newbie questions

newbie questions

[Stathis Sideris]

Hello all,

I'm new to org mode (the bundling of ditaa made me aware of its
existence!), and having recently converted a relatively large volume
of notes from freemind, I'm now giving org mode a serious test drive.

I have three questions:

(1) Is there any way to make the column placement of org-ellipsis
consistent? It seems that the presence of tags in headings cause
org-ellipsis to be placed in the right-hand side which makes it easier
to miss when looking at an outline.

(2) Is there any way to make org-cycle skip the "show all" mode? That
would make it to just collapse/expand the children of the current
heading.

(3) Are there any plans to implement persistent tree expansion? For
example, it could be that org mode would somehow remember which
headings were expanded when you were last using an org file. Or being
able to go back to the previous state after you've created a sparse
tree using C-c /.


Thanks,

Stathis

Re: newbie questions

[Manish]

  On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Stathis Sideris wrote:
  [...]
  >
  > (2) Is there any way to make org-cycle skip the "show all" mode? That
  > would make it to just collapse/expand the children of the current
  > heading.

If I understood you right then TAB should do that for you (instead of
Shift-TAB.)

  >
  [...]
  >
  > Stathis
  >

Thanks for making ditaa.  It's wonderful. :)

-- 
Manish

Re: newbie questions

[Carsten Dominik]

On Apr 6, 2009, at 1:04 PM, Stathis Sideris wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I'm new to org mode (the bundling of ditaa made me aware of its
> existence!), and having recently converted a relatively large volume
> of notes from freemind, I'm now giving org mode a serious test drive.

Hi Stathis,

welcome!

>
> I have three questions:
>
> (1) Is there any way to make the column placement of org-ellipsis
> consistent? It seems that the presence of tags in headings cause
> org-ellipsis to be placed in the right-hand side which makes it easier
> to miss when looking at an outline.

No, unfortunately not.

>
> (2) Is there any way to make org-cycle skip the "show all" mode? That
> would make it to just collapse/expand the children of the current
> heading.

No, but pressing TAB one extra time is really very little effort.

>
> (3) Are there any plans to implement persistent tree expansion? For
> example, it could be that org mode would somehow remember which
> headings were expanded when you were last using an org file. Or being
> able to go back to the previous state after you've created a sparse
> tree using C-c /.

This has come up before, but is very complex and, in my
opinion, not really worth it.

You can use the VISIBILITY property to set fixed startup
visibilities for individual trees.


- Carsten

>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stathis
>
>
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Newbie Questions

[Andrew M. Nuxoll]

Ok, newb here.  I have only been using org-mode for a few days now.  But 
I've been an emacs guy since 1992, I have read the manual and I've also 
searched the archive of this mailing list.  So, forgive me if these 
questions are repeats.  Also, Dominick said you had to be nice to me 
while he was away.

1.  When I view my agenda for a day it displays TODO items twice if they 
are both SCHEDULED and DEADLINEd (a common occurrence for me).  Can this 
be avoided?  Here's a generic example snippet from my agenda:
    Thursday    9 July 2009
      nux:        Scheduled:  TODO [#B] Call Mary :PROJECT::
      nux:        In   1 d.:  TODO [#B] Call Mary :PROJECT::

2.  Once a TODO item has been marked as DONE, it still shows up on my 
agenda.  Can this be avoided? 


Meta-Comments on Questions 1&2:  I realize I have the option of using 
the "ToDo Items" agenda view instead of the day/week agenda view but 
that doesn't work for me because I use the SCHEDULED property as a way 
of selecting a small subset of tasks for the day from a long list of 
TODO items.  I also rely heavily upon repeating tasks to automate most 
of this.  So maybe the solution to #1 and #2 is to use a custom agenda 
of some sort but I don't see an obvious way to create one that does what 
I want.

3.  Once I set a deadline for a task, it'd be nice if the priority would 
increase as the deadline approached.  Ideally the  criteria for 
increasing the priority could be specified via a customizable formula.  
Does this functionality (or anything like it) exist?

Thanks,
:AMN:

Re: Newbie Questions

[Brian van den Broek]

Andrew M. Nuxoll said unto the world at 09/07/09 04:37 PM:

> 2.  Once a TODO item has been marked as DONE, it still shows up on my 
> agenda.  Can this be avoided?

