Remind functionality?

Remind functionality?

[Nicholas S-A]

Hi,
     I am attempting to use org-mode as a replacement for remind. I
currently have it set up with the following in my .bash_profile:

emacs --batch --no-init-file -q  -l ~/.emacs.slim --eval "(progn
(org-agenda-list) (princ (buffer-string)))" 2> /dev/null

Where ~/.emacs.slim is a very small init file which essentially just
loads org-mode and sets the agenda alist.

This works great, but I have a few qualms:
1) Is there any way to just load the agenda part of org-mode? The
current exec time of the line above is around 1s, compared to about .1s
for remind. If not, are there any other tricks to reduce emacs startup
time? If not, I will probably just write an org-agenda clone in some
other language to reduce the overhead.
2) Can I change the format of the Deadline lines to be more obvious by
adding **** Deadline: xxx ****, but *only* in the .emacs.slim executed
version? princ doesn't print in color, so I have to scan through to see
whether something is a deadline or a scheduled item.

Thanks!
nick

Re: Remind functionality?

[Carsten Dominik]

Hi Nicolas,

On Jan 25, 2009, at 5:36 PM, Nicholas S-A wrote:

> Hi,
>    I am attempting to use org-mode as a replacement for remind. I
> currently have it set up with the following in my .bash_profile:
>
> emacs --batch --no-init-file -q  -l ~/.emacs.slim --eval "(progn
> (org-agenda-list) (princ (buffer-string)))" 2> /dev/null
>
> Where ~/.emacs.slim is a very small init file which essentially just
> loads org-mode and sets the agenda alist.
>
> This works great, but I have a few qualms:
> 1) Is there any way to just load the agenda part of org-mode? The
> current exec time of the line above is around 1s, compared to about . 
> 1s
> for remind. If not, are there any other tricks to reduce emacs startup
> time?

It is unlikely that this can be make faster in a significant way.
Why is it a problem????  Even if it takes 10 seconds?
Ah, I see, you do this in every new shell??????  This sounds
unnecessary, to say the least.
Maybe you have to explain better what exactly your are doing....

> If not, I will probably just write an org-agenda clone in some
> other language to reduce the overhead.
> 2) Can I change the format of the Deadline lines to be more obvious by
> adding **** Deadline: xxx ****, but *only* in the .emacs.slim executed
> version? princ doesn't print in color, so I have to scan through to  
> see
> whether something is a deadline or a scheduled item.

No, this is not possible.  The only handle you have is the variable
org-agenda-deadline-leaders, maybe you can do something with this.

- Carsten

Re: Remind functionality?

[Nicholas S-A]

Hi,

* Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> [2009-01-25 22:17:16 +0100]:

> It is unlikely that this can be make faster in a significant way.
> Why is it a problem????  Even if it takes 10 seconds?
> Ah, I see, you do this in every new shell??????  This sounds
> unnecessary, to say the least.
> Maybe you have to explain better what exactly your are doing....

So, the way I currently use remind is run it as "remind ~/.remind" in my
.bash_profile. It reminds me of deadlines and events at any login shell,
so that I don't forget about them (and also so they are fast to access).
This works well, as it is quick to load and doesn't contribute
significantly to the login time at e.g. a Terminal window or SSH
connection. The problem comes because I now use org-mode agenda to
schedule everything, so I have to enter upcoming events twice -- once in
my agenda files, and once in ~/.remind. As such, I thought I could
improve my workflow by just printing the emacs agenda instead of running
remind -- but this is slow. I also tried with emacsclient, but that
didn't improve it any.

> No, this is not possible.  The only handle you have is the variable
> org-agenda-deadline-leaders, maybe you can do something with this.

Thanks, I will look into it.

Thank you for the prompt reply!
Nicholas

Re: Remind functionality?

