Re: [O] enhancements for org-agenda-to-appt

[Daniel Clemente]

Hi,
  I would find very useful your improvements to appt.

  I also think that appt needs to be a bit more intrusive. I once missed an 
appointment because appt didn't notify me about it (or notified me but didn't 
ask for my acknowledgement).
  Something I missed was a clear interface which said which notifications were 
still pending and which were already emitted. With that you would be certain 
that in some hours you will get the notifications you expect.


  Some comments to your ideas:


> Here the details, in the order of priority:
> 
>  1.) Warning period should be taken from timestamp
>      That means, that the warntime must be passed to appt-add.
> 
>  2.) Warning period in hours and minutes
>      "-3h" for 3 hours or "-10M" for 10 minutes should be possible.
> 

  Do you really need to extend the org-mode timestamp format?
  There may be other ways to do that without extending the org-mode timestamp 
format.
  Like deciding acording to priority, for instance.: [#A] are to be notified 1 
hour before, [#B] 30 minutes before and [#C] 10 minutes
  But the extended timestamp format would be much more useful.


>  3.) Notification must continue when timestamp is past
>      Perhaps, the notification should be even more aggressive, when a task
>      is overdue.
> 

  I totally agree, as I said. More important than that is that appt should 
record whether the user acknowledget the notification or not, and remind him 
differently. E.g. „you should have finished this a long ago“ vs. „I'm tryingi 
to notify you this since a long ago“.

>  4.) Easy modification of timestamps
>      Often I get notified, that a task has to be done now, but the most
>      obvious and easiest solution for me is: just do it tomorrow!
>      Thus, when point is on a deadline line, M-right should advance the
>      time by 1d, C-right by 1h, or similar.
>      Decrementing with M-left and C-left should be possible too, but will
>      surely be used less often... ;)
> 

  I think you can already do that with „bulk scheduling“ from the agenda. Key: 
m m m B s
  Doing this from the notification window would to people „skipping“ reminders. 
(See the program workrave for a similar situation in which you can skip 
reminders).

>  5.) org-check-deadlines must consider hours and minutes
>      It should be possible, to show only overdue deadlines, even if they
>      are overdue since 5 minutes.
> 
>  6.) Timestamps with hours and minutes
>      When adding deadlines or schedules, there should be also the time,
>      not only the date.
> 
  How often would you need to synchronize org and appt in order to be so 
precise? Should it be automatic?

>  7.) Switch from "todo" to "done" by clicking on the notification window
>      When using `notifications-notify' this should be possible with the
>      `:on-action' parameter.
> 
  I would prefer the window to open an emacsclient window pointing to the task 
in order to close it myself and write a conclusion, all inside Emacs.

>  8.) Configurable notification types
>      For example:
>      - email
>      - notifications-notify
>      - emacs-window (like the default in appt.el)
>      - custom function
> 
  Suggestion: a variable which maps "some_tags_combination" → action
  Then you „configure“ your tasks with tags, and then decide on how to notify 
each type of task.

  You can use the same task selection syntax as org-agenda-custom-commands, 
which allows to search for certain todo states, certain tags and certain 
properties.
  I have a todo state for the really important tasks and another one for the 
„it would be nice“ tasks; the latter are scheduled but don't require 
notification (I have more than 200 pendings tasks, that would make too many 
notifications).

>  9.) Configurable notification period
>      How often the notification function must be called (once per day,
>      once per minute, etc...)
> 
   Or even: each time that a task is scheduled or a timestamp is changed in 
org. Maybe this slows things down, but it would almoust guarantee real-time 
synchronization between org and appt

> 10.) Configurable notification duration
>      This applies only for emacs-window and notifications-notify: how
>      long must the notification be visible.
> 
   And ask for acknowledgment!
   It's also interesting to foresee what will happen when an unacknowledged 
notification waits for too long and another one comes up.

> 11.) Crescendo notifications
>      Imagine, deadline is in 10 days. So a silent notification once or
>      twice per day, saying it's time to begin to work, could be nice.
>      But when time is getting shorter, only one hour left, bells will
>      ring and the whole screen will blink red and green...
> 

   See also program workrave. If you don't follow its advice to take a rest for 
a while, it toots a horn which makes you feel somewhat guilty…
   A good feature though.


   
   Best of luck,

Daniel