Re: property searches for #+CATEGORY

From: Matthew Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org>
To: "Mario E. Munich" <mariomu@ieee.org>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: property searches for #+CATEGORY
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:41:33 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <m2ej0igm5u.fsf@fastmail.fm> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <493DBCE1.1080507@ieee.org> (Mario E. Munich's message of "Mon\, 08 Dec 2008 16\:33\:37 -0800")

Hi Mario,

I find the easiest way to filter for personal and professional tasks
is to use a filetag at the top of each file, e.g.,

#+FILETAGS: prof

I use filetags because the agenda has a wonderful shortcut for
filtering by tags. When I call the agenda, I simply hit "/" and then
the shortcut for either my "prof" or "per" tag to filter the items.
It's lightning quick and does the job painlessly (i.e., without any
custom agenda searches). I have org-use-tag-inheritance set to t, but
if you want fine-grained control of what tags are inherited, Org 6.14
has some nice new options.

Of course, if you'd prefer to use categories instead of filetags, they
also work just fine for custom agenda searches. For example,

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
      '(("w" tags-todo "CATEGORY=\"work\"")
        ("h" tags-todo "CATEGORY=\"home\"")))

Finally, you can always search by category using C-c a m or C-c a M
and then typing the following:

CATEGORY="work"

In short, there are lot of nice ways to achieve the functionality
you're looking for. 

I hope this helps.

Best,

Matt

"Mario E. Munich" <mariomu@ieee.org> writes:

> Dear Carsten,
>
> I am really sorry for not having been clear... let me explain myself a
> little bit and hopefully you would be able to point me in the right
> direction.
>
> First of all, I would like to mention that I am a planner-el convert
> given the flexibility that org-mode provides. I have converted all my
> planner files into org-mode files and I am moving forward using org-mode.
>
> My particular use-case scenario (that seemed to be the same scenario
> that Adam mentioned in this thread) is that I would like to have two set
> of org files stored in separated directories: one set for the office
> (work) and another set for home (personal). I am able to run agenda
> commands in both sets of files using org-agenda-files and I am able to
> see all the TODO items using the basic C-a a commands. However, I would
> like to search for TODO items that correspond only to my work or only to
> my home (basically, have two emacs buffers, one with work TODO lists and
> another with personal TODO lists to avoid cluttering).
>
> From this thread of emails of about a year ago, I thought that the
> solution to my use-case was to add a #+CATEGORY indicator on the files.
> I have added the following lines:
>
> #+CATEGORY: work my-work-project
>
> or
>
> #+CATEGORY: personal my-personal-project
>
> accordingly in the work and the personal files.
> So, I am now at the point in which I would like to customize the
> org-agenda-custom-commands to search for CATEGORY work or personal TODO
> items. I have looked in the mailing list and in the org-mode
> documentation and I have not been able to find a good example on how to
> do this (I should add that my lisp skills are not that great and
> therefore that might be the root cause of the problem).
>
> I have several questions:
>
> 1) Given my use-case, is this the right approach? Should I be using
> something else like FILETAGS?
>
> I think that this use-case might be rather common for people working in
> industry in which you would like to have a separation between work and
> personal files due to IP and ownership issues. Things might be even
> worse if you use SVN at work and GIT at home (my case). So, I would
> think that it would be useful to have a simple skeleton setup in the
> documentation. In planner, I used to have a way of switching between
> pointing at work or personal files, but this setup was less than ideal.
>
> 2) If using CATEGORY is the right thing to do, how should I write the
> search function?
>
> Thanks a lot for your help and support... And not that you need any more
> praise for org-mode, but, man, it is really, really good!!!!
>
> Thanks again,
>
> -Mario
>
> Carsten Dominik wrote:
>> Hi Mario,
>>
>> the fact that you "have read all the postings" almost contradicts
>> your other statement that you "have implemented *the* method".
>> I guess you need to tell us more about your detailed setup
>> to get a useful reply.
>>
>> - Carsten
>>
>> On Dec 8, 2008, at 12:35 AM, Mario E. Munich wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> I am sorry to bother you with a silly question, but I have read all the
>>> postings on the orgmode list on how to separate files for work and
>>> personal using the CATEGORY stuff. I have implemented the method, but I
>>> cannot get org-agenda-custom-commands to search properly in each
>>> category. Any pointers/help would be highly appreciated.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> -Mario
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Mario E. Munich, PhD
>>> VP of Engineering
>>> Principal Scientist
>>> Evolution Robotics
>>> Ph: (626) 993-3317
>>> Fax: (626) 993-3301
>>> mario@evolution.com
>>> http://www.evolution.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>
>
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