[Carsten Dominik]

On Jan 26, 2009, at 12:32 AM, Nicholas S-A wrote:

> Hi,
>
> * Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> [2009-01-25 22:17:16  
> +0100]:
>
>> It is unlikely that this can be make faster in a significant way.
>> Why is it a problem????  Even if it takes 10 seconds?
>> Ah, I see, you do this in every new shell??????  This sounds
>> unnecessary, to say the least.
>> Maybe you have to explain better what exactly your are doing....
>
> So, the way I currently use remind is run it as "remind ~/.remind"  
> in my
> .bash_profile. It reminds me of deadlines and events at any login  
> shell,
> so that I don't forget about them (and also so they are fast to  
> access).
> This works well, as it is quick to load and doesn't contribute
> significantly to the login time at e.g. a Terminal window or SSH
> connection. The problem comes because I now use org-mode agenda to
> schedule everything, so I have to enter upcoming events twice --  
> once in
> my agenda files, and once in ~/.remind. As such, I thought I could
> improve my workflow by just printing the emacs agenda instead of  
> running
> remind -- but this is slow. I also tried with emacsclient, but that
> didn't improve it any.


A work-around would be to use a cronjob to dump the the agenda output
to a file, maybe once a minute or even once every hour, and then to
cat this file into your shells.

- Carsten

Re: Remind functionality?

[Oliver Charles]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 05:36:55AM +0100, Carsten Dominik wrote:
>
> On Jan 26, 2009, at 12:32 AM, Nicholas S-A wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> * Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> [2009-01-25 22:17:16  
>> +0100]:
>>
>>> It is unlikely that this can be make faster in a significant way.
>>> Why is it a problem????  Even if it takes 10 seconds?
>>> Ah, I see, you do this in every new shell??????  This sounds
>>> unnecessary, to say the least.
>>> Maybe you have to explain better what exactly your are doing....
>>
>> So, the way I currently use remind is run it as "remind ~/.remind" in 
>> my
>> .bash_profile. It reminds me of deadlines and events at any login  
>> shell,
>> so that I don't forget about them (and also so they are fast to  
>> access).
>> This works well, as it is quick to load and doesn't contribute
>> significantly to the login time at e.g. a Terminal window or SSH
>> connection. The problem comes because I now use org-mode agenda to
>> schedule everything, so I have to enter upcoming events twice -- once 
>> in
>> my agenda files, and once in ~/.remind. As such, I thought I could
>> improve my workflow by just printing the emacs agenda instead of  
>> running
>> remind -- but this is slow. I also tried with emacsclient, but that
>> didn't improve it any.
>
>
> A work-around would be to use a cronjob to dump the the agenda output
> to a file, maybe once a minute or even once every hour, and then to
> cat this file into your shells.

Just wanted to chip in and say this is a great idea - thanks to
Nicholas and Carsten!

* goes to implement this himself now *

-- 
        Oliver Charles / aCiD2

Re: Remind functionality?

[Taru Karttunen]

On 25.01 18:32, Nicholas S-A wrote:
> So, the way I currently use remind is run it as "remind ~/.remind" in my
> .bash_profile. It reminds me of deadlines and events at any login shell,
> so that I don't forget about them (and also so they are fast to access).
> This works well, as it is quick to load and doesn't contribute
> significantly to the login time at e.g. a Terminal window or SSH
> connection. The problem comes because I now use org-mode agenda to
> schedule everything, so I have to enter upcoming events twice -- once in
> my agenda files, and once in ~/.remind. As such, I thought I could
> improve my workflow by just printing the emacs agenda instead of running
> remind -- but this is slow. I also tried with emacsclient, but that
> didn't improve it any.

How about having a cron job that creates a ~/.org-remind-me file from
agenda every 15 minutes? And just cat that in the .bash_profile?

- Taru Karttunen

Re: Remind functionality?

[Nicholas S-A]

Hi,

* Taru Karttunen <taruti@taruti.net> [2009-01-26 10:31:50 +0200]:

>How about having a cron job that creates a ~/.org-remind-me file from
>agenda every 15 minutes? And just cat that in the .bash_profile?

I ended up doing this, as it works quickly and is a minimum of work.
Cron is such a great tool...

Thanks Taru and Carten for the tip!
nick

Re: Remind functionality?

[Daniel Clemente]

Hi,
  could you paste the commands that you used to export the agenda to a file?
  (cron job, Emacs invocation, Lisp code to open the agenda)

  A Worg section explaining this setup would be useful; for instance in org-hacks.org (http://orgmode.org/worg/org-hacks.php)

  Thanks,

Daniel