[Tex/LaTex] Mark a place “to be done” with todonotes

macrossectioningtable of contentstodonotes

I'm trying to create a \tbd (To Be Done) macro to add a todonote on a chapter/section/subsection/etc easily with the following properties.

to have a useful list of todos with a simple macro call: the todolist entry should represent the place of the todo inside the structure of the document (in the chapter named "C" it should have "TBD: C", in section "S" inside "C" it should have "TBD: C/S")
to avoid redundancy: I don't want to type the section title as a caption parameter each and every time. What if I want to change the title?
to display TBD in the note only (this seems to be more elegant)
preferred: keep the name of the command as \section (and others) (with the use of an optional argument maybe?)
preferred (but seems to be unlikely): without messing with the definition of section and friends
preferred (but seems to be really messy): with the todonote "pointing" at the title

Note: I've considered the possibility to put \tbd inside the section command (\section{title\tbd}) for the todonote to point at the right place, but this seems to be more pain than gain. Especially if I want to use the title…

Something like this (the blue bordered things are on different pages):

enter image description here

Is there a macro/package for this or does any of you have a similar implementation?

Example is shown using a half (or less) solution. Can I list the current stack of chapter/section/etc somehow?

\documentclass{book}

\usepackage{todonotes}

\newcommand\treeloc{dummy} % this should be replaced

\newcommand\tbd{\todo{TBD}}

\begin{document}

\chapter{C-1}

\section{S-1}\tbd

\section{S-2}

\chapter{C-2}\tbd

\section{S-1}

\section{S-2}

\subsection{SS-1}\tbd

\section{S-3}

\listoftodos

\end{document}

And \treeloc should be changed for the todolist to have these instead of dummies:

C-1/S-1
C-2
C-2/S-2/SS-1

I'm going to work on this, but I thought this was a nice question.

References (I'm considering to use):

An answer on: how to get the current chapter name, section name, subsection name, etc?

Best Answer

[THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU WANT, IS IT?]

This does it by parsing \thesubsection, and printing something out if the respective units are not equal to 0. The relevant routines are \getss and \gets.

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{todonotes}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\def\getss#1.#2|{\expandafter\gets#1|\ifstrequal{#2}{0}{}{/SS-#2}}
\def\gets#1.#2|{C-#1\ifstrequal{#2}{0}{}{/S-#2}}
\newcommand\treeloc{\expandafter\getss\thesubsection|}
\makeatother
\newcommand\tbd{\todo[caption={TBD: \treeloc}]{TBD}}

\begin{document}

\chapter{C-1}

\section{S-1}\tbd

\section{S-2}

\chapter{C-2}\tbd

\section{S-1}

\section{S-2}

\subsection{SS-1}\tbd

\section{S-3}

\listoftodos

\end{document}

enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to use nameref to refer to a section without including the output of any commands in the title of that section

A simplified version of Stefan Lehmke's solution:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\usepackage{todonotes}
\usepackage[colorlinks,linkcolor=blue]{hyperref}

\makeatletter
\newcommand\@namedisablecommands{}
\newcommand{\addnamedisablecommand}[1]{%
  \g@addto@macro\@namedisablecommands{\renewcommand#1{}}%
  \pdfstringdefDisableCommands{\renewcommand#1{}}%
}
\AtBeginDocument{ 
  \patchcmd{\T@nameref}
  {\let\label\@gobble}
  {\let\label\@gobble\@namedisablecommands}
  {}{}
}
\makeatother

\addnamedisablecommand{\todo[2][]}

Notice the changed syntax; to keep Stefan's write

\newcommand{\addnamedisablecommand}[2]{%
  \g@addto@macro\@namedisablecommands{\renewcommand#1#2{}}%
  \pdfstringdefDisableCommands{\renewcommand#1#2{}}%
}

instead.

