todo-mode: Legacy Todo Mode Files
13 Legacy Todo Mode Files
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Users of the original version of Todo mode will recognize from the
description in this user manual that, although the new version shares
with the original version the same basic user interface and handling of
todo items, there are some incompatible differences between them, such
as the done items sections (there are also other file format
incompatibilities behind the scenes that are normally not visible to
users).
The most significant incompatibility concerns the item prefix. In
the earlier version of Todo mode the prefix was the initial part of the
item string itself, so in order for the item to be displayable in the
Emacs diary, the prefix had to be a date/time pattern recognizable by
the diary (although the todo item also has its own date/time header).
Moreover, since all items had the same prefix string in the original
version, this means that either only all or no items could appear in the
Fancy Diary display on any given date. This considerably restricts the
practicality of including todo items in the diary. In contrast, the
current version of Todo mode uses overlays for item priority numbering
or prefixes, and item-specific diary-compatible date/time headers and
special marks for todo items to be excluded from the diary, so you can
determine for each item whether and when it appears in the Fancy Diary
display.
Due to these incompatibilities, files created with the original
version of Todo mode cannot be displayed or edited with the current
version. However, this version provides a function that converts the
two main types of files used by the original version into new-style
valid todo and archive files, respectively, and saves them in
‘todo-directory’.(1)
This conversion function is automatically called the first time you
invoke ‘todo-show’ (i.e., before you have created a todo file with the
new version), and if it finds the old-style files, it offers to convert
them, making them the first new-style todo and archive files. If you
choose not to convert the old-style files at this time, you can do so
later by invoking the command ‘todo-convert-legacy-files’ (there is no
key binding for it, since it shouldn’t be necessary to use it often).
(A delicate part of the conversion concerns the customizable format of
item date/time headers in the old-style; see the documentation string of
‘todo-legacy-date-time-regexp’ for details.)
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) The original version of Todo mode also allowed saving a file of
top priority items, but since you can readily create such a file with
the new version, which is also more flexible, no conversion is provided
for this file.
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