The Org-mode TODO list

Table of Contents

• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 Nomenclature
• 2 Tasks
  • 2.1 Structure
  • 2.2 Agenda issues
  • 2.3 Links
  • 2.4 Fast update for external editing
  • 2.5 Tables
  • 2.6 Properties and Column View
  • 2.7 Compatibility issues
  • 2.8 Exporting
  • 2.9 Miscellaneous Stuff
• 3 Archive
  • 3.1 Archived Tasks

1 Introduction

This is a loose collection of ideas and TODO items for the future development of Org-mode. These ideas come from various sources, mostly from emacs-orgmode@gnu.org, from direct emails to me, or from my own day-dreaming. I don't always mention the source of an idea, out of laziness. However, when I implement a good idea, I try to mention the origin of this idea in the Acknowledgments section of the manual - let me know if I forgot to give you credit for something.

1.1 Nomenclature

On this page, I am using TODO keywords in the following way:

2 Tasks

2.1 Structure

• TODO Definition lists, like in Muse
  
• TODO Get rid of all the \r instances, which were used only for XEmacs.
  
• IDEA Should we allow #+TODO as an alias for #+SEQ_TODO?
  
• TODO proper visibility cycling for items
  Make them not hide the text after the final list item. This is not trivial, we cannot usenormal outline stuff, needs a separate implementaiton.
• IDEA allow different colors for different TODO keywords/tags.
  
• TODO Use an indirect buffer for org-goto.
  Is there a problem with the overriding map?
• WISH Inline TODO entries
  A way to put a TODO entry without starting a new section.

2.2 Agenda issues

• QUESTION COLUMN View
  is this safe, or could things be messed up with this?
• TODO Make S-right and S-left change TODO keywords
  Right now they change the time stamps. This could be M-left/right, but this could also cause inconsistencies, because when on a time stamp, the same keys do exactly this.
• WISH Make more modes changeable from the agenda
  These could be made available for toggling, just like follow-mode. Examples:
  • org-agenda-todo-list-sublevels
  • org-tags-match-list-sublevels
  • org-agenda-todo-ignore-scheduled
• IDEA Sort TODO entries according to type?
  This would apply for the list collection, not in the day entries. However, I could also have a TODO keyword criterion that could be used in the day entries, as one of the minor criteria.
• DECLINED Allow separators in the Tag-sorted agenda view
  This feature is not going to come, because block agendas can achieve the same thing.

2.3 Links

• WISH When editing links, give access to stored links.
  Not sure why this is needed. Idea from William Henney.
• WISH Variable of standard links for completion with C-c C-l
  Or something like that, to make standard links fast.
• WISH Make brackets in links possible
  Would require a display property also for the label part of links.
• IDEA Find all links to a specific file
  
• IDEA Make info HTML links work for links to Info files
  Info links of course only work inside Emacs. However, many info documents are on the web, so the HTML exporter could try to be smart and convert an Info link into the corresponding link on the web. For example, we could use the GNU software site then Name.HTML. Here is the link to be used: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/ Another question is, is this URL going to be stable so that it makes sense to actually put this into org.el?
• IDEA Make news HTML links work, using Google.
  I can use Google groups with a message id to find a USENET message, even if the original link points to gnus.
• TODO Remove irretrievable links from published HTML output
  This is on David's table, and he will hopefully integrate a mechanism for this into org-publish.el. The discussion about this was started by Austin Frank
• DECLINED Agenda collections, based on #+COLLECTION lines.
  Tim Callaghan started the discussion on this one. Declined because this would depend on local variables and the agenda commands are global. Also, this can actually be done by specifying the file list in a custom agenda command.
• DECLINED Make CamelCase words link to corresponding org-mode files.
  Files in the same directory. Or some other way to easy do that. Would be useful for publishing projects. This would be an incompatible change, but I don't think anyone is using CamelCase anyway? This is marked declined, because link abbreviations now provide an easy way to make links to other files.
• TODO Document the character protection in links
  I don't think this is really covered anywhere. Maybe we also should protect characters in the visible part, to make sure thing will never be on two lines...?
• WISH Radio targets across files
  I guess each org file could write a .orgtargets.filename file, if it has any radio targets.

2.4 DECLINED Fast update for external editing

Could I use a dynamic block for this?

2.5 Tables

• WISH Row formulas
  @4=.....
• TODO Write a tutorial
  Demonstrate running averages.
• WISH Make a variable that current line should be recomputed always
  in each table, skipping headers of course.
• TODO Allow a table to locally change the unit system
  This is for using constants.el. Well, it is now possible to do this for the file, is this enough???
• QUESTION Does inserting hlines change references correctly?
  