After doing this, \@namedisablecommands will expand to

\renewcommand\todo[2][]{}

which will neutralize its expansion. The warning

Package hyperref Warning: Token not allowed in a PDF string (PDFDocEncoding):
(hyperref)                removing `\todo' on input line 47.

is avoided by adding \todo (or other similar commands) in the disabled command list for hyperref.

[Tex/LaTex] Todonotes: group list-of-todos by chapter

This is specific for classicthesis. Add the following code to the preamble

\usepackage{xpatch}
\xapptocmd{\Chap}{%
  \addtocontents{tdo}{%
    \vskip\bigskipamount\noindent\textbf{Chapter \thechapter}\par\nobreak\vskip\medskipamount}}{}{}

enter image description here

If you really need a more complicated approach, printing the line only if there are notes, then here it is:

\usepackage{xpatch}
\xapptocmd{\Chap}{\addtocontents{tdo}{\protect\todoline{\thechapter}}}{}{}
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\todoline}[1]{\@ifnextchar\Endoftdo{}{\@todoline{#1}}}
\newcommand{\@todoline}[1]{%
  \@ifnextchar\todoline
    {}
    {\vskip\bigskipamount\noindent\textbf{Chapter #1}\par\nobreak\vskip\medskipamount}}
\makeatother
\newcommand{\Endoftdo}{}
\AtEndDocument{\addtocontents{tdo}{\string\Endoftdo}}

But why doing something so complicated when the Todo List is only for working copies?

Here is a complete example, where the todo notes in the Todo List are typeset in the same way as sections in the table of contents:

\documentclass{scrreprt}

\usepackage{classicthesis}
\usepackage{todonotes}
\usepackage{tocloft}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\hypersetup{colorlinks=true,linktocpage=true}

\usepackage{xpatch}
\xapptocmd{\Chap}{\addtocontents{tdo}{\protect\todoline{\thechapter}}}{}{}
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\todoline}[1]{\@ifnextchar\Endoftdo{}{\@todoline{#1}}}
\newcommand{\@todoline}[1]{%
  \@ifnextchar\todoline
    {}
    {\vskip\bigskipamount\noindent\spacedlowsmallcaps{Chapter #1}\par\nobreak\vskip\medskipamount}}
\let\l@todo\l@section
\makeatother
\newcommand{\Endoftdo}{}
\AtEndDocument{\addtocontents{tdo}{\string\Endoftdo}}


\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\listoftodos

\chapter{My first chapter}
\lipsum[1]
\todo{Chapter 1 note}

\section{A first section}

\lipsum[1]

\todo{Chapter 1, section 1 note}

\section{Another section}

\lipsum[1]

\todo{Chapter 1, section 2 note}

\chapter{My second chapter}

\section{A first section}

\lipsum[1]

\todo{Chapter 2, section 1 note}

\section{Another section}

\lipsum[1]

\todo{Chapter 2, section 2 note}

\end{document}

enter image description here

In case you want the chapter title in the Todo List, a slightly different approach should be used. Change the code from \usepackage{xpatch} up to the \AtEndDocument line with the following

\usepackage{regexpatch}
\xapptocmd{\Chap}{\addtocontents{tdo}{\protect\todoline{\thechapter}{\spacedlowsmallcaps{#1}}{\thepage}}}{}{}
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\todoline}[1]{\@ifnextchar\Endoftdo{}{\@todoline{#1}}}
\newcommand{\@todoline}[3]{%
  \@ifnextchar\todoline
    {}
    {\contentsline{chapter}{\numberline{#1}#2}{#3}{}{}}%
}
\let\l@todo\l@section
\makeatother
\newcommand{\Endoftdo}{}
\AtEndDocument{\addtocontents{tdo}{\string\Endoftdo}}

It may be possible to make the chapter page number into a link. Be happy with this version. :)

enter image description here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to use nameref to refer to a section without including the output of any commands in the title of that section

[Tex/LaTex] Todonotes: group list-of-todos by chapter

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