Problem with agenda file list

Problem with agenda file list

[Dan Griswold]

Hello all,

I've encountered a strange problem with the org-agenda-files
variable.

When I start up org-mode (which I do from my .emacs) the following
unsavory events happen:

  1. org-agenda-files is set to only the first file in the list;
  2. custom-set-variables is set to just org-agenda-files (blowing
     away all other customizations);
  3. custom-set-variables and custom-set-faces are written to .emacs,
     even if custom-file is set to a different file name (as in my
     setup).

Any thoughts on why this is happening?

I'm using org-6.02a under Emacs 22.2.1.

Thanks,

Dan

-- 
--------------
Dan Griswold
Rochester, NY
--------------

Re: Problem with agenda file list

[Jose A. Ortega Ruiz]

Dan Griswold <dgriswol@rochester.rr.com> writes:

> Hello all,
>
> I've encountered a strange problem with the org-agenda-files
> variable.
>
> When I start up org-mode (which I do from my .emacs) the following
> unsavory events happen:
>
>   1. org-agenda-files is set to only the first file in the list;
>   2. custom-set-variables is set to just org-agenda-files (blowing
>      away all other customizations);
>   3. custom-set-variables and custom-set-faces are written to .emacs,
>      even if custom-file is set to a different file name (as in my
>      setup).
>

I've encountered problems 2) and 3). The latter can be fixed by loading
custom-file before org, and i had to explicitly set the value of
org-agenda-files in custom-set-variables to get the value i want.

I put all my customizations in separate files and rarely use
custom-set-{variables, faces}. It'd be nice if org offered the option of
*not* writing any customization back (i was specially puzzled by its
overwriting some of my faces, which i manage using color-theme) and be
totally customizable using elisp outside the customize interface. That's
already almost the case: all may other elisp settings for org work
nicely. IMHO, custom-set-{variables, faces} should be modified only
when *explicitly* requested by the user, either by using customize or
manually editing custom-file.

Cheers,
jao
-- 
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it"
 -Yogi Berra, baseball coach.

Re: Problem with agenda file list

[Dan Griswold]

"Jose A. Ortega Ruiz" <jao@gnu.org> writes:

> The latter can be fixed by loading custom-file before org, and i had
> to explicitly set the value of org-agenda-files in
> custom-set-variables to get the value i want.

This was the problem for me. (Thanks, Carsten!) It works fine now.

Thanks,

Dan

-- 
--------------
Dan Griswold
Rochester, NY
--------------

Re: Re: Problem with agenda file list

[Carsten Dominik]

On Apr 26, 2008, at 1:06 PM, Jose A. Ortega Ruiz wrote:

> Dan Griswold <dgriswol@rochester.rr.com> writes:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I've encountered a strange problem with the org-agenda-files
>> variable.
>>
>> When I start up org-mode (which I do from my .emacs) the following
>> unsavory events happen:
>>
>> 1. org-agenda-files is set to only the first file in the list;
>> 2. custom-set-variables is set to just org-agenda-files (blowing
>>    away all other customizations);
>> 3. custom-set-variables and custom-set-faces are written to .emacs,
>>    even if custom-file is set to a different file name (as in my
>>    setup).
>>
>
> I've encountered problems 2) and 3). The latter can be fixed by  
> loading
> custom-file before org, and i had to explicitly set the value of
> org-agenda-files in custom-set-variables to get the value i want.
>
> I put all my customizations in separate files and rarely use
> custom-set-{variables, faces}. It'd be nice if org offered the  
> option of
> *not* writing any customization back


Org does this only when adding or removing from the list of agenda
files, the writing back of faces is an unwanted side effect.

I actually agree that using calls to customize-save may not be the
best way to do this.

You can maintain the list of agenda files in a file by setting
`org-agenda-files' not to a list of files, but to the name
of a single file that will then contain the list of files.

(setq org-agenda-files "~/.agenda-files")

In this case, customize-save-variable is never called.

I am not sure how intensively this way of setting things up has
been tested, if you and others give it serious, using it actively for
several weeks, including adding and removing files, using custom
agenda commands that set special values for org-agenda-files etc,
I might consider making it een the default.