• WISH Interactive way to get a converted table?
  
• BUG When computing in a narrowed column, this may go wrong.
  Computing changes fields and does not yet see correctly if the column width has changed, in the case of a narrowed column.
• DECLINED Alternative for the implementation of orgtbl-minor-mode:
  I could use post-command-hook to set the variable orgtbl-mode. I will not do this now and only consider it if problems show up.
• DECLINED Table info lines are not necessarily comments in orgtbl-mode
  Should I generalize this? No, because the table itself will not be in the correct syntax for whatever mode.
• DECLINED S-cursor motion to select part of a table, with proper highlighting.
  Similar to CUA

2.6 Properties and Column View

• TODO Mouse support for selecting values
  This could/should be part of org-mouse.el.
  • [X] tags
  • [X] todo
  • [X] priority
  • [X] allowed values
  • [X] deadline
  • [X] scheduled.
• BUG We have no clear view on what to do with properties upon export.
  

2.7 Compatibility issues

• Emacs 21 compatibility
  This is being phased out. Almost everything works under Emacs 21, but in the future I wwill make little effort to support it.
  • DECLINED Column view does not yet work for Emacs 21s.
    Declined, because I don't know how to do this. Too many problems.
• XEmacs compatibility
  
  • QUESTION Is there an issue with the coding system of HTML exported files?
    In the code I used to have a comment saying that

      (and (fboundp 'coding-system-get)
           (boundp 'buffer-file-coding-system)
                     buffer-file-coding-system))
    

    always returns nil, implicating that setting the coding system for the export buffer would not work correctly. however, I have never followed up on this and never had a bug report - so I am wondering if there is an issue at all.
  • DECLINED Column view does not yet work for XEmacs.
    Declined, because I don't know how to do this. Too many problems.
  • DECLINED Rewrite the `format' function
    To make narrowing work under XEmacs, I would need to write a version of format that does transport text properties, or I would have to rework narrowing entirely. Unlikely that this will happen, mainly because it is working in Emacs and so does not bother me personally so much. Anyway, I don't know if people are actually using narrowing very much at all.

2.8 Exporting

• IDEA Convert links to footnotes for ASCII export.
  
• DECLINED Store LaTeX code as HTML comments
  Declined because I don't really see the need for this.
• IDEA Microformats
  Nic Ferrier has been pushing this agenda for a long time, for example with this email. I am not deep enough into the semantic web that I could do this myself. Maybe we can do this by modifying the html exporter step-by-step?
• INCONSISTENCY Find a better place for formatting checkboxes
  Right now this is being done as part of `org-html-expand', which does not seem logically correct.
• DECLINED Can I make the exporter more efficient?
  The line-by-line processing may not be the fastest way to do this. It certainly uses more resources. Right now the exporters do work though, so it is unlikely that I am going to change this.
• DECLINED CSV import/export of tables?
  I remember this coming up several times, for example in emails from Niels Giesen and Tim Callaghan. Org-mode does have Tab-separated export of tables, so right now I don't really see the benefit of adding CSV export. Are there applications that do not understand tab-separated files, but do understand comma-separated ones?
• DECLINED In HTML export, make links from the time stamps
  Time stamps have their own class now which allows to highlight them etc. But I was wondering if something more useful could be done with them, like a link to some kind of calendar...

2.9 Miscellaneous Stuff

• TODO reinstating a repeated item: keyword for logging.
  
• BUG Comments cannot be filled
  
• DECLINED HAVE a TIME 3:55 line collecting CLOCK results
  The CLOCK lines could be there in addition, or could even be removed, so that only one line is kept.
• IDEA New uses for C-c C-c
  
  • Compute time interval on time range
  • Update CLOCK interval
• QUESTION Fix more beginning-of-line commands
  Org-mode re-binds C-a to make this command go to the beginning of a visible line. There are other keys which might invoke C-a. Should these keys be changed as well? one could use `substitute-key-definition' on the global map to find them all.
• QUESTION Inlining of images in Org-mode files
  
• TODO Fixup outline-magic.el, so that it can be used.
  
