[emacs-wiki-discuss] Re: Keeping tasks unique...

[Sacha Chua]

Jody Klymak <address@hidden> writes:

> I am having a heck of a time keeping my task list straight.  Either I
> miss a day of M-x plan and the tasks do not get carried forward from
> two days before (this happens all the time on the weekend).  

C-u M-x plan helps, although it scans quite a few pages.
I should have a M-x plan that takes a number of days to scan...
Ah, there.

(plan 3) should check three plan pages in the past.

> Or emacs dies for some reason and I run M-x plan a second time and
> get the same tasks written out twice.

This might be a good idea in your .emacs:

  (plan 3)
  (save-some-buffers t)
  (save-some-buffers t)

> So, two suggestions - first, can the task manipulation save the files
> it manipulates?  I sometimes just M-x plan and edit that file,

This could be expensive if we saved after every copy-or-move-task.

> Second, can tasks be kept in a separate data base so that they are
> not susceptible to weird corruption?   i.e. ActiveTasks
> #A0 _ Make IWEX routines other dirs {{Tasks:84}} (HomeLog) (2004.03.18)
> When task manipulation takes place this task is changed in both
> HomeLog and 2004.03.18.  When M-x plan is run, it is copied into the
> daily page if the data is 2004.03.18 or greater.  You could even
> leave the task on 2004.03.17 rather than moving it forward.  

Hmmmm. I think the problem here is that tasks sometimes end up on
several days if unsaved, and we need to correctly check when two day
pages have the same task. How can we do that?

2004.03.18:

#A0 _ Do something (TaskPool)

2004.03.19:

#A0 _ Do something (TaskPool)

TaskPool:

#A0 _ Do something (2004.03.18)
#A0 _ Do something (2004.03.19)

If tasks are duplicated, we want to:

- discard past tasks
- retain the task closest to the future

This is a situation that rarely occurs, so it's probably a good idea
to put it inside M-x planner-remove-duplicates. M-x
planner-remove-duplicates would be called from the buffer with
duplicate tasks--in this case, TaskPool. It should then

- compile a list of duplicated tasks
- determine which task should be retained
- delete duplicates

Okay. M-x planner-remove-duplicates in planner-experimental.el should
do what you want when invoked from the plan page with duplicate tasks.

-- 
Sacha Chua <address@hidden> - Ateneo CS faculty geekette
interests: emacs, gnu/linux, making computer science education fun
http://sacha.free.net.ph/ - PGP Key ID: BE2D08EC