- Carsten


> (i was specially puzzled by its
> overwriting some of my faces, which i manage using color-theme) and be
> totally customizable using elisp outside the customize interface.  
> That's
> already almost the case: all may other elisp settings for org work
> nicely. IMHO, custom-set-{variables, faces} should be modified only
> when *explicitly* requested by the user, either by using customize or
> manually editing custom-file.
>
> Cheers,
> jao
> -- 
> "When you come to a fork in the road, take it"
> -Yogi Berra, baseball coach.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode

Re: Re: Problem with agenda file list

[Eddward DeVilla]

On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> wrote:
>  I am not sure how intensively this way of setting things up has
>  been tested, if you and others give it serious, using it actively for
>  several weeks, including adding and removing files, using custom
>  agenda commands that set special values for org-agenda-files etc,
>  I might consider making it een the default.

I've been using a file to hold my agenda files for a long time now.
It was part of my effort to make my org-mode setup portable and
independent of my .emacs.  I still haven't gotten around to splitting
up custom.

Anyhow, I'm pretty sure I only add files with the org-mode menu and I
think the key sequence C-].  (The machine I'm on doesn't have org-mode
at the moment.)  I don't modify the list much though.  I can try to
stress it if you like.

Edd

Re: Re: Problem with agenda file list

[Carsten Dominik]

On Apr 27, 2008, at 5:17 PM, Eddward DeVilla wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl 
> > wrote:
>> I am not sure how intensively this way of setting things up has
>> been tested, if you and others give it serious, using it actively for
>> several weeks, including adding and removing files, using custom
>> agenda commands that set special values for org-agenda-files etc,
>> I might consider making it een the default.
>
> I've been using a file to hold my agenda files for a long time now.
> It was part of my effort to make my org-mode setup portable and
> independent of my .emacs.  I still haven't gotten around to splitting
> up custom.
>
> Anyhow, I'm pretty sure I only add files with the org-mode menu and I
> think the key sequence C-].  (The machine I'm on doesn't have org-mode
> at the moment.)  I don't modify the list much though.  I can try to
> stress it if you like.


Please do, I think this would be useful.  I will switch to this setup  
myself.

- Carsten

Re: Problem with agenda file list

[Jose A. Ortega Ruiz]

Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> writes:

> On Apr 27, 2008, at 5:17 PM, Eddward DeVilla wrote:
>

[...]

>> Anyhow, I'm pretty sure I only add files with the org-mode menu and I
>> think the key sequence C-].  (The machine I'm on doesn't have org-mode
>> at the moment.)  I don't modify the list much though.  I can try to
>> stress it if you like.
>
>
> Please do, I think this would be useful.  I will switch to this setup
> myself.
>

I will too. But i think this solution is suboptimal: i already have a
.el file to store my org-specific configuration, and this obligues me to
split my configuration into two files, the only reason being that i
don't want org to overwrite my customisation variables. 

I'm not privy with the implementation details, but i guess the overwrite
is unavoidable when not using the additional file? I'm a bit surprised
by this fact: i use dozens of emacs packages, and org is the first one
wanting to modify my custom.el; even in cases where customising a
variable must trigger some additional side-effect, there's some function
one can call in the init file to both set the variable and trigger the
additional side-effects.

That said, if this is the only workable solution, so be it :)

jao
-- 
A student came to the master and asked, for the master was one of them
who knew such things: "Does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" The master
contemplated this for some time, and answered: "I don't see why not,
it has about everything else."

Re: Re: Problem with agenda file list

[Carsten Dominik]

Hi Jose,

in principle it would be possible, of course, to write a
custom function that directly modifies a special Org
configuration file.  However, that is even less clean than
what I was doing so far and is bound to cause problems.  What
if another person does *not* have a special file for Org?
Should I then directly manipulate .emacs?  I think this is
not acceptable.

There is of course, a simple solution for you:  Set the value
of org-agenda-files with a lisp setq form in .emacs, and never use
`C-c [' and `C-c ]' to modify the list.  If you want to be sure,
disable these functions with `disable-command'.

