From: Hadron <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Planner-el-discuss] Muse/Planner - how to change project Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:21:55 +1300
> Tim Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > From: Hadron <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Subject: Re: [Planner-el-discuss] Muse/Planner - how to change project > > Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:43:33 +1300 > > > >> Tim Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> > >> > From: Hadron <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> > Subject: [Planner-el-discuss] Muse/Planner - how to change project > >> > Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:14:50 +1300 > >> > > >> >> > >> >> Could someone please advise on how best to change the current > >> >> muse/planner project? I have defined two in my > >> >> muse-project-alist. Should I define a function to change > >> >> planner-project? Is there not an function which can list current > >> >> available projects for selection? > >> >> > >> >> Again, thanks for any help and information. > >> >> > >> > > >> > have a look at some of the code in the contrib directory of the muse > >> > distribution. This will probably give you enough information to create > >> > such a > >> > function. I've done this and used this to guide me. However, please see > >> > my > >> > earlier posts and consider just working with the basic 'out of the box' > >> > configuration for a while. I think your really fighting the system > >> > rather than > >> > working with it. Play around with some of the customization stuff and > >> > get a > >> > feel for how all the different parts hang together. > >> > > >> > tim > >> > >> I understand what you are saying but multiple planner projects are a must > >> for me > >> before I commit fully to this. Muse "projects" are not an issue. > >> > >> Being able to swap between planner projects is definitely a must. > >> > >> I maintain several muse files, and have decided to keep these seperate > >> from the planner directories or all sorts of confusion arises - this is > >> fine. > >> > >> But a foolproof integrated way of switching between planner projects is > >> a must - however I dont feel my lisp is good enough especially since I dont > >> understand the program flow for the existing "insinuation" processes. > >> > >> Yes I could just maintain ONE planner directory but that wouldnt work > >> for me. I like to keep the tasks seperate especially since I wish to > >> publish them in different defaulted formats - its one of the reasons I > >> am looking into using planner. > >> > > > > Can you expand on why you need seperate planner projects? I have trouble > > understanding how you want this to work. Some issues which I'm not clear on > > how > > you plan to handle include - > > > > * Task Scheduling. If you have different planner projects, how will you get > > an > > overview of all the tasks you have scheduled. For example, I look at my > > day > > page and it has all the scheduled tasks I am currently working on for all > > projects. If/when I need to schedule a new task, I visit one of the > > project > > pages where I add all tasks as I think of them, but don't schedule until > > I'm > > ready to do it. I then select a task and do a C-c C-c to schedule it on a > > specific date etc. > > Scheduling is not an issue. > > Scheduled tasks will form part of my "Central" project. > > The other projects are totally disjoint and feature a lot of different > minor tasks many not even scheduled at all. > > > > > * How will you handle diary bookings? Will you simply reproduce the diary > > bookings for all appointments in each project day page or what? > > I might turn off diary completely since I dont see much of a benefit in > including them - but yes, diary elements are REAL appointments in real > time and so i would want them shown on all planner sheets. > > > > > To provide any real suggestions/guidance, I think we need more details on > > why > > you have to have seperate planner projects. to me, this concept is totally > > alien to the general concept of planning - its like having different diaries > > for different projects. Also, I don't see what you would put into > > these planner > > I would indeed maintain different diaries for different projects (as a > journal). > > > project directories. Essentially, planner has only two types of files, day > > planner (pages) files and one project file per project. the only way I can > > see > > what you are proposing working would be if you had the project files > > in their > > That is not what I am proposing. I dont want a centralised concatanated > project plan page. > > > own directories and have all projects use one centralised day page. However, > > then you would just end up with a lot of project directories with > > essentially > > one file - the project plan file, in them. > > No, I would want seperate plan pages providing the logical equivalent of > categories to further break down the indicidual projects. Each project > would have its master TaskPool for generic tasks and the auto generated > day page for tasks which have been scheduled. > > > > > If you plan to put other files in the directories, such as documentation on > > your project in muse format, then I'd say your really mixing up two > > different > > concepts - planning and project documentation. If nothing else, this > > just shows > > I had wanted to. Unfortunately though planner doesnt maintain its own > extension and so makes this difficult. Thus I will maintain > documentation/master docs seperate from the plan directories. > > > I don't follow what your requirements are. Perhaps if you outline the > > functionality and requirements you have as well as any constraints (with the > > justification/rationale underlying them), we may be able to make more useful > > suggestions. > > Thanks for your time and comments. > If I understand your requirements, I suspect planner-mode will not do what you want without considerable modification to the code. To some extent, your requirements don't fit with the underlying philosophy of planner mode. Essentially, planner mode is really just an electronic diary/planner on steroids that allows you to easily collate links to various information sources that are all related in some way. I get the impression you are after something more along the lines of a project management application. You might find "org-mode" fits with your requirements better. It has the advantage of being incorporated into emacs 22 as a part of the standard modes bundled with emacs. On some levels, it is quite a bit easier/simpler than planner mode because it works around a single file philosophy. One of the criticisms of planner mode is that the use of so many different files makes it fragile - making changes to one of the files manually can break things badly - likewise, moving/deleting files can break things as well. Personally, I don't see this as a problem, especially given the great functionality you get. However, I do nake sure I use planner functions to do things like modify tasks rather than editing the task line directly. I also modified how I work so that it fits with planner mode and allows me to take full advantage of the features offered. A second alternative would be to find various smaller individual elisp packages which do part of what you want which you could 'glue' together with some very basic/simple elisp. For example, there are quite simple modes for managing todo lists, simple project definitions, basic text markup and publishing to different formats (bhl-mode, muse-mode, etc). To some extent, this is how planner mode was put together - much of its functionality is derived from pre-existing modes that have been glued together - diary-mode, muse-mode, timclock.el, table-mode, etc. The second approach is also a good way to learn elisp. Anyone who really wants to leverage the power of emacs needs to learn elisp. Although this may seem daunting, elisp, like most lisp dialects, is a very very easy language to learn. the syntax is very simple and once you get the hang of it, you will be creating little bits of elisp to make life easier all the time. Of course, like most lisp dialects, while it is easy to learn, it takes considerable time to master. The good news is that you can achieve a hell of a lot with very simple code - you don't have to master the language before you start doing things that make life easier. the other advantage of the second approach is that you will likely come across some good ideas you can borrow/steal/modify for your own use and as time passes, you will refine your own requirements as you learn more about how you want to work, which of your ideas don't work and which ones need more thought. good luck, Tim _______________________________________________ Planner-el-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/planner-el-discuss
