10.6.1 Storing searches

The first application of custom searches is the definition of keyboard shortcuts for frequently used searches, either creating an agenda buffer, or a sparse tree (the latter covering of course only the current buffer). Custom commands are configured in the variable org-agenda-custom-commands. You can customize this variable, for example by pressing C-c a C. You can also directly set it with Emacs Lisp in .emacs. The following example contains all valid search types:

     (setq org-agenda-custom-commands
           '(("w" todo "WAITING")
             ("W" todo-tree "WAITING")
             ("u" tags "+boss-urgent")
             ("v" tags-todo "+boss-urgent")
             ("U" tags-tree "+boss-urgent")
             ("f" occur-tree "\\<FIXME\\>")
             ("h" . "HOME+Name tags searches") ; description for "h" prefix
             ("hl" tags "+home+Lisa")
             ("hp" tags "+home+Peter")
             ("hk" tags "+home+Kim")))

The initial string in each entry defines the keys you have to press after the dispatcher command C-c a in order to access the command. Usually this will be just a single character, but if you have many similar commands, you can also define two-letter combinations where the first character is the same in several combinations and serves as a prefix key¹. The second parameter is the search type, followed by the string or regular expression to be used for the matching. The example above will therefore define:

C-c a w

as a global search for TODO entries with ‘WAITING’ as the TODO keyword

C-c a W

as the same search, but only in the current buffer and displaying the results as a sparse tree

C-c a u

as a global tags search for headlines marked ‘:boss:’ but not ‘:urgent:’

C-c a v

as the same search as C-c a u, but limiting the search to headlines that are also TODO items

C-c a U

as the same search as C-c a u, but only in the current buffer and displaying the result as a sparse tree

C-c a f

to create a sparse tree (again: current buffer only) with all entries containing the word ‘FIXME’

C-c a h

as a prefix command for a HOME tags search where you have to press an additional key (l, p or k) to select a name (Lisa, Peter, or Kim) as additional tag to match.