how to exclude several single dates from a diary block

how to exclude several single dates from a diary block

[Rainer Thiel]

I use Org-Mode to schedule most everything, including my lectures
which typically are recurring events.  I have learnt that I can
exclude a certain range of days or weeks where no lectures take place.
For this, I use:

* TODO 12:15--13:45 Lecture: Aristotle
<%%(unless (diary-block 12 20 2021 12 31 2021) (and (= 3
(calendar-day-of-week date)) (diary-block 10 18 2021 02 11 2022)))>

which means that the lecture on Aristotle is scheduled for every
Wednesday between October 18th, 2021 and February 11th, 2022 – except
for the time between December 20th, 2021 and December 31st, 2021.

What I need to do for this year is to exclude single dates such as
April 26th, 2022 and June 21st, 2022.  Can someone please help me how
to achieve this?

Many thanks in advance,

Rainer
-- 
Prof. Dr. Rainer Thiel
Institut für Altertumswissenschaften
07737 Jena, Germany (EU)
r.thiel@uni-jena.de

Re: how to exclude several single dates from a diary block

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday, 22 Apr 2022 at 16:15, Rainer Thiel wrote:
> I use Org-Mode to schedule most everything, including my lectures
> which typically are recurring events.  

Instead of using diary s-expressions, what I do is create one entry for
the first lecture, say, and then use org-clone-subtree-with-time-shift
to create the copies, typically shifted by 1 week.  Then I go through
the created entries and delete those weeks that need to be omitted.

Maybe not as elegant but works very well and it's what I've been doing
for years now for my own lectures.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, with org release_9.5.3-397-g81289b in Emacs 29.0.50

Re: how to exclude several single dates from a diary block

[Rainer Thiel]

Thanks for the answer.  I used to do this, too, and am aware of this
possibility.  I find it kind of clutters up the org file and was happy
to find a way to avoid this.  I will return to this if I need to, but
would prefer to adapt the more elegant way to do it, if there is a
way.

Many thanks again

Rainer

Am Fr., 22. Apr. 2022 um 16:23 Uhr schrieb Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk>:
>
> On Friday, 22 Apr 2022 at 16:15, Rainer Thiel wrote:
> > I use Org-Mode to schedule most everything, including my lectures
> > which typically are recurring events.
>
> Instead of using diary s-expressions, what I do is create one entry for
> the first lecture, say, and then use org-clone-subtree-with-time-shift
> to create the copies, typically shifted by 1 week.  Then I go through
> the created entries and delete those weeks that need to be omitted.
>
> Maybe not as elegant but works very well and it's what I've been doing
> for years now for my own lectures.
>
> --
> : Eric S Fraga, with org release_9.5.3-397-g81289b in Emacs 29.0.50



-- 
Prof. Dr. Rainer Thiel
Institut für Altertumswissenschaften
07737 Jena, Germany (EU)
r.thiel@uni-jena.de

Re: how to exclude several single dates from a diary block

[Ihor Radchenko]

Rainer Thiel <r.thiel@uni-jena.de> writes:

> I use Org-Mode to schedule most everything, including my lectures
> which typically are recurring events.  I have learnt that I can
> exclude a certain range of days or weeks where no lectures take place.
> For this, I use:
>
> * TODO 12:15--13:45 Lecture: Aristotle
> <%%(unless (diary-block 12 20 2021 12 31 2021) (and (= 3
> (calendar-day-of-week date)) (diary-block 10 18 2021 02 11 2022)))>
>
> What I need to do for this year is to exclude single dates such as
> April 26th, 2022 and June 21st, 2022.  Can someone please help me how
> to achieve this?

You can just change
<%%(unless (diary-block 12 20 2021 12 31 2021) ...)>
to
<%%(unless (or (diary-date 04 26 2022) (diary-date 06 21 2022) (diary-block 12 20 2021 12 31 2021)) ...)>

Best,
ihor

Fwd: solved: how to exclude several single dates from a diary block (was: how to exclude several single dates from a diary block)

[Rainer Thiel]

Thank you very much, indeed, Ihor.  diary-date was exactly the
function I was looking for.

Please allow me to report that in the meantime I have found a method
that seems to suit my personal needs even better.  You can use

<%%(org-class 2022 04 11 2022 07 15 4 21 26)>

to set every Thursday (4) in the time range between April 11th, 2022
and July 15th, 2022, but exclude (the Thursdays in) ISO weeks 21 and
26 (ie, 2022-05-26 and 2022-06-30).  Less to type and easier to do if
your calendar carries ISO-week numbers.

Many thanks again for the help

Rainer

Am So., 24. Apr. 2022 um 09:59 Uhr schrieb Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com>:
>
> Rainer Thiel <r.thiel@uni-jena.de> writes:
>
> > I use Org-Mode to schedule most everything, including my lectures
> > which typically are recurring events.  I have learnt that I can
> > exclude a certain range of days or weeks where no lectures take place.
> > For this, I use:
> >
> > * TODO 12:15--13:45 Lecture: Aristotle
> > <%%(unless (diary-block 12 20 2021 12 31 2021) (and (= 3
> > (calendar-day-of-week date)) (diary-block 10 18 2021 02 11 2022)))>
> >
> > What I need to do for this year is to exclude single dates such as
> > April 26th, 2022 and June 21st, 2022.  Can someone please help me how
> > to achieve this?
>
> You can just change
> <%%(unless (diary-block 12 20 2021 12 31 2021) ...)>
> to
> <%%(unless (or (diary-date 04 26 2022) (diary-date 06 21 2022) (diary-block 12 20 2021 12 31 2021)) ...)>
>
> Best,
> ihor



--
Prof. Dr. Rainer Thiel
Institut für Altertumswissenschaften
07737 Jena, Germany (EU)
r.thiel@uni-jena.de


-- 
Prof. Dr. Rainer Thiel
Institut für Altertumswissenschaften
07737 Jena, Germany (EU)
r.thiel@uni-jena.de