Feature request: inherited priorities

Feature request: inherited priorities

[Peter Westlake]

I would like to suggest that priorities should be inherited. After all,
if a task is high priority, then doing the individual parts of it must
be too.

There are 250 items in my agenda TODO list at the moment, and that's
with dependencies on, ordered subtasks, and missing all the less
important stuff out altogether. I rarely look beyond the first dozen or
so lines. With priorities not being inherited, adding a subtask to an
important job can cause it to plunge hundreds of lines down the list and
be overlooked. I have to add priorities to everything by hand.

Hope this is a reasonable idea,

Peter.

Re: Feature request: inherited priorities

[Matthew Lundin]

"Peter Westlake" <peter.westlake@pobox.com> writes:

> I would like to suggest that priorities should be inherited. After all,
> if a task is high priority, then doing the individual parts of it must
> be too.
>
> There are 250 items in my agenda TODO list at the moment, and that's
> with dependencies on, ordered subtasks, and missing all the less
> important stuff out altogether. I rarely look beyond the first dozen or
> so lines. With priorities not being inherited, adding a subtask to an
> important job can cause it to plunge hundreds of lines down the list and
> be overlooked. I have to add priorities to everything by hand.

Have you checked out the variable org-use-property-inheritance?

Also see this section of the manual:

http://orgmode.org/manual/Property-inheritance.html#Property-inheritance

- Matt

Re: Feature request: inherited priorities

[Peter Westlake]

On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:34:37 -0500, "Matthew Lundin"
<mdl@imapmail.org> said:
> "Peter Westlake" <peter.westlake@pobox.com> writes:
>
> > I would like to suggest that priorities should be inherited. After
> > all, if a task is high priority, then doing the individual parts of
> > it must be too.

...

> Have you checked out the variable org-use-property-inheritance?
>
> Also see this section of the manual:
>
> http://orgmode.org/manual/Property-inheritance.html#Property-inheritance

Matt,

Thanks for the suggestion, but priority isn't defined by a property in
the usual way, so this doesn't work.

Regards,

Peter.

Re: Feature request: inherited priorities

[Matthew Lundin]

"Peter Westlake" <peter.westlake@pobox.com> writes:

> On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:34:37 -0500, "Matthew Lundin"
> <mdl@imapmail.org> said:
>> "Peter Westlake" <peter.westlake@pobox.com> writes:
>>
>> > I would like to suggest that priorities should be inherited. After
>> > all, if a task is high priority, then doing the individual parts of
>> > it must be too.
>
> ...
>
>> Have you checked out the variable org-use-property-inheritance?
>>
>> Also see this section of the manual:
>>
>> http://orgmode.org/manual/Property-inheritance.html#Property-inheritance
>
> Matt,
>
> Thanks for the suggestion, but priority isn't defined by a property in
> the usual way, so this doesn't work.
>

Oops, sorry. I read "priorities" in your email as properties. 

If the only issue is tag searches, the following works for me - i.e.,
subtrees inherit PRIORITY:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(setq org-use-property-inheritance '("PRIORITY"))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I haven't tested to see what happens with sorting - my guess is that
this only applies to searches. 

Regards,
Matt

Re: Feature request: inherited priorities

[Carsten Dominik]

Hi Peter, Matt,

priorities cannot be inherited.

- Carsten

On Apr 29, 2009, at 4:40 PM, Peter Westlake wrote:

> I would like to suggest that priorities should be inherited. After  
> all,
> if a task is high priority, then doing the individual parts of it must
> be too.
>
> There are 250 items in my agenda TODO list at the moment, and that's
> with dependencies on, ordered subtasks, and missing all the less
> important stuff out altogether. I rarely look beyond the first dozen  
> or
> so lines. With priorities not being inherited, adding a subtask to an
> important job can cause it to plunge hundreds of lines down the list  
> and
> be overlooked. I have to add priorities to everything by hand.
>
> Hope this is a reasonable idea,
>
> Peter.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Feature request: inherited priorities

[Peter Westlake]

On Sun, 3 May 2009 18:14:38 +0200, "Carsten Dominik"
<carsten.dominik@gmail.com> said:
> Hi Peter, Matt,
>
> priorities cannot be inherited.

Fair enough!

In that case, would it be possible to take the default priority for a
new task from the parent task?

Peter.

> - Carsten
>
> On Apr 29, 2009, at 4:40 PM, Peter Westlake wrote:
>
> > I would like to suggest that priorities should be inherited. After
> > all, if a task is high priority, then doing the individual parts of
> > it must be too.
> >
> > There are 250 items in my agenda TODO list at the moment, and that's
> > with dependencies on, ordered subtasks, and missing all the less
> > important stuff out altogether. I rarely look beyond the first dozen
> > or so lines. With priorities not being inherited, adding a subtask
> > to an  important job can cause it to plunge hundreds of lines down
> > the list and be overlooked. I have to add priorities to everything
> > by hand.
> >
> > Hope this is a reasonable idea,
> >
> > Peter.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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: Feature request: inherited priorities

[Carsten Dominik]

On May 5, 2009, at 3:12 PM, Peter Westlake wrote:

>
> On Sun, 3 May 2009 18:14:38 +0200, "Carsten Dominik"
> <carsten.dominik@gmail.com> said:
>> Hi Peter, Matt,
>>
>> priorities cannot be inherited.
>
> Fair enough!
>
> In that case, would it be possible to take the default priority for a
> new task from the parent task?

I think that any kind of priority inheritance would be defeating
the purpose of priorities, by inflation.

I think what you are trying to do is to assign a whole project
subtree high importance, and I would suggest to use tags for
this purpose, which also support inheritance, and which allow
very flexible filtering.

HTH

- Carsten

>
> Peter.
>
>> - Carsten
>>
>> On Apr 29, 2009, at 4:40 PM, Peter Westlake wrote:
>>
>>> I would like to suggest that priorities should be inherited. After
>>> all, if a task is high priority, then doing the individual parts of
>>> it must be too.
>>>
>>> There are 250 items in my agenda TODO list at the moment, and that's
>>> with dependencies on, ordered subtasks, and missing all the less
>>> important stuff out altogether. I rarely look beyond the first dozen
>>> or so lines. With priorities not being inherited, adding a subtask
>>> to an  important job can cause it to plunge hundreds of lines down
>>> the list and be overlooked. I have to add priorities to everything
>>> by hand.
>>>
>>> Hope this is a reasonable idea,
>>>
>>> Peter.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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: Feature request: inherited priorities

[Peter Westlake]

On Tue, 5 May 2009 15:22:04 +0200, "Carsten Dominik"
<carsten.dominik@gmail.com> said:
...
> I think that any kind of priority inheritance would be defeating the
> purpose of priorities, by inflation.
>
> I think what you are trying to do is to assign a whole project subtree
> high importance, and I would suggest to use tags for this purpose,
> which also support inheritance, and which allow very flexible
> filtering.

That is what I'm trying to do, yes. And since there are so many
things like tags and categories that are inherited, and allow
sorting, it's reasonable for there to be something else that
isn't inherited. I'll have a look at the agenda commands.

Thank you,

Peter.