Keeping Your Appointments in org

Keeping Your Appointments in org

[Ian Barton]

As it's the start of a new year, I want to move my appointments from 
Google Calendar as the primary source to org. When my system in org is 
running smoothly I will export to Google Calendar on a regular basis.

Searching back through the list there are quite a lot of snippets 
describing how people use org to keep appointments, but no overview. I 
would like to write a tutorial on how you can keep your appointments in 
org, so I thought that I would ask list members if they would post some 
details of their system.

I am intending to keep my appointments in a dedicated org file 
(calendar.org). At the moment I am using a remember template which adds 
them with a tag of APPT. I the use a custom agenda view if I only want 
to see appointments.

I am particularly interested in the best way to deal with repeating 
appointments. For example how do you deal with a weekly appointment that 
has a defined start and end date.

Ian.

Re: Keeping Your Appointments in org

[Daniel Martins]

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I have the same migration problem.

I still use Google Calendar to share appts with my students. Sometimes they
mark an appt on certain dates etc...

My migration problem is threefold since I migrated from planner-el too and
I use remind a lot. I like wyrd for remote operation and I had remind -
diary - ical and planner-el very integrated.

I posted an email about this topíc a couple of weeks ago.

I sincerely think that org-mode would be improved from using remind. At
least until org-mode have all the calendar niceties that remind provides for
quite complex periodic dates and "strange" holidays and non working days.
Remind is quite a powerful calendar parser.


Wyrd (a remind interface) is a clean interface to see appts and schedule
even remotely.

Org-mode however exceeds remind, wyrd and planner-el as tool for
organization as a whole.


An interesting aspect is that we can use the "remind path" to automate some
of the conversion from ical (eg Google Calendar) to org-mode.

The ical -> org-mode could be done using the longer path

ical -> remind -> diary -> org-mode

Via

ical -> remind:  http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/*ICal2Rem*

remind -> diary:   Sacha's rem2diary

diary -> org-mode:  (setq org-agenda-include-diary t)


the reverse path could be directly

org-mode -> ical

.reminders.org.deadline
.reminders.org.scheduled

However  to add all my appts in
.reminders.org.deadline and
 .reminders.org.scheduled
  from inside org-mode

I think that

org2rem
from Bastien

is lacking a few features such as timed reminders and generates a non
completely compatible .reminders files

I have made some corrections and org2rem is working better now but it is
still lacking to add appts with timestamps (ie with no SCHEDULED: or
DEADLINE: tags)

If someone is also interested I cand send my version of org2rem

I hope this helps,

Daniel

2009/1/8 Ian Barton <lists@manor-farm.org>

> As it's the start of a new year, I want to move my appointments from Google
> Calendar as the primary source to org. When my system in org is running
> smoothly I will export to Google Calendar on a regular basis.
>
> Searching back through the list there are quite a lot of snippets
> describing how people use org to keep appointments, but no overview. I would
> like to write a tutorial on how you can keep your appointments in org, so I
> thought that I would ask list members if they would post some details of
> their system.
>
> I am intending to keep my appointments in a dedicated org file (
> calendar.org). At the moment I am using a remember template which adds
> them with a tag of APPT. I the use a custom agenda view if I only want to
> see appointments.
>
> I am particularly interested in the best way to deal with repeating
> appointments. For example how do you deal with a weekly appointment that has
> a defined start and end date.
>
> Ian.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
>

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Re: Keeping Your Appointments in org

[Shelagh Manton]

On Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:47:37 -0200, Daniel Martins wrote:

> I have the same migration problem.
> 
> I still use Google Calendar to share appts with my students. Sometimes
> they mark an appt on certain dates etc...
> 
> My migration problem is threefold since I migrated from planner-el too
> and I use remind a lot. I like wyrd for remote operation and I had
> remind - diary - ical and planner-el very integrated.
> 
> I posted an email about this topíc a couple of weeks ago.
> 
> I sincerely think that org-mode would be improved from using remind. At
> least until org-mode have all the calendar niceties that remind provides
> for quite complex periodic dates and "strange" holidays and non working
> days. Remind is quite a powerful calendar parser.
> 
> 
> Wyrd (a remind interface) is a clean interface to see appts and schedule
> even remotely.
> 
> Org-mode however exceeds remind, wyrd and planner-el as tool for
> organization as a whole.
> 
> 
> An interesting aspect is that we can use the "remind path" to automate
> some of the conversion from ical (eg Google Calendar) to org-mode.
> 
> The ical -> org-mode could be done using the longer path
> 
> ical -> remind -> diary -> org-mode
> 
> Via
> 
> ical -> remind:  http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/*ICal2Rem*
> 
> remind -> diary:   Sacha's rem2diary
> 
> diary -> org-mode:  (setq org-agenda-include-diary t)
> 
> 
> the reverse path could be directly
> 
> org-mode -> ical
> 
> .reminders.org.deadline
> .reminders.org.scheduled
> 
> However  to add all my appts in
> .reminders.org.deadline and
>  .reminders.org.scheduled
>   from inside org-mode
> 
> I think that
> 
> org2rem
> from Bastien
> 
> is lacking a few features such as timed reminders and generates a non
> completely compatible .reminders files
> 
> I have made some corrections and org2rem is working better now but it is
> still lacking to add appts with timestamps (ie with no SCHEDULED: or
> DEADLINE: tags)
> 
> If someone is also interested I cand send my version of org2rem

I am interested in your version of org2rem. I use remind quite regularly 
in conjunction with org-mode and tried a few months ago to work out how 
to improve org2rem myself, either stripping the org-mode priority cookies 
or changing them to something remind could use, but my lisp skills are 
too feeble to work out how to do it.

Shelagh 
> 
> I hope this helps,
> 
> Daniel
> 
> 2009/1/8 Ian Barton <lists@manor-farm.org>
> 
>> As it's the start of a new year, I want to move my appointments from
>> Google Calendar as the primary source to org. When my system in org is
>> running smoothly I will export to Google Calendar on a regular basis.
>>
>> Searching back through the list there are quite a lot of snippets
>> describing how people use org to keep appointments, but no overview. I
>> would like to write a tutorial on how you can keep your appointments in
>> org, so I thought that I would ask list members if they would post some
>> details of their system.
>>
>> I am intending to keep my appointments in a dedicated org file (
>> calendar.org). At the moment I am using a remember template which adds
>> them with a tag of APPT. I the use a custom agenda view if I only want
>> to see appointments.
>>
>> I am particularly interested in the best way to deal with repeating
>> appointments. For example how do you deal with a weekly appointment
>> that has a defined start and end date.
>>
>> Ian.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________ Emacs-orgmode mailing
>> list
>> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
>> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
>> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
>>
> I have the same migration problem.<br><br>I still use Google Calendar to
> share appts with my students. Sometimes they mark an appt on certain
> dates etc...<br><br>My migration problem is threefold since I migrated
> from planner-el too and&nbsp; I use remind a lot. I like wyrd for remote
> operation and I had remind - diary - ical and planner-el very
> integrated.<br>
> 
> <br>I posted an email about this topíc a couple of weeks ago.<br><br> I
> sincerely think that org-mode would be improved from using remind. At
> least until org-mode have all the calendar niceties that remind provides
> for quite complex periodic dates and &quot;strange&quot; holidays and
> non working days. Remind is quite a powerful calendar parser.<br>
> <br><br>Wyrd (a remind interface) is a clean interface to see appts and
> schedule even remotely.<br><br>Org-mode however exceeds remind, wyrd and
> planner-el as tool for organization as a whole.<br><br><br>An
> interesting aspect is that we can use the &quot;remind path&quot; to
> automate some of the conversion from ical (eg Google Calendar) to
> org-mode.<br> <br>The ical -&gt; org-mode could be done using the longer
> path<br><br>ical -&gt; remind -&gt; diary -&gt;
> org-mode<br><br>Via<br><br>ical -&gt; remind:&nbsp; <cite><a
> href="http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/"
> target="_blank">http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/</a><b>ICal2Rem</
b></cite><br>
> 
> <br>remind -&gt; diary: &nbsp; Sacha&#39;s rem2diary<br><br>diary -&gt;
> org-mode:&nbsp; (setq org-agenda-include-diary
> t)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br> <br><br>the reverse
> path could be directly<br><br>org-mode -&gt;
> 
ical<br><br>.reminders.org.deadline<br>.reminders.org.scheduled<br><br>However&nbsp;
> to add all my appts in <br>.reminders.org.deadline and<br>
> &nbsp;.reminders.org.scheduled<br>&nbsp; from inside org-mode <br><br>I
> think that <br> <br>org2rem <br>from Bastien<br><br>is lacking a few
> features such as timed reminders and generates a non completely
> compatible .reminders files<br><br>I have made some corrections and
> org2rem is working better now but it is still lacking to add appts with
> timestamps (ie with no SCHEDULED: or DEADLINE: tags)<br> <br>If someone
> is also interested I cand send my version of org2rem<br><br>I hope this
> helps,<br><br>Daniel<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/1/8 Ian Barton
> <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a
> href="mailto:lists@manor-farm.org">lists@manor-farm.org</a>&gt;</
span><br>
> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204,
> 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">As it&#39;s
> the start of a new year, I want to move my appointments from Google
> Calendar as the primary source to org. When my system in org is running
> smoothly I will export to Google Calendar on a regular basis.<br>
> 
> <br>
> Searching back through the list there are quite a lot of snippets
> describing how people use org to keep appointments, but no overview. I
> would like to write a tutorial on how you can keep your appointments in
> org, so I thought that I would ask list members if they would post some
> details of their system.<br>
> 
> <br>
> I am intending to keep my appointments in a dedicated org file (<a
> href="http://calendar.org" target="_blank">calendar.org</a>). At the
> moment I am using a remember template which adds them with a tag of
> APPT. I the use a custom agenda view if I only want to see
> appointments.<br>
> 
> <br>
> I am particularly interested in the best way to deal with repeating
> appointments. For example how do you deal with a weekly appointment that
> has a defined start and end date.<br> <br>
> Ian.<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> _______________________________________________<br> Emacs-orgmode
> mailing list<br>
> Remember: use `Reply All&#39; to send replies to the list.<br> <a
> href="mailto:Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org"
> target="_blank">Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org</a><br> <a
> href="http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode"
> target="_blank">http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode</
a><br>
> </blockquote></div><br>
> _______________________________________________ Emacs-orgmode mailing
> list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode

Re: Keeping Your Appointments in org

[Matthew Lundin]

Hi Ian,

Ian Barton <lists@manor-farm.org> writes:
>
> Searching back through the list there are quite a lot of snippets
> describing how people use org to keep appointments, but no overview. I
> would like to write a tutorial on how you can keep your appointments
> in org, so I thought that I would ask list members if they would post
> some details of their system.

In the past I've used the Emacs diary, which integrates quite nicely
into the agenda views. It's really easy to add entries to the diary
from the agenda by typing "i". And the format for basic diary entries
is very simple, e.g.:

Jan 8, 2009 6:00pm Go for a walk

But recently, I've begun entering all my diary entries into org-mode
files because (a) it makes it very easy to put scheduling directly in
my project plans (b) org-mode supports complex diary expressions
within org files and (c) it's nice to add notes to scheduled events.
And, of course, org-modes active timestamps are also very easy.

Generally, I maintain a distinction between scheduled tasks and
appointments. For tasks I add a SCHEDULE or DEADLINE date. For the
appointments I add a simple timestamp, as in:

* Go for a walk <2009-01-08 Thu 18:00>

or

* 6:00pm Go for a walk <2009-01-08 Thu>
>
> I am intending to keep my appointments in a dedicated org file
> (calendar.org). 

Since the agenda's so powerful I just leave my appointment entries
scattered among several files - i.e., in their relevant context by
subject.

> At the moment I am using a remember template which adds them with a
> tag of APPT. I the use a custom agenda view if I only want to see
> appointments.

I do the same---i.e., use a custom agenda view to see only
appointments. In case it's of interest to anyone, here's the command I
use to view a weekly calendar consisting only of appointments.

(setq org-agenda-custom-command s
	'(("c" "Weekly schedule" agenda ""
	   ((org-agenda-ndays 7)
	    (org-agenda-start-on-weekday 1)
	    (org-agenda-repeating-timestamp-show-all t)
	    (org-agenda-skip-function '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'deadline 'scheduled))))
          ;; other commands here
          ))

>
> I am particularly interested in the best way to deal with repeating
> appointments. For example how do you deal with a weekly appointment
> that has a defined start and end date.

I use a diary S-expression within org-mode for this:

** My weekly event 7:00pm
<%%(and (= 2 (calendar-day-of-week date)) (diary-block 1 6 2009 4 4 2009))>

This event shows up in the agenda at 19:00 hours every Tuesday between
January 6 and April 4 of 2009.

I look forward to reading your tutorial on scheduling.

Best,
Matt