's settings. Which columns there are is the board's, not yours: that is
chosen in the board's settings and is the same for everyone. The rule is simple: a column you have never touched fits its
own contents every time the board opens, and one you have sized keeps the width
you gave it. Whatever the columns leave over stays empty at the right, so the
first and the last column behave the same way.

Row order follows the board's order rule: the query's own `ORDER BY` when it
has one, and without one the order field's order (the board adds it to the
query it runs). Rows can be dragged onto one another to reorder, which writes
the order field. That is switched off when the type has no order field, when
the query sorts by another field, for a row whose own type orders by another
field, and in an as-of snapshot; a
filter leaves it on, by the rule in step 8. On boards of backlog items the backlog's order is read and
not written, unless the board has **Reorder from this board (writes the
backlog's own order)** turned on in its settings. It is off by default. Even
then, only rows of the board's own type and project can be dragged, and a query
whose own `ORDER BY` sorts by anything other than the order field, ascending,
keeps the order read-only. The rank of a backlog item
that a mixed query returns alongside other types is never written. See
[Why we never write to your backlog](https://anykanban.com/docs/concepts/why-we-never-write-to-your-backlog/).

The row menu's **Move to top**, **Move to bottom** and **Move to position…**
follow exactly these rules, because they make the same move a drag makes. Where
a row cannot be dragged they are not offered. When the backlog owns the order,
or the row's own type orders by another field, the menu says why in their
place, as it does on a card.

## Related

- [Find one item on a board of four hundred](https://anykanban.com/docs/find-and-analyze/find-one-item/)
- [Work with a column that has hundreds of cards](https://anykanban.com/docs/find-and-analyze/a-column-with-hundreds-of-cards/)
- [Show the board as it was at the start of the month](https://anykanban.com/docs/find-and-analyze/the-board-as-it-was/)