Re: Patch: More options for ignoring scheduled items in agenda todo lists

[Matt Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org>]

Paul Sexton <psexton@xnet.co.nz> writes:

> Thanks for your reply Matt.

>> I believe this patch would require many users to change their existing
>> configurations.
>>
>> I rely on the "past" setting when creating block agenda views, such as
>> an agenda that includes everything scheduled today or earlier together
>> with a todo list that includes everything else (i.e., unscheduled or
>> scheduled in the future). If the definition of past is changed, I will
>> end up with a lot of duplicate items in the block agenda.
>>
> You just need to change 'past' to 'notfuture'. 'Past' is not an
> accurate description of the behaviour of the setting -- it actually
> ignores past+present, and there is no way to only ignore past items.

Linguistic precision notwithstanding, my recommendation would be to
defer to convention here. Of course, I also defer to the maintainer. :)

According to the docstrings for org-agenda-todo-ignore-deadlines and
org-agenda-todo-ignore-scheduled, the definition of "past" includes
today:

,----
| past    Don't show entries scheduled today or in the past.
| past    Don't show entries with a deadline timestamp for today or in the past.
`----

I suppose my chief question is whether it would be possible to preserve
the current behavior of "past", while introducing a new setting to
accommodate the functionality you seek (e.g., "old" or, better yet,
integers)?

> Development of org mode often introduces incompatibilities with older
> versions. These are generally well highlighted in the release notes.
> All this change would require is for users to change 'past' to
> 'notfuture' when using this variable.

Indeed, it is relatively easy to change the settings with a search and
replace. Somewhat harder is catching all such changes in the release
notes. ;)

My concern has to do with the precedent this sets. I would submit that
incompatibilities be introduced only with the utmost caution and in
cases of clear need. If I remember correctly, obsoleted settings and
variables are usually gracefully deprecated (e.g., org-agenda-span vs.
org-agenda-ndays). If each release contains multiple small breakages
because individual users would like to change conventional naming, it
can become difficult to keep up with org-development. Of course, such
decisions are in the hands of the Bastien and Carsten.

> I just want to extend and logicalise' the functionality of this
> variable.

What do you think of the possibility of using positive and negative
integers (e.g., -1 for past only, 1 for future only, -7 for anything a
week or more in the past, 14 for anything two weeks or more in the
future, and so on)? Would that perhaps be a way to add some
comprehensive logic and fine-grained control to this setting? I'd be
happy to work up a patch to that effect.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions!

Best,
Matt