Re: [O] Temporarily setting agenda files list, cleaning up
Many thanks to John and Thomas for their suggestions! Thomas Plass wrote: > This will use a private set of 'org-agenda-files and kill their > buffers after executing `org-agenda-list': > > (...) This function is a very good prototype of what I had in mind. The details like it closing buffers that were already open before do not matter for now. (John's post offers a solution to this particular problem.) I replaced the call to org-agenda-list with one to org-agenda, in order to get the full thing, and this works. The prototype reveals a problem with the approach: if the buffers with the agenda files are closed immediately (to avoid cluttering the buffer list with possibly hundreds of buffers), most of the agenda functionality no longer works. It's not possible to jump to entries, reschedule them, etc. I guess that modifying orgmode so that agenda buffers open files as needed would by rather complicated. The simpler alternative should be to keep the buffers open and only kill them when the associated agenda buffer itself gets killed. I suppose that this can be done by using kill-buffer-hook. It seems that the buffer killing can be made smarter by storing the buffer-modified-tick at the time of the agenda construction for all the buffers that are to be closed. This information can then be used later to only kill buffers that haven't been touched since. Ideally, one should also check whether it is still the *same* buffer, because it might have been closed and reopened on purpose by the user. (I have no good idea how to check for that, other than storing opening times of org buffers using some hook and using that.) By the way, the function directory-files-recursively takes 1.5 s to search my (huge) work directory for org files. Using shell-command-to-string to launch the 'find' shell command takes only 0.2 s. Christoph signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [O] Temporarily setting agenda files list, cleaning up
Christoph Groth wrote at 14:04 on May 27, 2019: : Instead, I imagine a custom Emacs command to launch an agenda with : org-agenda-files that is temporarily set to a list of files that depends : on the current context. For starters, this list could contain all the : org files under the current directory: This will use a private set of 'org-agenda-files and kill their buffers after executing `org-agenda-list': (defun Groth/agenda-list ( dir) (interactive) (let* ((project-dir (or dir default-directory)) (org-agenda-files (directory-files-recursively project-dir "\\.org$")) tmp-agenda-buffer) (unwind-protect ;; FIXME: set org-agenda-list args as necessary: ARG START-DAY SPAN WITH-HOUR) (org-agenda-list) (mapc (lambda (f) (and (setq tmp-agenda-buffer (find-buffer-visiting f)) (kill-buffer tmp-agenda-buffer))) org-agenda-files Call it like this: M-x Groth/agenda-list or eval (Groth/agenda-list "/path/to/dir") I just whipped this up and it might need improvements such as optional prompting for a search directory and a set of arguments to `org-agenda-list' that fit your needs (refer to its docstring). Note that buffers for files on the old value of 'org-agenda-files that are already open will be killed, too. Regards Thomas
Re: [O] Temporarily setting agenda files list, cleaning up
For running code that should close all buffers that were opened, I use a macro like this: (defmacro with-no-new-buffers ( body) "Run BODY, and kill any new buffers created. Returns whatever BODY would return." (let ((current-buffers (buffer-list))) `(prog1 (progn ,@body) (mapc (lambda (buf) (unless (-contains? ',current-buffers buf) (kill-buffer buf))) (buffer-list) For the other kinds of things you listed, check out https://github.com/jkitchin/scimax/blob/master/scimax-notebook.org, especially the nb-agenda function. It is more than you want, you can choose a project, and then get an agenda for the org-files in that project. Another example is at https://github.com/jkitchin/scimax/blob/master/scimax-journal.el#L284 where I get an agenda for journal entries in a date range. You can use this idea generally, you let-bind the org-agenda-files variable to be the list you want, and then call org-agenda. These are a work in progress, but I use them pretty often. You can restrict the agenda to a file, and even select search with something like this: (org-agenda nil "s" "<") John --- Professor John Kitchin Doherty Hall A207F Department of Chemical Engineering Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 412-268-7803 @johnkitchin http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu On Mon, May 27, 2019 at 8:11 AM Christoph Groth wrote: > Hello, > > I would like to expand my use of Org for notes, and to this end spread > project-specific org files across my home directory (currently I'm using > a central directory with one agenda file per year). For obvious > reasons, I can't possibly include all these org files in > org-agenda-files permanently and have them open in Emacs all the time. > > Instead, I'm thinking of a setup as follows: I'll reserve > org-agenda-files for active projects only. But there will be many other > org files (for projects that are finished or dormant, general notes, > etc.), that I would like to be able to search as well. > > I saw that some people have solved this problem with a custom search > solution, even using a database [1], but I think that for my purposes a > simpler solution mostly using Org's built-in functionality will do. I'm > also aware of org-agenda-text-search-extra-files, keeping all my extra > files there is not satisfactory, because the search possibilities are > limited (and otherwise it poses the same questions that I will ask > further below). > > Instead, I imagine a custom Emacs command to launch an agenda with > org-agenda-files that is temporarily set to a list of files that depends > on the current context. For starters, this list could contain all the > org files under the current directory: > > (split-string (shell-command-to-string "find `pwd`/* -name '*.org' -type > f") "\n" t) > > This way, I could easily explore the org files that belong to specific > subsets of my activities and interests. I could also search *all* my > notes, when needed (for now the time this takes should not be a > problem). > > I wonder if anyone has tried a similar setup and would be willing to > share his experience and ideas. Specifically, I wonder about the > following points: > > * Do you see any obvious problems with the above idea? > > * In Elisp, what is the best way to temporarily set org-agenda-files and > later reset it back to the standard value? > > * How to automatically close unneeded org buffers that were opened for > the temporarily agenda? The command org-agenda-exit is not > satisfactory, because it also kills the buffers that one has just > found due to the search, and also it's not automatic. Perhaps one > could close the buffers immediately once the agenda view has been > created? > > Thanks > Christoph > > [1] > https://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2017/01/03/Find-stuff-in-org-mode-anywhere/ >
[O] Temporarily setting agenda files list, cleaning up
Hello, I would like to expand my use of Org for notes, and to this end spread project-specific org files across my home directory (currently I'm using a central directory with one agenda file per year). For obvious reasons, I can't possibly include all these org files in org-agenda-files permanently and have them open in Emacs all the time. Instead, I'm thinking of a setup as follows: I'll reserve org-agenda-files for active projects only. But there will be many other org files (for projects that are finished or dormant, general notes, etc.), that I would like to be able to search as well. I saw that some people have solved this problem with a custom search solution, even using a database [1], but I think that for my purposes a simpler solution mostly using Org's built-in functionality will do. I'm also aware of org-agenda-text-search-extra-files, keeping all my extra files there is not satisfactory, because the search possibilities are limited (and otherwise it poses the same questions that I will ask further below). Instead, I imagine a custom Emacs command to launch an agenda with org-agenda-files that is temporarily set to a list of files that depends on the current context. For starters, this list could contain all the org files under the current directory: (split-string (shell-command-to-string "find `pwd`/* -name '*.org' -type f") "\n" t) This way, I could easily explore the org files that belong to specific subsets of my activities and interests. I could also search *all* my notes, when needed (for now the time this takes should not be a problem). I wonder if anyone has tried a similar setup and would be willing to share his experience and ideas. Specifically, I wonder about the following points: * Do you see any obvious problems with the above idea? * In Elisp, what is the best way to temporarily set org-agenda-files and later reset it back to the standard value? * How to automatically close unneeded org buffers that were opened for the temporarily agenda? The command org-agenda-exit is not satisfactory, because it also kills the buffers that one has just found due to the search, and also it's not automatic. Perhaps one could close the buffers immediately once the agenda view has been created? Thanks Christoph [1] https://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2017/01/03/Find-stuff-in-org-mode-anywhere/ signature.asc Description: PGP signature