Storing searches (The Org Manual)

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#### 11.6.1 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` from the agenda dispatcher (see Agenda Dispatcher). You can also directly set it with Emacs Lisp in the Emacs init file. The following example contains all valid agenda views:

    (setq org-agenda-custom-commands
          '(("x" agenda)
            ("y" agenda*)
            ("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 in order to access the command. Usually this is 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 key100. 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:

`x`

  as a global search for agenda entries planned101 this week/day.

`y`

  as the same search, but only for entries with an hour specification like ‘`[h]h:mm`’—think of them as appointments.

`w`

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

`W`

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

`u`

  as a global tags search for headlines tagged ‘`boss`’ but not ‘`urgent`’.

`v`

  The same search, but limiting it to headlines that are also TODO items.

`U`

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

`f`

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

`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.

Note that `*-tree` agenda views need to be called from an Org buffer as they operate on the current buffer only.

#### Footnotes

### (100)

You can provide a description for a prefix key by inserting a cons cell with the prefix and the description.

### (101)

Planned means here that these entries have some planning information attached to them, like a time-stamp, a scheduled or a deadline string. See `org-agenda-entry-types` on how to set what planning information is taken into account.

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