From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Nuutti Kotivuori Subject: Org-mode things Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:26:44 +0300 Message-ID: <87odglz20r.fsf@aka.i.naked.iki.fi> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IRoao-0003gH-DQ for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 02 Sep 2007 08:30:18 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IRoan-0003fo-Qf for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 02 Sep 2007 08:30:18 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IRoan-0003fi-NU for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 02 Sep 2007 08:30:17 -0400 Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.229.2] helo=ciao.gmane.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IRoan-0004wB-1H for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 02 Sep 2007 08:30:17 -0400 Received: from root by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1IRoaY-0006fg-Ev for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 02 Sep 2007 14:30:02 +0200 Received: from naked.iki.fi ([62.142.249.112]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 02 Sep 2007 14:30:02 +0200 Received: from naked by naked.iki.fi with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 02 Sep 2007 14:30:02 +0200 List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Hello, I'm a very new org-mode user and thought I'd introduce myself while asking about a few things. I've used org-mode only about a couple weeks and am slowly trying to learn all the kinks of it. But there's a few things I'm having difficulty setting up. The main confusion I have is about 'scheduled' and 'deadline' items versus items that just have an active date (and time). For me, the meanings are roughly: - Active date and time, but not todo: an event I need to know about but probably do nothing about. - Active date and time, and todo: an appointment, something that I need to act on. - Scheduled date: merely a timestamp that tells me that this item is not relevant to me *before* the given time. But it also doesn't mean that it would be an appointment or have a set time to do it on (just after the scheduled time). - Deadline date: a hard deadline before which I need to get something done - but doesn't specify when it needs to be done, just before the deadline. So, to actually use these in org-mode, I'd like to have the following kinds of lists: - Agenda: I want an agenda with all the active date events, but *without* scheduled items at all and with deadline items *only* shown on the date the deadline is actually on. The agenda doesn't need any early warning since for me it is simply the things that must get done. - Agenda of todo entries: Same as above, but only for todo items - shorter agenda when I only want to see what I must do. - Todo-list: The normal todo list, but with a few differences. I want the todo list to show me everything relevant I need to do, so I want to see scheduled entries on the todo list only *after* their scheduled time has passed - when they are actually relevant. For deadline entries, I want their color to reflect the normal warning days behavior, so I can quickly spot deadlines that are approaching on my todo list. And for normal todo items that have a scheduled time, I wouldn't wish to see them on the todo list at all - they are in the agenda and I don't have to care about them except on the specific day or time they are on. I'd be happy for any pointers to achieve these kinds of listings in org-mode. Then another general problem. The problem is that I have a really hierarchical tree, where the *headings above* are really important. If I have a todo item like: ***** Call about invoice That doesn't help me much if I can't see the heading that it is under. This is ofcourse no problem with sparse trees as those can show the context nicely, but it is a problem in two things. The todo lists I have are a bit messy since I don't know what the todo item is about without peeking under which heading it is. Usually this isn't a big problem since either I guess or can just look it up fast enough - but sometimes it would be nice to have a possibility of putting the immediate next parent heading in a column or somehow on the line to show. But the bigger problem I have about this is about archiving. For me, the problem is that I get a lot of DONE todo items on my lists, which I want to leave around for reference (so I don't want to delete them), but I don't want them cluttering up the display. I can't make them archived subtrees, because they are not in their own subtree. Also, filing them in another file is problematic, since they lose their context in the tree that I have. Sure, nowadays there seems to be a way of "saving the context" in the filed entry itself, but those are hard to read from the properties and the hierarchy of the entries is lost in the archive. So, for an external archive to work, it would have to replicate the structure of the original tree - and even that could get a bit odd when I move things around. So, I have come up with a way that's atleast a 90% solution for me, perhaps even perfect. For each subtree that I have todo items on, I have an archived entry first, like this: ** Some topic *** Archived :ARCHIVE:... *** TODO Do this *** TODO Do that So, now when I mark a todo item done, I just press M-right to put it inside the archived entry like this: ** Some topic *** Archived :ARCHIVE:... **** DONE Do this *** TODO Do that And now when I press 'tab' on the archived line, the DONE entry is hidden inside the archived tree - and I never had to open the archive tree for this (I don't want to open the tree often because it's going to contain a lot of entries). So, this solution works for me, but I'm wondering if others have had similar problems and how they've solved those. I have a few more problems to talk about, but this will do for starters - and I'm sure I will have quite a few more as I start to use org-mode more. Thanks in advance, -- Naked