It's useful for getting notifications for todo items and more flexible
than org-agenda-to-appt.
Here a summary:
- different warning periods for different todo-types
- fine grained warning periods (smallest unit is second)
- continue notifications, when deadline is overdue
- easy modification of timestamps (just one click, to say
"let's do it tomorrow")
- switch from "todo" to "done" by clicking on the notification window
- configurable notification types (email, notifications-notify, beep,
etc.)
- configurable notification period
- configurable notification duration
- crescendo notifications (be more aggressive, when time gets closer to
deadline)
There was a little thread about this subject:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/48832
Example usage:
(org-notify-add 'appt
'(:time "-1s" :period "20s" :duration 10
:actions (-message -ding))
'(:time "15m" :period "2m" :duration 100
:actions -notify/window)
'(:time "2h" :period "5m" :actions -message)
'(:time "1d" :actions -email))
This means for todo-items with `notify' property set to `appt': 1 day before
deadline, send a reminder-email, 2 hours before deadline, start to send
messages every 5 minutes, then, 15 minutes before deadline, start to pop up
notification windows every 2 minutes. The timeout of the window is set to
100 seconds. Finally, when deadline is overdue, send messages and make
noise.
Bastien Guerry