Agenda of upcoming deadlines skips some deadlines

Agenda of upcoming deadlines skips some deadlines

[Sebastien Vauban]

Hello,

I've (stolen?) the following custom agenda view.

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
                ("F" "Agenda of upcoming deadlines (6 months)"
                 agenda ""
                 ((org-agenda-ndays 1)
                  (org-deadline-warning-days 183)
                  (org-agenda-include-all-todo nil)
                  (org-agenda-time-grid nil)
                  (org-agenda-skip-function
                   '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'notdeadline))))
#+end_src

It works nicely, but for 2 aspects:

- future tasks that have *an explicit warning specification* are skipped!

  Example:

  * TODO Change car insurance
    DEADLINE: <2011-09-04 Sun -1m>

  is not shown because of the "-1m" (my default is 14 days, but I found that
  too little in this case). Removing it makes this task appear in the agenda
  view.

- scheduled tasks (in the past and/or for today) are shown, when paired with a
  deadline'd task.

  Example:

  * TODO Change of insurance company
    DEADLINE: <2011-09-04 Sun>
    SCHEDULED: <2011-06-06 Mon>

Any hint on how to fix these?

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban

Re: Agenda of upcoming deadlines skips some deadlines

[Michael Brand]

Hi Sebastien

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 00:23, Sebastien Vauban
<wxhgmqzgwmuf@spammotel.com> wrote:
> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
>                ("F" "Agenda of upcoming deadlines (6 months)"
>                 agenda ""
>                 ((org-agenda-ndays 1)
>                  (org-deadline-warning-days 183)
>                  (org-agenda-include-all-todo nil)
>                  (org-agenda-time-grid nil)
>                  (org-agenda-skip-function
>                   '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'notdeadline))))
> #+end_src

1) "C-h v org-agenda-ndays" says: "This variable is obsolete since
24.1; use `org-agenda-span' instead." and "Obsolete, see
`org-agenda-span'."

2) "C-h v org-agenda-include-all-todo" says: "This option is
deprecated, it is better to define a block agenda instead."... ...when
you want to add TODO items. In your case I would simply leave it out.

3) Instead of _skipping_ "notadeadline" I would recommend to _choose_
":deadline" with:
(org-agenda-entry-types '(:deadline))

> - future tasks that have *an explicit warning specification* are skipped!
>
>  Example:
>
>  * TODO Change car insurance
>    DEADLINE: <2011-09-04 Sun -1m>
>
>  is not shown because of the "-1m" (my default is 14 days, but I found that
>  too little in this case).

This item overrides the (org-deadline-warning-days 183) from the
custom agenda command with one month from DEADLINE and the item will
be shown the first time on 2011-08-04.

But as I tried to understand, you want to see all DEADLINES of the
next 183 days, however their individual warning period might even not
have started yet, right? For this I suggest to try out an agenda
custom command with:
(org-agenda-span 183)
(org-deadline-warning-days 0)
This agenda view will probably come along with 183 headers for the
date of each day, which I don't know how to disable for the empty
days. I fear there is nothing yet like org-timeline-show-empty-dates
for agenda blocks, check if it works. But anyhow, the agenda view is
better used with a smaller agenda span like one month (keys "v m") or
only one week (key "w") together with the keys "f" and "b" for
scrolling.

You could also go into the direction of a plain search with something
like DEADLINE<=\"<+183d>\" with maybe an undesired ordering. Many
search examples are explained here:
http://orgmode.org/manual/Matching-tags-and-properties.html#Matching-tags-and-properties

> - scheduled tasks (in the past and/or for today) are shown, when paired with a
>  deadline'd task.
>
>  Example:
>
>  * TODO Change of insurance company
>    DEADLINE: <2011-09-04 Sun>
>    SCHEDULED: <2011-06-06 Mon>

I have stopped to combine SCHEDULED with DEADLINE (shown twice, as
DEADLINE and as SCHEDULED) and for tasks of this kind I always use
DEADLINE with an explicit warning period, not necessarily with TODO.
For the latter example:

: * Check whether to change insurance company
:   DEADLINE: <2011-09-04 Sun -90d>

This will not be shown earlier than 2011-06-06, like an item that is
SCHEDULED on 2011-06-06. From then on it will be shown as a DEADLINE
until it will either be removed from the agenda file or set to a new
DEADLINE date in e. g. next year. For all items with an active
timestamp I use TODO only if there is a repeating period like "+1y"
together with DEADLINE or SCHEDULED:

: * TODO Check whether to change insurance company
:   DEADLINE: <2011-09-04 Sun +1y -90d>

Changing this to DONE with "C-c C-t" will do the reschedule
automatically and switch back to TODO, updated in the agenda after
"g".

Michael