Custom agenda views

Custom agenda views

[Dave C. Nelson]

 
I'm playing around with org mode and while it works mostly the way I
want, I have something I'm trying to do and so far I've failed. I should
mention that I'm not much of a lisp programmer, so it might be my lack
of knowledge here.

What I want is to have an agenda view like the default agenda view one
gets with c-a a, but "narrowed" so that only a subset of todo items
show. For example, when I'm at work, I want to narrow the agenda view so
that it only shows todo items related to work. 

I've read through the manual, the past list postings, etc. and I just
can't seem to come up with an org-agenda-custom-command that does this
(I assume this is the way to accomplilsh this). Is it possible? Would
someone please give me a hint?

Dave  

Re: Custom agenda views

[Bernt Hansen]

"Dave C. Nelson" <DCNelson@skokielibrary.info> writes:

>  
> I'm playing around with org mode and while it works mostly the way I
> want, I have something I'm trying to do and so far I've failed. I should
> mention that I'm not much of a lisp programmer, so it might be my lack
> of knowledge here.
>
> What I want is to have an agenda view like the default agenda view one
> gets with c-a a, but "narrowed" so that only a subset of todo items
> show. For example, when I'm at work, I want to narrow the agenda view so
> that it only shows todo items related to work. 
>
> I've read through the manual, the past list postings, etc. and I just
> can't seem to come up with an org-agenda-custom-command that does this
> (I assume this is the way to accomplilsh this). Is it possible? Would
> someone please give me a hint?

I put my work todo items in a separate org file from other things.  Then
when you are in that org file you can limit your agenda view to just
that file with 

     C-a a 1 a

Hope that helps.

Bernt

Re: Re: Custom agenda views

[Wanrong Lin]

Or, maybe you can put your work related and personal org files in 
different directories, and write a small function to switch the 
"org-agenda-files" between them (I believe with org-mode 5.13g, the 
org-agenda-files is dynamically built if it is set to a directory). 
Actually, I think it would be nice if this feature can be included into 
org-mode i.e. something like "org-agenda-file-set-switch" or 
"org-context-switch". It would be great if we can build agenda view from 
either a single agenda file set, or all agenda file sets. For me,  I 
like to break down both my personal stuff and work stuff into multiple 
files, so file restriction does not work that well.

Wanrong

Bernt Hansen wrote:
> "Dave C. Nelson" <DCNelson@skokielibrary.info> writes:
>
>   
>>  
>> I'm playing around with org mode and while it works mostly the way I
>> want, I have something I'm trying to do and so far I've failed. I should
>> mention that I'm not much of a lisp programmer, so it might be my lack
>> of knowledge here.
>>
>> What I want is to have an agenda view like the default agenda view one
>> gets with c-a a, but "narrowed" so that only a subset of todo items
>> show. For example, when I'm at work, I want to narrow the agenda view so
>> that it only shows todo items related to work. 
>>
>> I've read through the manual, the past list postings, etc. and I just
>> can't seem to come up with an org-agenda-custom-command that does this
>> (I assume this is the way to accomplilsh this). Is it possible? Would
>> someone please give me a hint?
>>     
>
> I put my work todo items in a separate org file from other things.  Then
> when you are in that org file you can limit your agenda view to just
> that file with 
>
>      C-a a 1 a
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Bernt
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Custom agenda views

[Dave C. Nelson]

 


> I put my work todo items in a separate org file from other 
> things.  Then when you are in that org file you can limit 
> your agenda view to just that file with 
> 
>      C-a a 1 a
> 
> Hope that helps.

This suggestion is helpful, but I should've stated that I have some
tasks that I want to show both at work and at home. I thought I could do
this by tagging the work only items with :WORK:, the home items with
:HOME: and the work/home items with :HOME:WORK: and then (somehow)
getting the agenda view to only show items tagged WORK or HOME. 

Dave

Re: Re: Custom agenda views

[Bernt Hansen]

"Dave C. Nelson" <DCNelson@skokielibrary.info> writes:

>> I put my work todo items in a separate org file from other 
>> things.  Then when you are in that org file you can limit 
>> your agenda view to just that file with 
>> 
>>      C-a a 1 a
>> 
>> Hope that helps.
>
> This suggestion is helpful, but I should've stated that I have some
> tasks that I want to show both at work and at home. I thought I could do
> this by tagging the work only items with :WORK:, the home items with
> :HOME: and the work/home items with :HOME:WORK: and then (somehow)
> getting the agenda view to only show items tagged WORK or HOME. 

I thought you meant you wanted the calendar agenda view limited
(day/week/month etc) which I don't know how to do other than by org file.

If your tasks are tagged you can get a tag match to show what you want -
but it won't be the day/week agenda.

C-a m
and enter WORK/NEXT

should show all WORK tagged todo items in a NEXT state.

I use that alot.  I have multiple 'work' org files (by client) and when
I'm at work 

    C-a a w 

searches @WORK/NEXT for me and I can pick from the available NEXT times
for what to work on.

I normally schedule high priority projects onto my daily agenda and work
on those first.  Then when there is nothing specific that I need to work
on I can view the NEXT todo lists and pick something.

Regards,
Bernt

Re: Re: Custom agenda views

[Bastien]

Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> writes:

>> This suggestion is helpful, but I should've stated that I have some
>> tasks that I want to show both at work and at home. I thought I could do
>> this by tagging the work only items with :WORK:, the home items with
>> :HOME: and the work/home items with :HOME:WORK: and then (somehow)
>> getting the agenda view to only show items tagged WORK or HOME. 
>
> I thought you meant you wanted the calendar agenda view limited
> (day/week/month etc) which I don't know how to do other than by org
> file.

See my suggestion in my post about using `org-agenda-skip-function'.

Having a tutorial for this would be great, since Org's manual might not
be fully understandable for people that are not fluent in Emacs Lisp.

-- 
Bastien

Re: Custom agenda views

[Bastien]

"Dave C. Nelson" <DCNelson@skokielibrary.info> writes:

> What I want is to have an agenda view like the default agenda view one
> gets with c-a a, but "narrowed" so that only a subset of todo items
> show. For example, when I'm at work, I want to narrow the agenda view
> so that it only shows todo items related to work.

What about using agenda blocks[1]?

(org-add-agenda-custom-command
      '("v" "Agenda and Work-related tasks"
	((tags-todo "WORK")
         (agenda))))

If you just want to use the agenda block and select entries in it, you
can do this with `org-agenda-skip-function'[2]:

(org-add-agenda-custom-command
      '("v" agenda "PROJECT"
        ((org-agenda-skip-function 'my-skip-unless-work)
         (org-agenda-overriding-header "Projects related to work: "))))

(defun my-skip-unless-work ()
       "Skip trees that are not tagged as :WORK:"
       (let ((subtree-end (save-excursion (org-end-of-subtree t))))
         (if (re-search-forward ":WORK:" subtree-end t)
             nil          ; tag found, do not skip
           subtree-end))) ; tag not found, continue after end of subtree

HTH,

Notes: 
[1]  See (info "(org)Block agenda")
[2]  See (info "(org)Special agenda views")

-- 
Bastien