[Orgmode] Re: org-capture question/suggestion

[Sébastien Vauban]

Hi Tassilo,

Tassilo Horn wrote:
> as already said, I really like the new org-capture interface. But there's
> one thing concerning the templates, which might be optimized a bit.
>
> I want to add certain information accessible with template escapes as
> properties. So as an example, I have a template like this:
>
>  ("t" "TODO" entry
>   (file "/home/horn/repos/org/remember.org")
>   "* TODO %?\n  :PROPERTIES:\n  :created: %U\n  :link: %a\n  :END:\n  %i")
>
> The creation date %U is always there, so that's no problem. But the link
> accessible with %a may be nil. Then, I really don't want to have a :link:
> property. Currently, I simply delete that line before filing the item.
> That's a bit inconvenient,

The same applies (or, applied) for me with Bernt's config for clocking
automatically when editing a task/note/etc. via the (old) remember interface:
when it lasted for less than one minute, the `CLOCK' line disappeared (thanks
to `org-clock-out-remove-zero-time-clocks'), but `:LOGBOOK:' and `:END:'
stayed:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
* Task added via remember
  :LOGBOOK:
  :END:
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---


> and that I have to deal with indentation in the template is another
> inconvenience.

Regarding indentation, it is the same when a region is preselected: the first
line of the region is correctly indented; others, not. What would be nice is
that every line of the region would be prefixed by the same amount of spaces.


> And it won't work when my capture template doesn't create a new entry, but
> appends to an existing one. In that case, properties should be appended to
> existing properties, too.

Just for me to understand, what would you expect when you say that properties
should be appended?

- multiple creation dates?
- multiple links?

Maybe, even, you would want different behaviors for the different properties?

- creation dates not "append-able": the first one is kept?
- links appended in sequence?


> So what I would love to see was a possibility to have property escapes,
> which use the property API and only add properties that have a value. Then
> the property API would handle the correct indentation and everything else.
>
> Maybe, a good syntax would be %:propname:X, where X is one of the normal
> escapes without the leading %. Then I could write the template above like
> that:
>
>  ("t" "TODO" entry
>   (file "/home/horn/repos/org/remember.org")
>   "* TODO %?\n  %i %:created:U %:link:a")
>
> Well, I don't really care about the syntax. Maybe it's better to specify
> properties outside the template, because they won't be inserted at the exact
> position defined in the template anyway, especially if type is not 'entry.
> So how about something like that:
>
>  ("t" "TODO" entry
>   (file "/home/horn/repos/org/remember.org")
>   "* TODO %?\n  %i"
>   :properties (("created" "%U")
>                ("link"    "%a")))
>
> What do you think?

Interesting..

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sébastien Vauban