• TODO Use the new argument of bibtex-url
  Roland Winkler was kind enough to implement a new argument to the `bibtex-url' command that allows me to retrieve the corresponding URL, whether it is taken from a URL field or constructed in some clever way. Currently I am not using this, because too many people use an old Emacs version which does not have this. however, eventually I will implement this.
• WISH Get people to write articles about how to do GTD with Org-mode.
  There is now one by Charles Cave, read it here
• IDEA Tree statistics
  A key that can be applied to a tree, showing statistics:
  • how many headlines
  • how many TODO
  • how many DONE
  • Checkboxes
  • etc....
• QUESTION Do we need a 43 folders implementation?
  That could easily be done in an org-mode file. But then, maybe this should really be a paper thing.
• Priorities
  Here is some information about priorities, which is not yet documented.
  • Priorities
    

        TODO entries: 1 or 1,2,...
        DEADLINE is 10-ddays, i.e. it is 10 on the due day
                              i.e. it goes above top todo stuff 7 days
                                   before due
        SCHEDULED is 5-ddays, i.e. it is 5 on the due date
                              i.e. it goes above top todo on the due day
        TIMESTAMP is 0        i.e. always at bottom
                              but as a deadline it is 100
                              but if scheduled it is 99
        TIMERANGE is 0        i.e. always at bottom
        DIARY is 0            i.e. always at bottom
    
        Priority * 1000
    
    

• INCONSISTENCY: items don't grow/shrink due to promotion.
  In plain lists, multiple demote/promote commands executed directly after each other don't change the scope of the command - the initially selected text continues to be selected. This is inconsistent with the behavior of outline sections, were the subtree for promotion/demotion is newly defined after each command. Which convention is better? Should this be consistent between trees and plain lists?
• INCONSISTENCY: M-TAB does not work on plain lists. Why???
  
• QUESTION grep on directory does not yet work.
  I am actually not sure, I might have addressed this already, but my memory is failing me. Needs some checking.
• DECLINED Think about Piotr's idea of treating TODO like a TAG.
  The answer is probably NO because the simple part of TODO must still be there and I like the keyword at the beginning of the line, just like a checkbox. Of course you can make a TODO tag yourself at any time.
• DECLINED Inlining of external files
  
• DECLINED Should TAB on TODO keyword rotate its state?
  Problem: If the keyword disappears, it will suddenly start to fold.... So my feeling right now is that the answer should be NO.

  No, because S-left/right does this already pretty well

• DECLINED Create a DONE counter in the mode line
  That counter shows what faction of entries has been marked DONE. I am not yet sure how useful such a thing would be, because of the huge number of entries that can be in a file, and the different weight of such entries. Declined because we do now have counters for checkboxes, and the feeling is that this is not so useful for TODOs.

3 Archive

3.1 Archived Tasks

• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:15) Commands to move through an item list
  next item, previous item. What should happen at the boundaries of the current list?
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:16) Force relative links, would this be useful?
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:16) Fix empty search string.
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:16) STARTUP options for logging
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:16) Make a variable for Pete, to have SCHEDULED at point
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:16) Fix ASCII export of narrowed columns
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:16) org-file-apps should allow regular expressions
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:16) fix problem with w32- versus mswindows-....
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Document that font-lock-mode is needed
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Add keyboard access and menu commands for org-project.el
  C-c C-x C-p or something like that. In the menu, it goes under export, or even its own group.
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Document those new keys in orgcard.tex
  C-c C-x C-p or something like that. In the menu, it goes under export, or even its own group.
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Remove SCHEDULED keyword when marking it done.
  in particular when adding a CLOSED timestamp. Only problem is that when unclosing it, it should be scheduled again
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Don't show tasks already scheduled for the future, only stuff which
  is not yet scheduled.
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Put title and tags in separate classes
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Option to leave out TAGS from export
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Option to leave out Timestamps from export
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Checkable items like Frank Ruell's proposal
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Classify Keywords and time stamps
  <span class="keyword">SCHEDULED: </span><span class="timestamp">timestamp goes here</span><br>
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Change default for include-all-todo to nil
  
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Specify TAGS in a special line instead of collecting them dynamically
  The could help to avoid typos and could be faster for very large files.
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Some much faster interface for setting tags.
  Basically, use single keys to add/remove tags from the list. Also for this the idea to define tags in a special line would be good, in order to have a way to define the shortcuts.
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) Remove date stamps from headline if they are not needed.
  Bug report from Scott.
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:17) : Maybe s-up/down should change priorities only in headlines
  Right now this works wherever the cursor is. If this is changed, should S-up or S-down do something else?
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:21) Need a command to remove tabulators from a line.
  Use this in ASCII export, to make sure we get the indentation right.
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 09:24) Improve tab in org-cycle:
  
