Re: [Orgmode] Feature Request - Active and inactive links.

[Tim O'Callaghan]

On 11/12/2007, Bastien <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi Tim,
>
> thanks for the details.  I think I got confused because I couldn't
> understand what you mean by a link being "processed" when compiling
> the agenda.  Now I understand that it means some kind of inclusion.
>
> So the issue seems twofold:
>
> 1. the first issue is about *including* external Org files (or other
>    external resources, although I'm not sure to understand what does
>    that mean);
>

Yes and no. by *including* external resources i was thinking
remote org files, and things (local or remote) that can be
converted into something usable by org Agenda (only an org file
AFAIK). I use an Ical URL as an example because i use google
calendar, but the Ical link could be local. Or it could be a
nag, remind, an outlook export or whatever.

> 2. the second issue is that of *processing* links to external resources
>    when using your Org file as a source for other purposes (agenda view,
>    export, etc.)
>

Yes. My idea was essentially, when i ask org to create an agenda
buffer, it knows to auto-pull and process each all of these
active links, so as to be able to display them in my Agenda.

> I think both issues are very interesting but should be carefully (and
> maybe separately) thought.
>
> You're speaking about a link that would include the targeted Org file
> into the list of agenda files.  Then attaching meta-data to this link,
> you would control how the building of the agenda should process the link
> (adding category, etc.)
>
> Some example of what we could do:
>
> - a link to an Org file that should be considered part of the master
>   file (at any time: agenda view, export, etc.)  This could be a new
>   link type like "org:"
>
>   org:~/home/org/header.org
>

What is a Master file in this context?

> - a link to a file that should be included for specific export:
>
>   #+BEGIN_LaTeX
>   org:~/home/org/latex_footer.org
>   #+END_LaTeX
>
>   or maybe, if it's not ambiguous:
>
>   org:latex:~/home/org/latex_footer.org
>

Not quite. Though i can see how some might have use for the
export specific org file include.

> - a link to a file that should only be processed in agenda views:
>
>   org:agenda:~/home/org/other-todo.org
>
> - ... and maybe only for a specific agenda view
>
>   org:agenda:n~/home/org/other-todo.org ("n" being the name of the
>   command key in org-agenda-custom-commands)
>
> Where you thinking of something like that?
>

Something similar to the last one.

> I'm not sure on how to integrate your idea about specifying categories,
> and I doubt this is particularly relevant: the links already belong to
> entries that will be categorized.
>

Well the category is more like a category override. If you
consider an imported org: link that is not created by you, then
it may have a different flavor. The adding - or probably better
- superseding of category/meta information gives you the
knowledge needed to search for imported todos for example.

> I'm not sure although about your example with iCal.  Do you think it
> could fit with the picture above?
>

After thinking about it, for external resources, it would be
better to specify a new active link type per resource type
"Ical:" for example.  Also the meta data might be better if
specified per link type to or in the processing code.

> Thanks for this neat idea.  I'm sure we're getting somewhere...
>

Not sure how neat it is, but i know I'll use it :)

Tim.