Re: Finding tasks without a specific property set

[Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl>]

Hi Bernt,

On Feb 12, 2008, at 7:01 AM, Bernt Hansen wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm using properties to track estimated effort on tasks.  I have the
> following setup for estimaged effort for tasks and use column view to
> set the values normally.
>
> ,----[ .emacs settings for property Effort ]
> | (setq org-global-properties '(("Effort_ALL" . "0 0:10 0:30 1:00  
> 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00 8:00")))
> | (setq org-columns-default-format "%40ITEM(Task)  
> %17Effort(Estimated Effort){:} %CLOCKSUM")
> |
> | (custom-set-variables
> |  '(org-agenda-custom-commands (quote (("W" "Waiting Tasks" tags "/ 
> WAITING" nil)
> | 				      ("n" "Next Tasks" tags "/NEXT" nil)
> | 				      ("N" "Next Tasks - No Specified Duration" tags "-Effort= 
> \"0:10\"-Effort=\"0:30\"-Effort=\"1:00\"-Effort=\"2:00\"-Effort= 
> \"3:00\"-Effort=\"4:00\"-Effort=\"5:00\"-Effort=\"6:00\"-Effort= 
> \"7:00\"-Effort=\"8:00\"/NEXT" nil)
> | 				      ("h" "Next Home Tasks" tags "@home/NEXT" nil)
> | 				      ("w" "Next Work Tasks" tags "@work/NEXT" nil)
> | 				      ("E" "Errands To Run" tags "@errand/-DONE-CANCELLED" nil)
> | 				      ("S" "Stuff To Do Someday" tags "/SOMEDAY" nil)))))
> `----
>
> One of the things I do regularly (as part of my weekly review) is find
> NEXT tasks with no Effort property so I can use column view to add a
> value for each task with no effort estimate.  I'm currently using a
> custom agenda view (N) for this.
>
> ,----[ Tags search for NEXT tasks with no Effort property assigned ]
> | Headlines with TAGS match: -Effort="0:10"-Effort="0:30"- 
> Effort="1:00"-Effort="2:00"-Effort="3:00"-Effort="4:00"- 
> Effort="5:00"-Effort="6:00"-Effort="7:00"-Effort="8:00"/NEXT
> `----
>
> I haven't found a better way to do this other than to list all  
> possible
> Effort property values in a tags search.  What I really want to  
> match is
> any NEXT task with no Effort property (or a Effort property value that
> is blank)
>
> Is there a way to do that?


Yes there is: You can use a regular expression matching the empty  
string:

  Effort={^$}/NEXT

What also should work (but does not...) is

  Effort=""/NEXT

This will work in the next version, an I hope to document this with an  
example.

> I could just do a todo search for NEXT and go to column view and scan
> down the list for blank entries... but my list of NEXT tasks is long
> (currently 140).  Hmmm actually that isn't too bad and the NEXT todo
> search is much faster than my "Next Tasks - No Specified Duration"
> search which takes 6-10 seconds to execute.

That is really long.  One possible reason is that you might have  
turned on
property inheritance.  If this is on and you check a property that  
does not
exist locally, Org-mode has to go back all the way to the top level
for each headline it checks.  If you have tuned inheritance on, please
consider to restrict it to a few properties.

Since you are looking only for NEXT entries you can also speed things up
by requiring that the entry is a TODO.  You can do this by using
`tags-todo' instead of `todo' when defining the custom command, or by
writing the search as (note the "!" after the "/").

  Effort={^$}/!NEXT

I'd be interested what happens to your timing with these improvements.

Reasonably cryptic all this, I know.  This is what happens when you
add features with time instead of designing the full thing from the  
start.

> Maybe I answered my own question :)

and I hope I added another perspective.

- Carsten