  • there is a bug when the setting is 'white: It requires a non-empty white line!
  • There should be another setting to have tab be the tabulator in the white space at the beginning of the line.
  • Finally, when TAB closes an entry, maybe it should go beck to the beginning of the entry??? On the other hand, it is good to be able to go back to the old place with just another tab.
• DONE( 2006-06-01 Thu 11:48) Include TAGS into sorting.
  But what strategy should be used when there are several tags?
• DONE( 2006-06-06 Tue 10:15) Archiving an entry in current buffer goes to end of file
  Should go to end of subtree. This is done now, and I also control the amount of empty lines created by the archiving process in general.
• DONE( 2006-06-06 Tue 10:16) Narrowing agenda to current files does not work as advertized.
  C-c a 1 t should make the TODO list for the current file, but does not.
• DONE( 2006-06-06 Tue 10:17) Radio TAGS for the fast tag interface.
  Make lists of tags that are mutually exclusive. So when I turn on @HOME, @WORK would be turned off automagically. A good syntax for defining these groups in the #+TAGS line would be:

   #+TAGS: [@WORK(w) @HOME(h) @CLUB(c)] Laptop(l) PC(p) Car(r)
  

  This could indicate that @WORK, @HOME, @CLUB are mutually exclusive.

  If I do this, I will also need a syntax for the global alist to indicate the same thing.

  It seems to me that with such grouping of tags, sorting would be useful as it would improve the overview over the current tags. I might even be able to support mutually exclusive tags with fontification in the interface. Or arrange things such that the mutually exclusive ones are all in the same row or column, to optimize the visual feedback.

  For the internal format, I think best would be something like

   '( (:startgroup) ("@work") ("@home") ("@club") (:endgroup)
      ("Laptop") ("PC") ("Car"))
  

  This setup makes sure that assoc and rassoc still do work as expected.

• DONE( 2006-06-06 Tue 10:17) Should tags be sorted in a certain way?
  Right now, you can either set the tag sequence yourself through the completion interface. If you use the fast tag selection interface, the tag sequence depends on the order in which tags are selected and deselected. maybe a specific roder would be useful for example the same order as the one given in the configuration?
• DONE( 2006-06-06 Tue 10:17) Remove narrowing cookies for export
  Exported tables should not show narrowing cookies. In fact, if a table line does contain nothing but narrowing cookies, the entire line should be removed.
• DONE( 2006-06-11 Sun 07:32) Track working times similar to time-clock.el
  This was proposed by David O'Toole in an email to emacs-orgmode@gnu.org. He wants to be able to know the times when he worked at a particular project. Some reporting possibility would be needed to make this useful. Maybe sparse trees with broken-down working times?
• DONE( 2006-06-15 Thu 13:35) Make org-store-link do better in image-mode buffers
  Just link to the file.
• DONE( 2006-06-15 Thu 13:35) Use a ported version of noutline.el
  Programming the old outline-mode is really a nightmare - the new outline mode that uses invisibility properties instead of selective display works really much much better. There is now an experimental port by Greg Chernov, so when I find time I will try if this works well. If yes, this port should become part of XEmacs. Once that happens, I could remove a large amount of ballast from org.el
• DONE( 2006-06-15 Thu 13:35) Verify links during export
  
• DONE( 2006-09-25 Mon 16:11) Allow counting checkboxes
  Then some statistics should be displayed. One idea is for checkboxes, to use a special box [%] which will be updated with percent of done. I could have an alternative [/] that will be updated with something like [19/25] to show progress, and when the two numbers are equal, I could highlight then in DONE face, just like [100%]. All smaller numbers could be highlighted even in TODO face if I wanted. Hmmm, I am beginning to like this.

  Then: how to update this? Each time a checkbox is added or toggled, go up and update all the counts, right up to something which is not an item, or up to the previous header line.

  Maybe I should also make an option for turning this on, to avoid slowdown. I guess for long lists this could be slow.

  Also would need a command for global update.

  An maybe plain list and checkboxes should get their own chapter? In Structure they seem to be a bit hidden.....

  Also a menu sublist...

• DONE( 2006-09-25 Mon 16:11) Allow stacking calls to org-occur
  This was a proposal from Piotr. It is now possible, the second and subsequent calls to org-occur need a prefix argument to keep the previous highlights.
• DONE( 2006-09-25 Mon 16:12) Create a hook to be run after an agenda buffer has been finalized.
  
• DONE( 2006-09-25 Mon 16:12) Include TAGS into sorting.
  But what strategy should be used when there are several tags?
• DONE( 2006-09-25 Mon 16:12) Fixup tag display in agenda buffer.
  The tabs mess up everything. Either remove the tabs, or realign the tags to some useful column.
• DONE( 2006-09-25 Mon 16:12) Blocks in agenda:
  Make a single agenda buffer that contains several sets of items, like the TODO list, a tags list, and a day view. Not a bad idea. This was Piotr's idea.
• DONE( 2006-09-25 Mon 16:12) Make org-store-link do the right thing in dired-mode
  
• DONE( 2006-11-02 Thu 10:24) Control over windows being used for agenda and related buffers    NEW
  
• DONE( 2007-01-24 Wed 12:59) Extend access to table fields
  Find a general way to get any rectangular region into a calc vector
• DONE( 2007-01-24 Wed 12:59) Allow links to remote images to be inlined.
  
