Novice here: agenda related questions

Novice here: agenda related questions

[Saurabh Agrawal]

Hi all,

First I would like to thank all those involved in this project for
producing such a deep and well thought of piece of software. And ya,
it is free.. :)

I am involved in several projects at a time and org-mode has provided
me a very functional means to keep track on them. I have gone through
the manual at random and read several tutorials which many users have
kindly contributed.

I have certain questions, the answers to which I couldn't find easily:

1. How to change colour of the TODO states? (the word TODO/DONE etc in
particular and that of whole line in the agenda view?)
2. Since I have a number of TODO action items in several projects, I
would like to display only top two of them for each project at a time
in an agenda. Is it somehow possible using some particular custom
agenda view?

Thanks a lot for reading.

I am big fan, already!

Regards,
Saurabh.

Re: Novice here: agenda related questions

[Matthew Lundin]

Saurabh Agrawal <mailsaurabh@gmail.com> writes:

> 1. How to change colour of the TODO states? (the word TODO/DONE etc in
> particular and that of whole line in the agenda view?)

To change the color of TODO states, you can use the variable
org-todo-keyword-faces. Here's an example from my own settings:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(setq org-todo-keyword-faces
      '(
  	 ("TODO"  . (:foreground "firebrick2" :weight bold))
         ("WAITING"  . (:foreground "olivedrab" :weight bold))
  	 ("BORROWED"  . (:foreground "olivedrab" :weight bold))
  	 ("ORDERED"  . (:foreground "olivedrab" :weight bold))
    	 ("LATER"  . (:foreground "sienna" :weight bold))
   	 ("PROJECT"  . (:foreground "steelblue" :weight bold))
 	 ("DONE"  . (:foreground "forestgreen" :weight bold))
 	 ("RETURNED"  . (:foreground "forestgreen" :weight bold))
 	 ("RECEIVED"  . (:foreground "forestgreen" :weight bold))
 	 ("RESOLVED"  . (:foreground "forestgreen" :weight bold))
 	 ("MAYBE"  . (:foreground "dimgrey" :weight bold))
 	 ("CANCELED"  . (:foreground "dimgrey" :weight bold))
 	 ))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

> 2. Since I have a number of TODO action items in several projects, I
> would like to display only top two of them for each project at a time
> in an agenda. Is it somehow possible using some particular custom
> agenda view?
>

To customize a line in the agenda, simply type M-x customize-face on
that line and emacs should take you to the correct customization buffer.

Or you can add lines such as the following to your .emacs file:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(set-face-foreground 'org-warning "firebrick2")
(set-face-foreground 'org-todo "firebrick2")
(set-face-foreground 'org-done "forestgreen")
(set-face-foreground 'org-scheduled-today "limegreen")
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Hope this helps,

Matt

Re: Novice here: agenda related questions

[Saurabh Agrawal]

Hi Matt

1. Your first suggestion is spot on. Thanks.


>> 2. Since I have a number of TODO action items in several projects, I
>> would like to display only top two of them for each project at a time
>> in an agenda. Is it somehow possible using some particular custom
>> agenda view?
>>


In my second question, what I wanted to ask was is there some setting,
where I can set number of TODOs to display for a particular CATEGORY?
or something like that?




>
> To customize a line in the agenda, simply type M-x customize-face on
> that line and emacs should take you to the correct customization buffer.
>
> Or you can add lines such as the following to your .emacs file:
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (set-face-foreground 'org-warning "firebrick2")
> (set-face-foreground 'org-todo "firebrick2")
> (set-face-foreground 'org-done "forestgreen")
> (set-face-foreground 'org-scheduled-today "limegreen")
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---



Changing face setting for say org-todo is working in the original org
file, but not in agenda and I wanted to change colours in the agenda
really, as that is what in front of me at all times and not the
original org file.

I couldn't find any face for org-agenda specifically.


Thanks again!

Saurabh.

Re: Novice here: agenda related questions

[Matthew Lundin]

Hi Saurabh,

Saurabh Agrawal <mailsaurabh@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Matt
>
> 1. Your first suggestion is spot on. Thanks.
>
>>> 2. Since I have a number of TODO action items in several projects, I
>>> would like to display only top two of them for each project at a
>>> time in an agenda. Is it somehow possible using some particular
>>> custom agenda view?
>>>
>
> In my second question, what I wanted to ask was is there some setting,
> where I can set number of TODOs to display for a particular CATEGORY?
> or something like that?

Sorry, I missed your second question when I replied to the email. I
handle this scenario by hand -- i.e., I only mark one or two next
actions as active TODOS per project and then switch the following
actions to TODO by hand once the first next actions are completed. (But
you could also mark the first one or two TODOs of a project with the tag
:NEXT: and then use a secondary query to limit your agenda only to items
tagged :NEXT:)

org-stuck-projects really helps here to determine which projects don't
have a next action.

If you want to automate cascading next actions, there is org-depend.el
in the contrib directory of the org distribution that can do what you're
looking for -- i.e., change the state of the next item in a subtree once
the previous item is marked done. Here's a quote from the file:

,----
| ;;
| ;; Triggering
| ;; ----------
| ;;
| ;; 1) If an entry contains a TRIGGER property that contains the string
| ;;    "chain-siblings(KEYWORD)", then switching that entry to DONE does
| ;;    do the following:
| ;;    - The sibling following this entry switched to todo-state KEYWORD.
| ;;    - The sibling also gets a TRIGGER property "chain-sibling(KEYWORD)",
| ;;      property, to make sure that, when *it* is DONE, the chain will
| ;;      continue.
| ;;
| ;; 2) If the TRIGGER property contains any other words like
| ;;    XYZ(KEYWORD), these are treated as entry id's with keywords.  That
| ;;    means, Org-mode will search for an entry with the ID property XYZ
| ;;    and switch that entry to KEYWORD as well.
`----

There are also several discussions of org-depend on the mailing list.

Best,
Matt

Re: Novice here: agenda related questions

[Saurabh Agrawal]

Yup, I guess, what I want is org-depend.

But I will have to really spend some time to make that work.... since
I am quite new to org and emacs too.

Thanks for the insight.

And, is there any way to change colour of whole statements of
different TODO states in agenda mode?

Because setting face for org-todo does it in the org file, but not in agenda.

Thanks Matt!

Cheers,

Saurabh.