Show free time in the agenda

[gerazov]

Does this feature exist in Emacs orgmode core?

Yes

Orgmode link

It seems to be built-in in e-macs.

Feature value

It's really helpful when scheduling to-dos. And it doesn't need to crowd the agenda as in the printscreen above, i.e. a single dotted line between non-adjacent tasks would be really helpful 👍

[kristijanhusak]

It's this option: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/org/Time_002dof_002dday-specifications.html

I find it a bit annoying to be honest, but I guess someone can find it useful.

[gerazov]

Yeah it could be less obtrusive - a single line or smth, just to let you find a free time slot at a glimpse of the eye. Atm you have to check end times vs start times across the agenda ...

[kristijanhusak]

I'm not sure I understand how you mean to show only a single line?

[gerazov]

Smth like

[kristijanhusak]

Is it configurable like this in the emacs itself or you just "draw" it for purposes of showing it to me? When I implement this (not sure when it will happen), it will follow the emacs orgmode functionality, which is he first screenshot I guess.

[gerazov]

I haven't used e-macs ...

[kristijanhusak]

Ah, ok. I just saw that dates in the screenshot are from 20219 😄 When it gets implemented, it will be as on the first screenshot, if that helps you at this moment at all.

[gerazov]

Sure - awesome 🤟

[jgollenz]

@kristijanhusak

I've started working on this. Currently, the AgendaView is built from AgendaItems. Those separators required for the time grid 'are' AgendaItems, but they definitely don't check all the boxes required for an AgendaItem. They don't have a real headline, but e.g. build_agenda_item_content expects the item to have one. Now, how do we deal with this? Especially since we may move to Teal.

Do we want some kind of SeparatorItem type or should AgendaItem be modified to allow for more flexibility? Something like AgendaItem:newSeparator? Shall I 'spoof' an AgendaItem somehow?

[kristijanhusak]

Something like AgendaItem:newSeparator

Go with this. I would treat these as agenda items, even though they are not a real headline.

[gerazov]

@jgollenz thanks for picking this one up 🙏

It would be great if the free time is collapsible like in the second screenshot. This would avoid spamming the agenda if there are only a few scheduled items.

[jgollenz]

You're welcome 👍

It would be great if the free time is collapsible

This sounds like a nice idea. However, it doesn't seem to be part of emacs orgmode. But it might be a case for a custom agenda view. For now, I'll focus on getting the default behavior right

[gerazov]

We could improve on emacs if it makes sense 🤔

[jgollenz]

Agreed, but there are still a lot of things from the core we are missing. Those have higher prio for me ;)

[gerazov]

Ok, only if it's easy then 🙂

In my workflow I'm not really missing much functionality so I guessed we're nearing v1.0 😎

[jgollenz]

Unfortunately we don't have a proper roadmap, so 'v1.0' isn't really defined :/

[cvigilv]

Any new insights into this? This is a feature of Orgmode that is pretty useful for scheduling and time-blocking. In Emacs, the option is org-agenda-time-grid (source). I'm unsure if this could be implemented with the current API. If possible, let me know and I could come up with a small PR to implement this functionality.