As starting point we will generate a view from the agenda, calling emacs in batch mode. This is done using org-batch-agenda-csv macro. According to org-agenda.el documentation:
;;; Commentary:
;; This file contains the code for creating and using the Agenda for Org-mode. ;; ;; The functions `org-batch-agenda’, `org-batch-agenda-csv’, and ;; `org-batch-store-agenda-views’ are implemented as macros to provide ;; a convenient way for extracting agenda information from the command ;; line. The Lisp does not evaluate parameters of a macro call; thus ;; it is not necessary to quote the parameters passed to one of those ;; functions. E.g. you can write: ;; ;; emacs -batch -l ~/.emacs -eval ‘(org-batch-agenda “a” org-agenda-span 7)’ ;; ;; To export an agenda spanning 7 days. If `org-batch-agenda’ would ;; have been implemented as a regular function you’d have to quote the ;; symbol org-agenda-span. Moreover: To use a symbol as parameter ;; value you would have to double quote the symbol. ;; ;; This is a hack, but it works even when running Org byte-compiled.
So, we pass all parameters unquoted.
This command extracts the to tmp_agenda.csv the items that appear on your org-agenda, when you press letter “a”.
Make sure to define the full route to the timestamp-test1.org file or it will not work
emacs -batch -l ~/.emacs.d/init.el -eval '(org-batch-agenda-csv "a" org-agenda-span 3000 org-agenda-time-grid nil org-agenda-files (quote ("/Users/username/SET_YOUR_ROUTE/TO/org-timeline-viewer/timestamp-test1.org")))' > tmp_agenda.csvThe macro org-batch-agenda-csv doesn’t export the headers, so we must append that line to the front of the file. After several unsuccessful trials, we create a new file, write the headers and then append the previous export from emacs.
with open('tmp_agenda_with_headers.csv', mode='wt', encoding='utf-8') as headerfile:
headers = 'category,head,type,todo,tags,date,time,extra,priority-l,priority-n,agenda-day\n'
headerfile.write(headers)
with open('tmp_agenda.csv', mode='r', encoding='utf-8') as datafile:
for line in datafile:
headerfile.write(line)import pandas as pd
timeline = pd.read_csv('tmp_agenda_with_headers.csv', parse_dates=(['date','agenda-day']),index_col=False)Limitation: Dates must comply with ISO 8601 format. Right now, we can’t add any kind of intervals for times or dates. Pandas will complain and it won’t work.
Org doesn’t export end date by default, so we rename date as start_date, then add a day as save it as and end_date.
timeline.set_index('head')
timeline.rename(columns={'head':'heading','category':'orgfile','date':'start_date'}, inplace=True)
timeline['end_date'] = timeline['start_date'] + pd.Timedelta(days=1)
# TODO debug info to remove once this is settled down
timeline.info()
timeline.head()We will use python library plotly express to display a timeline that includes all given events. Visualization will open in a browser window.
# From plotly documentation
import plotly.express as px
fig = px.timeline(timeline, x_start = 'start_date', x_end ='end_date' ,y = 'heading',
title='Org timeline viewer - 10 days',
hover_data=['heading','start_date'],
color='type')
fig.update_xaxes(rangeslider_visible=True)
fig.show()None
This is the output of org-batch-agenda-csv macro.
The output gives a line for each selected agenda item. Each item is a list of comma-separated values, like this:
category,head,type,todo,tags,date,time,extra,priority-l,priority-n
category The category of the item head The headline, without TODO kwd, TAGS and PRIORITY type The type of the agenda entry, can be todo selected in TODO match tagsmatch selected in tags match diary imported from diary deadline a deadline on given date scheduled scheduled on given date timestamp entry has timestamp on given date closed entry was closed on given date upcoming-deadline warning about deadline past-scheduled forwarded scheduled item block entry has date block including g. date todo The todo keyword, if any tags All tags including inherited ones, separated by colons date The relevant date, like 2007-2-14 time The time, like 15:00-16:50 extra String with extra planning info priority-l The priority letter if any was given priority-n The computed numerical priority agenda-day The day in the agenda where this is listed”
This software is licensed under GPLv3 license.