Re: Dated appointment reminders

[Matt Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org>]

Desmond Rivet <desmond_news@videotron.ca> writes:

> What I'm after is something very close to the DEADLINE feature, but not
> quite.  With DEADLINE, you have the following behavour (unless there's a
> way to alter it?):
>
>  * without a TODO state, you get early reminders in your agenda up until
>    the DEADLINE date, after which you get warnings that the date is
>    past, forever.
>  
>  * with a TODO state item, you get the same thing, except you can turn
>    off the reminders/warnings by setting the state to DONE.
>
> So unless you want the DEADLINE'ed date appearing on your agenda forever
> after the due date, you need a TODO state 

...not before the deadline (see below).

> and you need to set it to DONE.

Option one (simplest): Omit the todo state before the deadline and then
mark the item DONE after the deadline has past..

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
* 6:00pm Appointment
  DEADLINE: <2010-04-17 Sat -7d>
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

until the deadline passes, then

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
* DONE 6:00pm Appointment
  DEADLINE: <2010-04-17 Sat -7d>
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

> I am currently using the diary for this, and incorporating it into the
> orgmode agenda.  I have entries like this:
>
> %%(diary-remind '(diary-date 11 12 t) -14) Mom's birthday.
>
> I've been using this system for a while, and it works.  But it's not
> ideal.  For example, I haven't figured out how to incorporate a time
> with the date using this system.  If I had an appointment on April 17th,
> 2010, 6pm, for example, and I wanted a simple reminder 5 days in
> advance, I don't know how I'd do that.

Option two: 

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
* Appointments
%%(diary-remind '(diary-date 2 15 2010) -7) 6:00pm My appointment
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Which produces the following agenda view:

Day-agenda (W06):
Friday     12 February 2010
               8:00...... ----------------
              10:00...... ----------------
              12:00...... ----------------
              14:00...... ----------------
              16:00...... ----------------
  refile:     18:00...... Reminder: Only 3 days until My appointment
              20:00...... ----------------

Best,
Matt