[tip] direct specification of deadline warning days without editing text

[tip] direct specification of deadline warning days without editing text

[Samuel Wales]

in retrospect this solution is completely obvious but i thought i
would mention it in case somebody searches for it.

in agenda, i do c-u c-u c-d.  this allows me to remove deadline
warning days [RET, very convenient!] or specify them.

a good thing about this feature is that there is less chance of
manually creating a format error in the timestamp as would occur by
going to the ts and editing it manually.  also it seems nothing is
relative to the existing warning.  that is good.

the prompt, however, seems geared toward specifying a date.  you can
specify indirectly the deadline warning days by specifying the date
that would be the warning.  the question is, can we specify deadline
warning days directly?

here is where it is obvious in retrospect but as i was not thinking in
terms of default date it was not.

suppose i want deadline warning days of -2d but do not want to
manually edit the ts or calculate the corresponding date.

if the deadline is somewhat in the future but displayed in the
deadline section of the agenda, and i try c-u c-u c-d, the following
intuitive ideas do not work: 2, -2, 2d, -2d, and as desperation,
trying the in retrospect nonsensical . first.

i wasn't fully cogitating that the prompt was date oriented but that
the default date is the ts date and can work.

i read the manual for my obsolete version of org (info "(org) The
date/time prompt") and my brain did not find it.  i was looking at the
examples for things like -- even though they were mentioned in the
text.

solution seems to be --2d.  whether modern org needs to include a few
examples with -- or not, idk.

idk if that helps anybody [it is going to take much time to upgrade].