Sharing: Agenda skip function to remove future-scheduled items

Sharing: Agenda skip function to remove future-scheduled items

[James Harkins]

I often ask questions, or complain about things (or both at the same time), so it's nice to share something.

I was making a block agenda, splitting up tasks by location (loosely inspired by GTD). But I realized that I didn't want to see items that are scheduled for the future, because this is my agenda view for "what tasks are available right now." For example, if I have a task to update my grade sheet, it doesn't make sense to do that before I've taught the lessons -- so I don't want to see the task until it's actually due.

I didn't find a straightforward way to use a property search such as "scheduled is nil or scheduled > today," but I did (with some false starts) hack up a skip function that seems to do the job. So, in the relevant blocks, I have (org-agenda-skip-function 'hjh-skip-future-scheduled), and... perfect.

(I'm sure it's not the most efficient, but I found elisp's time comparisons to be confusing, and I didn't want to consider time-of-day either. Performance is OK for my use.)

hjh

; agenda skip function to remove items scheduled for a future date
(defun hjh-skip-future-scheduled ()
  "Skip trees that are scheduled in the future"
  (let* ((subtree-end (save-excursion (org-end-of-subtree t)))
	 (schedprop (cdr (assoc "SCHEDULED" (org-entry-properties))))
	 (schedymd (if(stringp schedprop) (substring schedprop 0 10))))
    (if schedymd
	(if (string< (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d" (current-time)) schedymd) subtree-end nil)
      nil)))

Re: Sharing: Agenda skip function to remove future-scheduled items

[Sebastien Vauban]

James Harkins wrote:
> [...] I realized that I didn't want to see items that are scheduled
> for the future, because this is my agenda view for "what tasks are
> available right now." For example, if I have a task to update my grade
> sheet, it doesn't make sense to do that before I've taught the
> lessons -- so I don't want to see the task until it's actually due.
>
> I didn't find a straightforward way to use a property search such as
> "scheduled is nil or scheduled > today," but I did (with some false
> starts) hack up a skip function that seems to do the job.

I use the following (tricky) settings, which should do what you have in
mind, if I'm not mistaken:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
  ;; Don't show scheduled entries in the global `todo' list.
  (setq org-agenda-todo-ignore-scheduled 'future)

  ;; Don't show entries scheduled in the future in the global
  ;; `todo' list (until they are within the warning period).
  (setq org-agenda-todo-ignore-deadlines 'near)

  ;; Honor `todo' list `org-agenda-todo-ignore...' options also
  ;; in the `tags-todo' list.
  (setq org-agenda-tags-todo-honor-ignore-options t)
#+end_src

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban

Re: Sharing: Agenda skip function to remove future-scheduled items

[James Harkins]

Sebastien Vauban <sva-news@...> writes:

> I use the following (tricky) settings, which should 
do what you have in
> mind, if I'm not mistaken:
> 
> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
>   ;; Don't show scheduled entries in the global 
`todo' list.
>   (setq org-agenda-todo-ignore-scheduled 'future)
> 
>   ;; Don't show entries scheduled in the future in the 
global
>   ;; `todo' list (until they are within the warning 
period).
>   (setq org-agenda-todo-ignore-deadlines 'near)
> 
>   ;; Honor `todo' list `org-agenda-todo-ignore...' 
options also
>   ;; in the `tags-todo' list.
>   (setq org-agenda-tags-todo-honor-ignore-options 
t)
> #+end_src

Interesting. How would I apply those settings to only 
one custom agenda command, while leaving the 
others with the default behavior of showing future 
schedules?

hjh

Re: Sharing: Agenda skip function to remove future-scheduled items

[Sebastien Vauban]

James Harkins wrote:
> Sebastien Vauban <sva-news@...> writes:
>
>> I use the following (tricky) settings, which should 
> do what you have in
>> mind, if I'm not mistaken:
>> 
>> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
>>   ;; Don't show scheduled entries in the global `todo' list.
>>   (setq org-agenda-todo-ignore-scheduled 'future)
>> 
>>   ;; Don't show entries scheduled in the future in the global
>>   ;; `todo' list (until they are within the warning period).
>>   (setq org-agenda-todo-ignore-deadlines 'near)
>> 
>>   ;; Honor `todo' list `org-agenda-todo-ignore...' options also
>>   ;; in the `tags-todo' list.
>>   (setq org-agenda-tags-todo-honor-ignore-options t)
>> #+end_src
>
> Interesting. How would I apply those settings to only 
> one custom agenda command, while leaving the 
> others with the default behavior of showing future 
> schedules?

By setting them inside the `org-agenda-custom-commands' definition.

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban