Dynamically generating todo entries

Dynamically generating todo entries

[Daniel Schoepe]

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Hello,

I'm trying to dynamically generate a list of TODO entries (specifically,
a list of notmuch[1] threads that have a "todo" tag) that I'd like to
see in the TODO agenda, but not in the normal daily agenda (just like a
ordinary TODO entry without a date). A simple try like

(defun foo ()
  "Test function"
  "TODO foo")
--
in something.org:
%%(foo)

ends up generating an entry for every day in the weekly/daily agenda,
but this entry is not recognized as a TODO entry. Is %%(foo) (I don't
know the actual name of this feature) the wrong mechanism for my goal?
If so, is there an alternative for accomplishing what I had in mind?

By the way: Is there a resource describing what special variables are
available to such functions (I only know about date) and how their
output should look like? I couldn't find anything in the org manual.

[1] http://notmuchmail.org

Cheers,
Daniel

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Re: Dynamically generating todo entries

[Nick Dokos]

Daniel Schoepe <daniel@schoepe.org> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I'm trying to dynamically generate a list of TODO entries (specifically,
> a list of notmuch[1] threads that have a "todo" tag) that I'd like to
> see in the TODO agenda, but not in the normal daily agenda (just like a
> ordinary TODO entry without a date). A simple try like
> 
> (defun foo ()
>   "Test function"
>   "TODO foo")
> --
> in something.org:
> %%(foo)
> 
> ends up generating an entry for every day in the weekly/daily agenda,
> but this entry is not recognized as a TODO entry. Is %%(foo) (I don't
> know the actual name of this feature) the wrong mechanism for my goal?
> If so, is there an alternative for accomplishing what I had in mind?
> 

They are generally called (somewhat misleadingly) diary sexps - they are
executed by org-agenda-get-sexps (assuming that they are in some agenda
file) when the agenda is constructed, once for every day displayed: they
do their things and that's that. They are mostly used to remind one of
birthdays, anniversaries etc, hence diary sexps.

> By the way: Is there a resource describing what special variables are
> available to such functions (I only know about date) and how their
> output should look like? I couldn't find anything in the org manual.
> 

What do you mean by special variables? Any variable in the dynamic chain
is fair game: date is available because a caller (org-agenda-list) goes
to the trouble of binding it. Any other variable in this function or in
any parent of org-agenda-get-sexps can be used (unless it's shadowed),
but I'm not sure what use they would be.

The function just has to return a string: the agenda code takes care
of printing the result in the agenda.

> [1] http://notmuchmail.org
> 

Diary sexps is probably the wrong thing to use for what you want: I
don't know how far you want to take it, but iiuc, the easiest thing to
do is write a script (in your favorite language) that generates a file
of entries, say foo.org:

,----
| 
| * notmuch threads
| 
| ** TODO check out this thread [[some link][thread title]]
| ** TODO check out that thread [[some other link][other thread title]]
| ...
`----

Then open it in emacs and include it in your agenda with C-c [

HTH,
Nick

Re: Dynamically generating todo entries

[Daniel Schoepe]

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On Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:11:38 -0400, Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com> wrote:
> They are generally called (somewhat misleadingly) diary sexps - they are
> executed by org-agenda-get-sexps (assuming that they are in some agenda
> file) when the agenda is constructed, once for every day displayed: they
> do their things and that's that. They are mostly used to remind one of
> birthdays, anniversaries etc, hence diary sexps.

Ah, okay. Thanks.

> > By the way: Is there a resource describing what special variables are
> > available to such functions (I only know about date) and how their
> > output should look like? I couldn't find anything in the org manual.
> > 
> 
> What do you mean by special variables? Any variable in the dynamic chain
> is fair game: date is available because a caller (org-agenda-list) goes
> to the trouble of binding it. Any other variable in this function or in
> any parent of org-agenda-get-sexps can be used (unless it's shadowed),
> but I'm not sure what use they would be.

I was just wondering if there is a listing of such variables specific to
org and explicitly intended to be used by diary sexps (i.e. not an
implementation detail that might change without warning).

> The function just has to return a string: the agenda code takes care
> of printing the result in the agenda.

Okay, I guess their simplicity explains why I couldn't find more
information on them in the manual.

> Diary sexps is probably the wrong thing to use for what you want: I
> don't know how far you want to take it, but iiuc, the easiest thing to
> do is write a script (in your favorite language) that generates a file
> of entries, say foo.org:
> 
> ,----
> | 
> | * notmuch threads
> | 
> | ** TODO check out this thread [[some link][thread title]]
> | ** TODO check out that thread [[some other link][other thread title]]
> | ...
> `----
> 
> Then open it in emacs and include it in your agenda with C-c [

Now that you mention it, this is a perfectly obvious solution. :)

By advising (there does not seem to be a hook for that) `org-todo-list'
I can even avoid running that script in a cronjob and thus not allowing
the agenda to become out of sync with the actual notmuch tags.

Thank you for your time and your answers.

Cheers,
Daniel

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Re: Dynamically generating todo entries

[Jonas Hörsch]

[fn:1]

Footnotes:

[fn:1] Mail

Re: Dynamically generating todo entries

[suvayu ali]

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 00:35, Daniel Schoepe <daniel@schoepe.org> wrote:
>> Diary sexps is probably the wrong thing to use for what you want: I
>> don't know how far you want to take it, but iiuc, the easiest thing to
>> do is write a script (in your favorite language) that generates a file
>> of entries, say foo.org:
>>
>> ,----
>> |
>> | * notmuch threads
>> |
>> | ** TODO check out this thread [[some link][thread title]]
>> | ** TODO check out that thread [[some other link][other thread title]]
>> | ...
>> `----
>>
>> Then open it in emacs and include it in your agenda with C-c [
>
> Now that you mention it, this is a perfectly obvious solution. :)

You can take pointers from here:
<http://orgmode.org/worg/org-hacks.html#sec-3-12>

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

Re: Dynamically generating todo entries

[Daniel Schoepe]

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On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:41:49 +0100, suvayu ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com> wrote:
> You can take pointers from here:
> <http://orgmode.org/worg/org-hacks.html#sec-3-12>

Yeah, I figured out a solution that works for me:

(defadvice org-todo-list (before org-todo-gen-notmuch activate)
  (let ((buf (get-file-buffer "~/org/notmuch_todo.org")))
    (when buf
      (kill-buffer buf)))
  (call-process "notmuch-org"))

(Together with a not very interesting python script that generates
notmuch_todo.org).

Thanks anyway.

Cheers,
Daniel

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