Re: property searches for #+CATEGORY

["Tim O'Callaghan" <tim.ocallaghan@gmail.com>]

On 07/11/2007, Adam Spiers <orgmode@adamspiers.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 02:23:12PM +0100, Tim O'Callaghan wrote:
> > On 07/11/2007, Adam Spiers <orgmode@adamspiers.org> wrote:
> > > I have several personal .org files, and several work-related ones too.
> > > In each personal file, I have a line:
> > >
> > >   #+CATEGORY: personal
> > >
> > > and in each work-related file, I have a line:
> > >
> > >   #+CATEGORY: work
> > >
> > > I would like to be able to bind agenda custom commands to do tag
> > > searches which are narrowed to one of these categories, e.g. "show me
> > > all personal priority #A tasks".  Such a search needs to span *all*
> > > agenda files, therefore the standard per-buffer narrowing provided by
> > > the '<' binding in the *Agenda Commands* buffer is insufficient.
> > >
> > > Would it make sense to include CATEGORY as a special property?  After
> > > all, pretty much all other per-task meta-data ("TODO", "PRIORITY"
> > > etc.) are already available via the property interface, and this way,
> > > I could easily achieve what I need with tag searches such as
> > >
> > >   CATEGORY="personal"+PRIORITY="A"
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> >
> > It would seem to me that this is exactly what tags does.
> > You could move everything down a level and use tag inheritance:
> > * personal stuff :personal:
> > * work stuff :work:
>
> I could, but this would mean that each file would have a single
> top-level entry, and the entire contents would be indented an extra
> level, which I fear is a rather unattractive solution!
>

It's the technique i've been using, and yes, it is unattractive.

When i thought of tags, it was not explicitly for GTD context
specifier, it was also for adding searchable metadata to a todo node.
I'm finding out that it gets diluted somewhat.

It guess its a matter of taxonomy. Roughly i would see this as:

1. State - TODO - DO/CANCEL/DONE
2. Context - tags - :@home:@phone:
3. Date/Time - <2007-10-10>
4. Meta Context - Category - personal, work etc,
5. Meta State - Properties drawer - :EMAIL:emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
6. Meta DateTime - state/time logging -

How about adding the context to the tag table with a prefix character, say #?

Tim.