[Orgmode] Re: I must be missing something...

[Bernt Hansen]

David Abrahams <address@hidden> writes:

> on Tue Jun 09 2009, Bernt Hansen <bernt-AT-norang.ca> wrote:
>
>> David Abrahams <address@hidden> writes:
>>> I've been using and studying org mode for a few months now, and though
>>> it seems to have great potential, some things still escape me.  For
>>> example, do my DONE items simply accumulate forever in todo.org?  I know
>>> there's an archiving feature... do I move those done items manually to
>>> an archive when I no longer need to see them?
>>
>> Stuff accumulates and I personally archive subtrees manually once/month.
>
> I have a lot of "degenerate subtrees" (items with no sub-items).  You
> just do those one-at-a-time?

If there are lots I just make a keyboard macro that archives the current
subtree.

Another possible option (untested) is if you move them all together you
can duplicate (or create) the parent task and then promote it.

This moves

* DONE Task 1 to archive
* DONE Task 2 to archive
...
* DONE Task n to archive

to

* New Fake Parent Task
** DONE Task 1 to archive
** DONE Task 2 to archive
...
** DONE Task n to archive

and then archive the new fake parent once including all of its subtasks.

The keyboard macro works pretty well for me - except blank lines
sometime mess up cursor positioning for the next task to archive - so be
careful your point is on or in a task you want to archive before
repeating it.  This shows up for a few tasks each month (with blank
lines before the task) but I haven't spent any time trying to improve
the situation yet.

>
>>> Also, how do I manage my projects?  Org mode seems to "want" to put
>>> everything in one big file.  I know I *can* separate trees by file, but
>>> it doesn't seem to be very convenient to do so.  For example, if I'm
>>> visiting a project file, is there a way to get an agenda view on just
>>> /that/ file without having to modify org-agenda-files?
>>
>> I recently wrote about this here.
>> http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#LimitingAgendaView
>> Maybe that will help?
>
> It hits a lot of things in the general area of what I need, but the
> specific thing I wanted to do was to temporarily remove all tasks that
> live in a particular file from the agenda.  I was able to get a similar
> functionality by putting a unique tag on the root item in that file and
> the using org-agenda-filter-by-tag to filter it out, but that seemed a
> bit indirect.

I just use #+FILETAGS: for this and filter away the file I want to
remove.  I haven't explored if there is a way to have the filter
remembered between agenda views until I restore it (similar to the
agenda restriction lock) but I'm thinking that functionality probably
does not exist today.

Right now I have a bunch of deadlines on my farm.org file cluttering up
my agenda view so I'm regularly doing C-c a a / - f to hide the @farm
tagged tasks.  I want to see everything else but those.  I could drop
the farm.org file from my agenda but I'll probably forget to restore it
in time.  Filtering works for me in the interim until I find a better
solution.

>
>>> I know I'm being a bit vague, but so far the basic operations of
>>> org-mode, which were very fast to use at first, haven't "scaled up" very
>>> easily to handle my whole life, and I'm not sure how to get there.
>>>
>>> Many thanks in advance for any advice you can give,
>>
>> I've been using org-mode for years and I use it for everything.  A
>> description of my work flow and setup for org-mode is at
>> http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html in case that's useful.
>
> I've been through that material several times already; thank you _very_
> much for writing it.

You're most welcome :). Playing with publishing is (almost) fun.


>Maybe I just need to keep working with it to learn
> more.  I find it's hard to take the time to do that when you're really
> trying to use org mode to get other stuff done!

Yes I can see that.  Org-mode is huge (in functionality and the way you
can approach a problem).  The best advice I can give is start small and
build on what you know until you end up with something that works for
you.  If my document can help give you ideas to get there that's great!

Regards,
Bernt