I have the following lines in my .emacs:

(setq org-agenda-skip-scheduled-if-done t)
(setq org-agenda-skip-deadline-if-done t)


Best,

Brian vdB

Re: Newbie Questions

[Nick Dokos]

Andrew M. Nuxoll <nuxoll@up.edu> wrote:

> Also, Dominick said you had to be nice to me while he was away.
> 

Just an FYI (a nice one since Carsten said so :-): Carsten is the first
name, Dominik (no c) is the surname of the creator of Org-mode. And I
promise we'll be nice even after he comes back :-)

> 1.  When I view my agenda for a day it displays TODO items twice if they 
> are both SCHEDULED and DEADLINEd (a common occurrence for me).  Can this 
> be avoided?  Here's a generic example snippet from my agenda:
>     Thursday    9 July 2009
>       nux:        Scheduled:  TODO [#B] Call Mary :PROJECT::
>       nux:        In   1 d.:  TODO [#B] Call Mary :PROJECT::
> 

I think you SCHEDULE an item on a given day, in order to start working
on it on that day. There is generally no penalty for taking perhaps a
long time to finish it, or rescheduling it for a later time. All that
happens is that at some point in the future it'll pop up in the
agenda. DEADLINE on the other hand implies a penalty: if you don't
finish it by the deadline, something bad is going to happen. It then
starts appearing in the agenda a few days before the actual deadline to
remind you of the dire consequences, should you miss the deadline. How
many days before is controllable either by a global variable or by
modifying the timestamp (see section 8.3 of the manual: Deadlines and
Scheduling). Apologies if you already know the details, but I wanted
to highlight the difference between these two.

So let me turn the question around: why do you need to both SCHEDULE
and DEADLINE the same item?

> 2.  Once a TODO item has been marked as DONE, it still shows up on my 
> agenda.  Can this be avoided? 
> 

I believe this was answered already.

> 
> Meta-Comments on Questions 1&2:  I realize I have the option of using 
> the "ToDo Items" agenda view instead of the day/week agenda view but 
> that doesn't work for me because I use the SCHEDULED property as a way 
> of selecting a small subset of tasks for the day from a long list of 
> TODO items.  I also rely heavily upon repeating tasks to automate most 
> of this.  So maybe the solution to #1 and #2 is to use a custom agenda 
> of some sort but I don't see an obvious way to create one that does what 
> I want.
> 
> 3.  Once I set a deadline for a task, it'd be nice if the priority would 
> increase as the deadline approached.  Ideally the  criteria for 
> increasing the priority could be specified via a customizable formula.  
> Does this functionality (or anything like it) exist?
> 

I don't think anything like that exists, but with a Small[1] Amount of
Programming (TM), it could probably be cobbled up - maybe as a cron job?


Nick

[1] OK, maybe not so small...

Re: Newbie Questions

[Andrew M. Nuxoll]

Nick Dokos wrote:
> Just an FYI (a nice one since Carsten said so :-): Carsten is the first
> name, Dominik (no c) is the surname of the creator of Org-mode. And I
> promise we'll be nice even after he comes back :-)
>   
Err, whoops!
> So let me turn the question around: why do you need to both SCHEDULE
> and DEADLINE the same item?
>   
In my mind, there is no conflict between scheduling and deadlining.  So, 
I may be missing something.  In my case, I am scheduling myself to work 
on an item that has a deadline.  I don't think that's an unusual 
scenario.  For example, I have a grant proposal I need to have a draft 
of by Monday (DEADLINE) but I've scheduled Thursday afternoon to work on 
it.  By putting SCHEDULED on it means that it gets attention on that day 
unless Murphy steps in.  If Murphy does, then I still have the benefit 
of the DEADLINE to keep me apprised of my dire situation.

An alternative (which I don't like) is to not use DEADLINE on a 
SCHEDULED item.  Instead, I can just attach a second date to the item 
and label it "deadline" or "drop dead date."  So, the best option I have 
now is to ignore the double entry.  I was hoping there was a magic 
variable(TM) for this like there was with the other issue. 

>   
>> 2.  Once a TODO item has been marked as DONE, it still shows up on my 
>> agenda.  Can this be avoided? 
> I believe this was answered already.
>   
Yes it was.  Thanks, Brian.

Re: Newbie Questions

[Ian Barton]

Andrew M. Nuxoll wrote:
> Nick Dokos wrote:
>> Just an FYI (a nice one since Carsten said so :-): Carsten is the first
>> name, Dominik (no c) is the surname of the creator of Org-mode. And I
>> promise we'll be nice even after he comes back :-)
>>   
> Err, whoops!
>> So let me turn the question around: why do you need to both SCHEDULE
>> and DEADLINE the same item?
>>   
> In my mind, there is no conflict between scheduling and deadlining.  So, 
> I may be missing something.  In my case, I am scheduling myself to work 
> on an item that has a deadline.  I don't think that's an unusual 
> scenario.  For example, I have a grant proposal I need to have a draft 
> of by Monday (DEADLINE) but I've scheduled Thursday afternoon to work on 
> it.  By putting SCHEDULED on it means that it gets attention on that day 
> unless Murphy steps in.  If Murphy does, then I still have the benefit 
> of the DEADLINE to keep me apprised of my dire situation.
> 
> An alternative (which I don't like) is to not use DEADLINE on a 
> SCHEDULED item.  Instead, I can just attach a second date to the item 
> and label it "deadline" or "drop dead date."  So, the best option I have 
> now is to ignore the double entry.  I was hoping there was a magic 
> variable(TM) for this like there was with the other issue.
>>  

You could specify a per deadline warning period. The example for the 
manual: DEADLINE: <2004-02-29 Sun -5d>, which will start prompting you 5 
days before the deadline. I use this to remind me that I need to start 
working on something which has a fixed deadline.

Ian.

Re: Newbie Questions

[Eric S Fraga]

At Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:08:31 -0700,
Andrew M. Nuxoll wrote:
> In my mind, there is no conflict between scheduling and deadlining.

I agree with you on this point but, in this case, it makes sense for
both aspects to be highlighted in the agenda view.  I would suggest
that you might wish to change (reduce) the warning period for the
deadline when you schedule an item or alternatively not schedule an
item but simply assign an appointment date/time (i.e. an active time
stamp) to it for when you want to work on the task.  The latter is
what I do in many cases.

eric

Re: Newbie Questions

[Nick Dokos]

Eric S Fraga <ucecesf@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

> At Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:08:31 -0700,
> Andrew M. Nuxoll wrote:
> > In my mind, there is no conflict between scheduling and deadlining.
> 
> I agree with you on this point but, in this case, it makes sense for
> both aspects to be highlighted in the agenda view.  I would suggest
> that you might wish to change (reduce) the warning period for the
> deadline when you schedule an item or alternatively not schedule an
> item but simply assign an appointment date/time (i.e. an active time
> stamp) to it for when you want to work on the task.  The latter is
> what I do in many cases.
> 

Quite likely it's a failure of imagination on my part, but I still
don't see why you would both schedule and deadline an item. Could
you provide a scenario where that would be useful?

Thanks,
Nick

Re: Newbie Questions

[Memnon Anon]

"Andrew M. Nuxoll" <nuxoll@up.edu> writes:

> 1.  When I view my agenda for a day it displays TODO items twice if they
> are both SCHEDULED and DEADLINEd (a common occurrence for me).  Can this
> be avoided?  Here's a generic example snippet from my agenda:
>    Thursday    9 July 2009
>      nux:        Scheduled:  TODO [#B] Call Mary :PROJECT::
>      nux:        In   1 d.:  TODO [#B] Call Mary :PROJECT::

I think this is a feature.
For example, if I get some books from a library, I use the deadline to
mark when I absolutely must return the books. The schedule tells me:
Hey, I am near the library this day, so I *want* to do this today. 
I absolutely want both informations in my agenda.

From the manual:
DEADLINE
        Meaning: the task (most likely a TODO item, though not necessarily) is
        supposed to be finished on that date. 
SCHEDULED
    Meaning: you are planning to start working on that task on the given
    date.

You can set a different deadline for each item, but "avoiding this" totally
means avoiding crucial information in your agenda.

Re: Newbie Questions

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com> writes:

> Quite likely it's a failure of imagination on my part, but I still
> don't see why you would both schedule and deadline an item. Could
> you provide a scenario where that would be useful?

I think the OP has a time frame to execute some task. He doesn't want to
be bugged about it before SCHEDULED, and it will be too late after
DEADLINE.

Imagine you have to make a gift to someone on Sunday, but got so much
work to do that you won't be able to go to the mall before Thursday...
oh well, you can always buy online then, but that would defeat the point
of my example.

Then again, as someone said, a DEADLINE with an appropriate warning
delay would be fine in that case too.

