RE: Looking for a project management system

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> I'm looking for a light-weight project management system to help organize my
> growing number of projects. It seems like there's a lot out there, but I
> haven't found one that seems like it quite meets my needs.

I hope someone will have a good suggestion for you. This is a good place to ask.

> Most seem to be keyed in to github or similar, which is not really an option
> for me...  Features I would like are:
>
> * Arbitrary list of files for a project
>
> * Ability to merge projects (I often have small projects that get
>   merged into bigger ones)
>
> * Load specified files for a project (flagged or regexp?) into buffers
>
> * Switch between projects, with some way to flag files auto-loaded IE all
>   *.org files in project)
>
> * Auto-switch org-agenda-files to match the current project for reporting and
>   agendas.
> 
> Can anybody point me at something that might meet my needs, or at least get
> close enough for me to justify a little code hacking to customize?

Others will have other suggestions.  Here are mine.  I think they address
all of your wishlist items, in various ways.  None of these is necessarily
limited to project management, but I believe that they could help you.

1. Bookmarks, especially with library Bookmark+.

a. You can bookmark arbitrary sets of files, from any locations.

b. You can bookmark Dired buffers (which, again, can actually list arbitrary
   files, not even necessarily in the same directory).  Markings, subdir
   inclusions, and omissions are all recorded, and restored when you access
   the bookmark.

c. You can tag bookmarks or files, using arbitrary strings as tags.  You 
   can do this programmatically and interactively, by regexp, name, or
   Dired markings.  Tags give you a great way to define sets of bookmarks
   or files - sets that can overlap etc.  The serve to categorize, but they
   can do more than that.  You can use tags to, in effect, merge projects,
   split projects, define subprojects, and so on.

2. Dired, even without bookmarking, especially if you do organize your
   projects by directory.  Getting to know all that Dired can do for you
   can help a lot, IMO.  Library Dired+ can help here.  It lets you act
   on sets of marked files in subdirs, recursively, for example.

3. Icicles improves what Bookmark+ and Dired+ offer.  It has other
   project support as well (see link, below).

These libraries are available from EmacsWiki or MELPA.
Descriptions:

* Bookmark+ - http://www.emacswiki.org/BookmarkPlus
* Dired+    - http://www.emacswiki.org/DiredPlus
* Icicles   - http://www.emacswiki.org/Icicles_-_Support_for_Projects