Why are special properties like CLOSED etc. not in the properties drawer?

Why are special properties like CLOSED etc. not in the properties drawer?

[Marcel van der Boom]

Hi,

I've been wondering about this for a bit. It would make things a bit
more consistent for me if all properties are in the 'properties'-drawer.
Or am I missing something here?

marcel

-- 
Marcel van der Boom  -- http://hsdev.com/mvdb.vcf
HS-Development BV    -- http://www.hsdev.com
So! web applications -- http://make-it-so.info
Cobra build          -- http://cobra.mrblog.nl

Re: Why are special properties like CLOSED etc. not in the properties drawer?

[Bernt Hansen]

Marcel van der Boom <marcel@hsdev.com> writes:

> I've been wondering about this for a bit. It would make things a bit
> more consistent for me if all properties are in the 'properties'-drawer.
> Or am I missing something here?

The main reason I can think of is that this is historical.  CLOSED: was
invented long before anyone thought about the need for drawers.

Drawers are an added feature that is not needed to be able to make
org-mode useful.  I don't think there should be a requirement for having
a drawer when you mark a task done just to record the CLOSED date.
Having an option to enable this behaviour would be fine with me.

The idea of including timestamps in property drawers is a fairly recent
development in org-mode.

-Bernt

Re: Re: Why are special properties like CLOSED etc. not in the properties drawer?

[Juri Krivov]

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On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> wrote:

> Marcel van der Boom <marcel@hsdev.com> writes:
>
> > I've been wondering about this for a bit. It would make things a bit
> > more consistent for me if all properties are in the 'properties'-drawer.
> > Or am I missing something here?
>
> The main reason I can think of is that this is historical.  CLOSED: was
> invented long before anyone thought about the need for drawers.
>
> Drawers are an added feature that is not needed to be able to make
> org-mode useful.  I don't think there should be a requirement for having
> a drawer when you mark a task done just to record the CLOSED date.
> Having an option to enable this behaviour would be fine with me.
>

I stumbled recently over this old message which may have relevancy
for this

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/3783


Juri


>
> The idea of including timestamps in property drawers is a fairly recent
> development in org-mode.
>

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Re: Why are special properties like CLOSED etc. not in the properties drawer?

[Marcel van der Boom]

On di 05-apr-2011 10:52
Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> wrote:

> I don't think there should be a requirement for having
> a drawer when you mark a task done just to record the CLOSED date.
> Having an option to enable this behaviour would be fine with me.

Agreed, such an option would be welcomed by me too obviously.

marcel

-- 
Marcel van der Boom  -- http://hsdev.com/mvdb.vcf
HS-Development BV    -- http://www.hsdev.com
So! web applications -- http://make-it-so.info
Cobra build          -- http://cobra.mrblog.nl

Re: Why are special properties like CLOSED etc. not in the properties drawer?

[Michael Brand]

Hi all

For many use cases I would like one of both opposites:
1) the option to have e. g. CLOSED: as :CLOSED: in a drawer and on its
own line as mentioned before
2) the option to have e. g. :CATEGORY: without any drawer, like:

* holidays
  :CATEGORY: holiday
** xmas
   <2011-12-25 Sun>
** new year
   <2012-01-01 Sun>

instead of first looking at:

* holidays
  :PROPERTIES:...
** xmas

and then navigate to :PROPERTIES: to open it:

* holidays
  :PROPERTIES:
  :CATEGORY: holiday
  :END:
** xmas

To see the category directly, of course there are `C-u C-u C-u <TAB>',
column view and maybe more, but these might not always be preferred.

As a coincidence or not in the choice of the property for the example
above, :CATEGORY: is the only special property that is allowed as a
key in the properties drawer, see
http://orgmode.org/manual/Special-properties.html
and it is also the only special property that can not live (yet?)
outside this drawer.

Michael


On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 13:36, Marcel van der Boom <marcel@hsdev.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've been wondering about this for a bit. It would make things a bit
> more consistent for me if all properties are in the 'properties'-drawer.
> Or am I missing something here?