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Re: Newbie Questions

[Eric S Fraga]

At Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:32:59 -0400,
Nick Dokos wrote:
> Quite likely it's a failure of imagination on my part, but I still
> don't see why you would both schedule and deadline an item. Could
> you provide a scenario where that would be useful?

Well, to use an example that I think the OP (Andrew) would identify
with, when a funding agency puts out a call for proposals, they will
give a strict deadline (e.g. 12 noon, 5 August 2009).  That date is
critical to the activity of writing the proposal if one intends to
apply for funding so the date gets put in my org file immediately.

Subsequently, when I figure out when I will have time to work on
writing the proposal, I will schedule the appropriate event.  I must
admit, however, that I do frequently simply put an active time stamp
on the note for when I want to work on this task.  I guess it depends
on the "granularity" of the scheduling of the task: if I intend to
work on it at some specific hour of the day, I'll use a time stamp; if
I intend to tackle the task "sometime" on Thursday, I'll schedule it.

The latter may be the wrong way to do it but the reality is that my
"planned" schedule often goes completely out the window due to
external factors and any time stamped activities disappear off the
agenda view the following day whereas scheduled items do not.  This
makes scheduling appealing as it allows me to say, the next day,
"ooops, I forgot to actually work on that proposal yesterday...".

YMMV, of course!

cheers,
eric

Re: Newbie Questions

[Eric S Fraga]

At Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:48:20 +0200,
Nicolas Goaziou wrote:
> [...]
> Then again, as someone said, a DEADLINE with an appropriate warning
> delay would be fine in that case too.

I have tasks that have deadlines months in the future and which need
tackling from now until the deadline, although obviously not
continuously.  Putting a warning on the deadline to cover the full
time range would fill my agenda view with deadlines, making it rather
ineffective!

Re: Newbie Questions

[Carsten Dominik]

On Jul 10, 2009, at 5:16 AM, Nick Dokos wrote:

> Andrew M. Nuxoll <nuxoll@up.edu> wrote:
>>
>> 3.  Once I set a deadline for a task, it'd be nice if the priority  
>> would
>> increase as the deadline approached.  Ideally the  criteria for
>> increasing the priority could be specified via a customizable  
>> formula.
>> Does this functionality (or anything like it) exist?
>>
>
> I don't think anything like that exists, but with a Small[1] Amount of
> Programming (TM), it could probably be cobbled up - maybe as a cron  
> job?

In fact, the priority does increase.

Org-mode has two notions of priority.

1. The specified priority like [#A]
2. A computed numerical priority

The specified priority is set solely by the user, and it is also the
only thing that influences how prioritized lines are displayed
according to `org-agenda-fontify-priorities'.

The computed priority is a number that all items in the agenda have,
you can look at the actual number pressing `P' in the agenda.
The number is composed of the specified priority times 1000, so #C
items have 0, #B items have 1000 and #A items have 2000.
TO this values, certain amounts are added depending on how close
you are to the deadline, or how long ago an item was first scheduled.

This computed, numerical priority is used when sorting items.

The numbers added for closeness to a deadline are usually not large
enough to make an overdue item with specified priority #B to score
higher than one with #A, but within each group of specified priorities,
closeness to a deadline does make a difference.

If you want items to change from #B to #A automatically, you need
to do some programming, as Nick says.

The formula is not configurable currently, nor is it documented
anywhere, nor do I remember exactly what the formula is :-D .
I am not a big fan of priorities, because I don't think one should
trust the system so much that it will actually decide for you what
to work on.  However, I could dig up the formula, even make it
configurable if there was a need for it.

HTH

- Carsten

Re: Newbie Questions

[Samuel Wales]

Hi Andrew,

On 2009-07-09, Andrew M. Nuxoll <nuxoll@up.edu> wrote:
> 3.  Once I set a deadline for a task, it'd be nice if the priority would
> increase as the deadline approached.  Ideally the  criteria for
> increasing the priority could be specified via a customizable formula.
> Does this functionality (or anything like it) exist?

I do not use priority-as-calculated.  That is, I don't sort by
closeness to deadline, etc.  That way, everything is in a consistent
order, which I find pleasing.  I sort by my fixed urgency and
priority-as-set-by-user.  This almost certainly violates GTD, but
priorities and urgencies work for me.  Org flexibly supports any
method you want.

I do, however, rely on the agenda's built-in faces, and the second
colum that says "Deadline" etc., for status.  These are very useful.

I have a thorough testcase for this and found several potential bugs
that I will report on in a separate post.