narl-workspace/docs/wiki/Boards-and-Agenda.md

Boards and the agenda

The special workspace

The board, the agenda and the calendar share one workspace of their own, as the desktop's special workspace holds what is looked at in passing. S (or :special, or the special pill in the bar) puts it up and away again. It is three tiles: the board on the left, the agenda over the calendar on the right.

key	what it does
S	put the special workspace up, or away
b, t, C	to the board, the agenda or the calendar, from anywhere
Tab / Shift-Tab	the next / previous tile
Alt-h / Alt-j / Alt-k / Alt-l	the tile that way
l past the last list, h in the agenda, j past its end	on into the tile beside
f	the focused tile fills the screen; again or Esc to leave
1 … 9	switch space, and the board with it
q, Esc	leave, back to where you were

The keys go to the tile with focus, which wears the light border and its key lit in its head; the other tiles keep their cursors, dimmed. b, t and C only ever go to their tile, and Esc only ever leaves — or, with a tile filling the screen, leaves that first. A document opened from the workspace — a card's notes, a day of the calendar, an entry of the agenda, T — comes back to the tile it was opened from on q. Everything in it is read again each time it comes up.

The board

Every space except the diary has a board. b, the board button on the rail, or :board shows it in the special workspace, and Esc goes back to the tree. It is the board of the space being browsed, or, in a space without one such as the diary, the last board shown. The head of the board names every space that has one, with the digit that goes there.

A new board has three lists: backlog, doing and done. The lists mean something by where they stand, not by their names:

• the first list is the inbox, where new cards land;
• the last list is done. A card is finished exactly when it is in the last list: moving it there stamps it, moving it out reopens it;
• the lists between are work in hand, which the agenda shows.

:list <name> adds a list in front of the last one, :name! renames the list under the cursor, and :list! deletes it with its cards. Done cards older than a week fold away until z shows them.

key	what it does
h / l	to the list on the left / right
j / k	down / up the cards
J / K	move the card down / up its list
H / L	move the card to the list on the left / right
Space	into the done list, or back out to the inbox
o, c	a new card on this list
Enter	turn the card over: labels, description, checklist
gf	the card's notes, without turning it over
D	due date
R	rename the card
z	show done cards older than a week
F	a letter over every card; type it to jump there
x, dd	delete the card
q, Esc	leave the special workspace

The back of a card

Enter on a card turns it over: a sheet floats over the board with its labels, its description and its checklist. The card stays the one under the board's cursor, so D, R, H and L act on it as they do on the board.

key	what it does
j / k, gg / G	down / up the checklist, its first / last step
Space, x	tick the step, or untick it
o	a new step below the cursor (:task <text>)
r	reword the step (:task! <text>)
J / K	move the step down / up
dd	drop the step
e, i, Enter	write the description
a	put a label on, or take it off (:label <name>)
gf	the card's notes, below
q, Esc	back to the board

The description is markdown, written in the same editor as a document, vim and all: :w writes it to the card, :q or Esc in normal mode leaves, and :q! throws away what was not written. A fenced block in a language is coloured the way nvim colours it, written and read.

Labels are lower case, and each name keeps its colour on every card and every board, without anything to set: the colour comes from the name. Tab on :label offers the ones the board already uses. The board shows a card's labels over its title, and ☑ 2/5 and ≡ under it when it has a checklist and a description.

A repeating card comes back with the same labels and the same checklist, every step open again.

Capturing a card

c anywhere outside the special workspace opens :card on the command line. The card goes into the inbox of the space you are in, or of the first space with a board, and you stay where you were. From outside the browser, see Capture.

Notes

gf on a card, or on its back, opens its notes: a document named after the card, made in the root of the space the first time. Closing it goes back to the board, on the same card. :card! while reading a document makes a card that points at it.

The link is loose on purpose: deleting the document leaves the card, because the work is still open when its notes are gone.

Due dates

D on a card (or :due <when>) takes a date the way it is said:

you type	it means
today, td	today
tm, tomorrow	tomorrow
fri	the next Friday, never today
+3d, +2w	in three days, in two weeks
10-31	the next 31 October
2026-10-31	that day
-	no due date

Cards that come back

:repeat weekly, or the ↻ button on the rail, makes a card come back once it is done. The rules are daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and any +3d, +2w, +6m or +1y. :repeat - stops it.

Finishing such a card leaves a copy at the bottom of the inbox, with the same title, notes and rule, due on the next date. The next date counts on from the old due date, in WORKSPACE_TIMEZONE:

• a card due at noon stays due at noon across a change of the clocks;
• a card due on the 31st comes back on the last day of a shorter month, and on the 31st again where there is one;
• a card finished late skips the dates that have passed;
• a card without a due date counts from the moment it was finished.

The finished card gives up its rule, so reopening it and finishing it again does not make a second copy. The board and the agenda show the rule as ↻ weekly beside the date.

The agenda

t (or :agenda) gathers what needs you from every board at once, in the special workspace beside the board.

• late, today and this week: unfinished cards by due date;
• in hand: cards in a list between the inbox and done;
• whether the diary has an entry for today;
• on this day: diary entries from the same day in earlier years. A 29 February is remembered on the 28th in the years that have none.

key	what it does
j / k	down / up, on into the diary entries, then into the calendar
h	to the board
Enter	to the card on its own board, in the tile beside, or open the entry
Space	finish the card where it stands
D	due date
H / L	to the list left / right on its board
:	the command line with the agenda kept up, so :repeat acts on the card
T	today's diary entry
q, Esc	leave the special workspace

The agenda opens by itself once a day when something is late or due. "Today" is the day in WORKSPACE_TIMEZONE, the same as for the mails, so a browser in another timezone groups the cards the same way. The bar shows the late and today counts whenever either is above zero. With mail set up, cards due today are mailed in the morning too; see Backup and mail.