Don't show empty swim lanes on Kanban Board

[Amanda Berkowitz]

I have a quick filter to omit the last two swimlanes. the tickets disappear but the empty swimlanes still get drawn. It seems that not too long ago people wanted this feature but it wasnt available. Well I want the flexibility to either. How can I make an empty swimlane disappear? 

[Nicolas Bourdages · Accepted solution]

I'm using JIRA server 6.3.15 with Agile 6.7.11. If a quick filter hides all the issues of a given swimlanes, the smiwlane itself doesn't get drawn.

It occurs to me that there might be confusion on the terminology here. If you're hiding the issues in last 2 columns, those based on statuses, they won't be hidden by the quick filter. There's just no way to do that yet.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/GHS-3690

[Amanda Berkowitz]

Thanks for your reply Nicolas, but I dont understand the difference between the two scenarios. so if the columns are based on status (which they are: open, in progress, QA, done, etc) then if the column is empty it will still always get drawn? what other types of swimlanes are there that would allow the column to disappear when empty? And why not status? Maybe I can make some adjustments to utilize this feature. 

[Nicolas Bourdages]

Columns are the vertical lanes through which you transition issues, from left to right. Those are only based on status. There are no other types of columns.

Swimlanes are the horizontal lanes. Those are based on either parent-subtask relationship (the issue's subtasks are displayed in the parent swimlane) or on filters

They follow different rules because they're different kinds of separations. You move an issue from column to column, but the swimlane is for display only.

In a nutshell: Columns are always drawn, Swimlanes are drawn only if issues match their filter

You don't want columns to completely disappear when empty, because dragging an issue from one column to the other is how you transition issues from one status to the other. If the column is not there, you can't transition the issue to the status(es) it contains.

The feature I linked was a request for the ability to collapse or hide columns. That request is still open, and it doesn't look like it will be developed anytime soon.