• DONE( 2007-01-24 Wed 12:59) M-TAB on an already complete tag should add the ":"
  
• DONE( 2007-01-24 Wed 13:07) Need a command to do show hierarchy after isearch.
  Maybe automatically, using isearch-mode-end-hook. But this does not seem to work, because to is called before the overlays are re-installed. I can create a new hook, isearch-exit-hook, run in `isearch-exit'.
• DONE( 2007-02-18 Sun 07:16) hook for users to do their own agenda lists
  New function dumping headline into the agenda buffer, based on regexp and callback, to allow general stuff. For the special tags, we can search for one and check for the others using the callback.
• DONE( 2007-02-18 Sun 07:37) Make C-c C-l also work on a plain link, converting it into bracket.
  
• DONE( 2007-02-18 Sun 07:37) GNUS <gnus:mail.general#123> stuff should be "Email from:..."
  
• DONE( 2007-02-18 Sun 07:38) Email/message context: What format?
  I can think of two good formats for this:

   Email from John Smith   (if I an the receiver)
   Email to John Smith     (if I am the author)
  

  or

   John Smith on: Some subject     (this is the current Org-mode default.)
  

  The first format requires better parsing of the messages (to get both author and receiver names), and also some way to detect if I am the author of this email or not.
• DONE( 2007-02-21 Wed 12:04) Allow internal links to match inside other link
  Only the link itself that actually triggered the search.
• DONE( 2007-02-21 Wed 12:07) Allow fully protected HTML code that will be exported as is
  Currently, <...> works only for simple tags, and I think we should have something better. Idea: Text between <protecthtml> and </protecthtml>, mark it with a text property and then exclude each match in the run preparing the export. I guess I could require these at the beginning of the line, like

  or something like that.......

• DONE( 2007-03-13 Tue 05:19) Make it possible to set TOC levels independently of headline levels
  The easiest way to do this would obviously be to allow a number setting for the tco switch, not only a simple t/nil switch. This can be nice for webpages: One could have only top-level or level 1 and 2 in the toc at the beginning of the page, and then still a more complex structure below.
• DONE( 2007-03-13 Tue 05:20) Filling is not done in a compatible way.
  The current setup used the Emacs variables and machine to get the filling of plain lists and everything lese right. XEmacs uses the filladapt package, which has different ways to do the same things. org.el should be smart about this and setup filling under XEmacs correctly.
• DONE( 2007-06-06 Wed 17:44) Repeating Schedules?
  Dieter Grollman requested this feature, but for now I have decided not to do anything about it. I don't see a good way to implement this, and I believe that cyclic diary entries are good enough for such tasks.
• DONE( 2007-06-14 Thu 13:16) improve item indentation when promoting and demoting
  
• DONE( 2007-06-14 Thu 13:17) The TODO buffer lists possible TODO keywords
  These are taken from the current buffer, so when multiple buffers are involved, this list may not be correct.....
• DONE( 2007-06-14 Thu 13:20) Conflict between bold emphasis and headlines
  At the beginning of a line, Org-mode does not know if bold is a headline or an emphasis. This will not be easy to fix. The way to do ii is to require a space after the star in headlines. This requires to change outline-regexp, outline-level, the many many times when outline regexp is used in the program, and also the countless times when I am simply matching th stars directly.
• DONE C-c - for cycling bullet types.
  ARCHIVED: 2007-07-02 Mon
  
• DONE improve what TAB does with new item
  ARCHIVED: 2007-07-02 Mon
  same or additional indentation????
• DONE Make it easier to do monthly agendas, and agendas for ranges
  ARCHIVED: 2007-07-02 Mon
  
• DONE Introduce a LOCATION keyword
  ARCHIVED: 2007-07-02 Mon
  similar to DEADLINE and SCHEDULED Idea from Bastien This could be done now using properties, I don't think we need a special thing for this anymore.
• DONE Times/date not always removed in agenda lines
  ARCHIVED: 2007-07-02 Mon
  Even when org-agenda-remove-times-when-in-prefix is set, there seem to be cases where this does not work. I forgot what the example was - does anyone remember?
• DONE Links are still highlighted in fixed-width environments.
  ARCHIVED: 2007-07-02 Mon
  This ties in with the problem that there is no way to have protected HTML code in the file.

Author: Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>

Date: 2007/07/10 10:35:08