More visual distinction among project issue states (as viewed from the parent issue)

[theamarks]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Product Feedback

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Projects

Body

Observed Problem:

In a project board when viewing/zooming into an issue that contains subissues listed below the issue text body, I have a hard time visually skimming and sorting the state of the subissues.

In my project I often assign disparate bugs and tasks to a parent issue that represents a larger chunk of work. The subissues are often in the backlog for quite some time until I collect them and assign them to a parent issue, so naturally some of the subissues are duplicates or are not longer relevant because of other changes. I handle this by closing some subissues with "Closed as not planned" and "Closed as duplicate." I appreciate that the closed subissues can still be displayed in the parent issue, but I find myself constantly being tripped up an opening them to inspect, and would rather not set the display filter to only open subissues.

Possible Solution

Give closed issues a more distinctive visual cue. This could be one of or combine any of the following:

• Give the left-hand circle icon more prominence (thicker line and more saturated color) for Open issues, and thinner grayed out for Closed issues.
• "Dim" or gray-out the Title of a closed issue to distinguish from Open issues
• italicize the Title of closed issues to distinguish from Open issues
• Sort Closed and Open subissues

Screenshot Example of current behavior

Guidelines

• I have read the above statement and can confirm my post is relevant to the GitHub feature areas Issues and/or Projects.

[Flpvoigt]

I agree that closed subissues need a stronger visual distinction, especially when the parent issue contains a long mixed list. I would combine a semantic status badge/icon with a subdued title rather than relying on color alone, and keep Closed, Closed as duplicate, and Closed as not planned distinguishable for accessibility and triage. A small closed/open filter or sort option would help power users, but the default should still show the full hierarchy. The key regression test would be that status remains obvious at normal zoom, high-contrast mode, and screen-reader output without requiring the user to open each subissue.

[Flpvoigt]

I agree that closed subissues need a stronger visual distinction, especially when the parent issue contains a long mixed list. I would combine a semantic status badge/icon with a subdued title rather than relying on color alone, and keep Closed, Closed as duplicate, and Closed as not planned distinguishable for accessibility and triage. A small closed/open filter or sort option would help power users, but the default should still show the full hierarchy. The key regression test would be that status remains obvious at normal zoom, high-contrast mode, and screen-reader output without requiring the user to open each subissue.