Re: Is this proper time format?

[Ihor Radchenko]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

>> AFAIK, closed date intervals with time are currently not supported by
>> org-agenda. You can instead use diary sexp timestamps, a bunch of active
>> timestamps in the body, or M-x org-clone-subtree-with-time-shift
>
> "a bunch of active timestamps"?!?  Ooh!  I hadn't gotten the impression
> that that was allowed from the "Dates and Times" section of the manual.
> It always talked about "a timestamp" and it made sense to me that a task
> would only have one timestamp.  Can a statement be added to the manual
> to make this explicit?

How about the attached patch?

>From c2e91d5c2c88967b5fb28a077c3c7107a2622334 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
Message-Id: 
<c2e91d5c2c88967b5fb28a077c3c7107a2622334.1686219879.git.yantar92@posteo.net>
From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2023 13:22:45 +0300
Subject: [PATCH] doc/org-manual.org: Clarify how timestamps are considered by
 agenda

* doc/org-manual.org (Timestamps): Clarify that multiple timestamps
may be present under a heading.
(Weekly/daily agenda): Add footnote explaining how timestamps are
selected when building agenda views.

Reported-by: David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com>
Link: 
SJ0PR03MB5455C08FAD47C64F6EA7054CA252A@SJ0PR03MB5455.namprd03.prod.outlook.com">https://orgmode.org/list/SJ0PR03MB5455C08FAD47C64F6EA7054CA252A@SJ0PR03MB5455.namprd03.prod.outlook.com
---
 doc/org-manual.org | 9 +++++++--
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/org-manual.org b/doc/org-manual.org
index c11694849..3b54764ab 100644
--- a/doc/org-manual.org
+++ b/doc/org-manual.org
@@ -6002,7 +6002,8 @@ ** Timestamps
 =<2003-09-16 Tue 09:39>=[fn:19].  A timestamp can appear anywhere in
 the headline or body of an Org tree entry.  Its presence causes
 entries to be shown on specific dates in the agenda (see [[*Weekly/daily
-agenda]]).  We distinguish:
+agenda]]).  There can be more than one timestamp in each entry.  We
+distinguish:
 
 - Plain timestamp; Event; Appointment ::
 
@@ -8872,7 +8873,11 @@ *** Weekly/daily agenda
 #+cindex: daily agenda
 
 The purpose of the weekly/daily /agenda/ is to act like a page of
-a paper agenda, showing all the tasks for the current week or day.
+a paper agenda, showing all the tasks for the current week or day
+ [fn:: The tasks are displayed according to the contained timestamps.
+Agenda has a number of customizations that determine which timestamps
+are considered.  See =org-agenda-skip= and =org-agenda-daily/weekly=
+customization groups for the full list of customizations.].
 
 - {{{kbd(M-x org-agenda a)}}} (~org-agenda-list~) ::
 
-- 
2.40.0

> By closed date interval, I assume you mean "<time1>--<time2>".  That is
> mentioned in 8.1 of the manual. It's header is "Time/Date range", but it
> only talks about dates (no times) including in the example.

Handling of date intervals when TIME1/2 have time specifications is
undefined behaviour for now. And I am not in favour of making it defined -
we may consider using this semantics to define repeater intervals with
end date in future. That would allow what you attempted to do in the
original email, but using <2023-06-05 Mon 10:30-12:15>--<2023-06-08 Thu>
semantics. See https://orgmode.org/list/877cxp1fbx.fsf@localhost

> If times are allowed, then the paragraph could include a time example.
> If not, then the header should be changed and "timestamp" should be
> changed to "datestamp".

No. The same section talks about time range: <2006-11-02 Thu 10:00-12:00>

"Timestamp" is the general term we use. We make it explicit in the
parent section that timestamps may or may not have time specification:

    A timestamp is a specification of a date (possibly with a time) in a
    special format, either =<2003-09-16 Tue>= or
    =<2003-09-16 Tue 09:39>=

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
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