- Carsten

On Apr 27, 2008, at 7:08 PM, Jose A. Ortega Ruiz wrote:

> Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> writes:
>
>> On Apr 27, 2008, at 5:17 PM, Eddward DeVilla wrote:
>>
>
> [...]
>
>>> Anyhow, I'm pretty sure I only add files with the org-mode menu  
>>> and I
>>> think the key sequence C-].  (The machine I'm on doesn't have org- 
>>> mode
>>> at the moment.)  I don't modify the list much though.  I can try to
>>> stress it if you like.
>>
>>
>> Please do, I think this would be useful.  I will switch to this setup
>> myself.
>>
>
> I will too. But i think this solution is suboptimal: i already have a
> .el file to store my org-specific configuration, and this obligues  
> me to
> split my configuration into two files, the only reason being that i
> don't want org to overwrite my customisation variables.
>
> I'm not privy with the implementation details, but i guess the  
> overwrite
> is unavoidable when not using the additional file? I'm a bit surprised
> by this fact: i use dozens of emacs packages, and org is the first one
> wanting to modify my custom.el; even in cases where customising a
> variable must trigger some additional side-effect, there's some  
> function
> one can call in the init file to both set the variable and trigger the
> additional side-effects.
>
> That said, if this is the only workable solution, so be it :)
>
> jao
> -- 
> A student came to the master and asked, for the master was one of them
> who knew such things: "Does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" The master
> contemplated this for some time, and answered: "I don't see why not,
> it has about everything else."
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode

Re: Problem with agenda file list

[Jose A. Ortega Ruiz]

Hi Carsten,

Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> writes:

> Hi Jose,
>
> in principle it would be possible, of course, to write a
> custom function that directly modifies a special Org
> configuration file.  However, that is even less clean than
> what I was doing so far and is bound to cause problems.  What
> if another person does *not* have a special file for Org?
> Should I then directly manipulate .emacs?  I think this is
> not acceptable.
>

I think we're misunderstanding each other :) What i really want is to
just set in my .emacs something along the lines of

  (setq org-agenda-files '("/home/jao/org/a.org" "home/jao/org/b.org"))
  (require 'org-install)

and be sure that org won't write any custom-set-variables or
custome-set-faces in my custom file. Last time i tried doing that,
org-agenda-files appeared automagically in my custom-set-variables
section, together with a face definition for font-lock-warning in my
custom-set-faces... they were put in my .emacs, but i was using a
separate custom-file, so i just set and loaded custom-file before
loading org, and then org-agenda-files and font-lock-warning are written
by org in my custom-file instead of .emacs. But since i'm setting
org-agenda-files in my .emacs, what i'd like is that it wouldn't appear
in custom-set-variables.

My understanding was that, in order to prevent this behaviour (that is,
the automatic modification of custom-set-variables and -faces), my only
option was to use the org files list file. Am i confused?

Thanks!
jao

> There is of course, a simple solution for you:  Set the value
> of org-agenda-files with a lisp setq form in .emacs, and never use
> `C-c [' and `C-c ]' to modify the list.  If you want to be sure,
> disable these functions with `disable-command'.
>

Re: Re: Problem with agenda file list

[Carsten Dominik]

On Apr 27, 2008, at 10:11 PM, Jose A. Ortega Ruiz wrote:

>
> Hi Carsten,
>
> Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> writes:
>
>> Hi Jose,
>>
>> in principle it would be possible, of course, to write a
>> custom function that directly modifies a special Org
>> configuration file.  However, that is even less clean than
>> what I was doing so far and is bound to cause problems.  What
>> if another person does *not* have a special file for Org?
>> Should I then directly manipulate .emacs?  I think this is
>> not acceptable.
>>
>
> I think we're misunderstanding each other :) What i really want is to
> just set in my .emacs something along the lines of
>
> (setq org-agenda-files '("/home/jao/org/a.org" "home/jao/org/b.org"))
> (require 'org-install)
>
> and be sure that org won't write any custom-set-variables or
> custome-set-faces in my custom file.

Hi Jose,

you can do exactly what you did, and Org will normaly not write
anything into your .emacs file.  The only occasions are when you use
one of the commands

org-agenda-file-to-front  bound to `C-c ['
org-remove-file           bound to `C-c ]'

> Last time i tried doing that,
> org-agenda-files appeared automagically in my custom-set-variables
> section, together with a face definition for font-lock-warning in my
> custom-set-faces... they were put in my .emacs, but i was using a
> separate custom-file, so i just set and loaded custom-file before
> loading org, and then org-agenda-files and font-lock-warning are  
> written
> by org in my custom-file instead of .emacs. But since i'm setting
> org-agenda-files in my .emacs, what i'd like is that it wouldn't  
> appear
> in custom-set-variables.
>
> My understanding was that, in order to prevent this behaviour (that  
> is,
> the automatic modification of custom-set-variables and -faces), my  
> only
> option was to use the org files list file. Am i confused?

I think you are.  You must have called one of the above functions to  
make this
saving happen.

- Carsten