Get a sparse tree without TODO items

Question

I'm writing a paper where TODO entries are mixed in along with the headings of the paper. I can look at all my TODO entries with C-c / t (or C-c / T for specific keywords).

Is there a way to show all headings except the TODO entries? I'd like to get a clean look of the document structure without these headings.

Answer 1

I think you are looking for projects that have no next action assigned and thus are stuck. There is some builtin functionality for that in org mode that you might be interested in: https://orgmode.org/manual/Stuck-projects.html. Briefly:

A stuck project is a project that has no defined next actions, so it will never show up in the TODO lists Org mode produces. During the review, you need to identify such projects and define next actions for them.

C-c a #     (org-agenda-list-stuck-projects)

     List projects that are stuck. 

Answer 2

I think the sparse tree type you are interested in is not build into Org mode.

Core of your issue is to decide whether a headline is contained in a todo subtree or not IIUC. You could use the following function for that.

(defun org-todo-subtree-p ()
  "Return non-nil if in or below a todo subtree else return nil.
Only works on headlines."
  (save-excursion
    (cl-labels ((internal-subheading-todo-p
                 ()
                 (let ((el (org-element-at-point)))
                   (assert (eq (car el) 'headline))
                   (or (plist-get (cadr el) :todo-keyword)
                       (when (< 1 (plist-get (cadr el) :level))
                         (org-up-heading-all 1)
                         (internal-subheading-todo-p))))))
    (internal-subheading-todo-p))))

Build the tree with the org-occur function which fortunately allows to specify a callback for specifying the wanted.

(defun org-show-non-todo-tree ()
  "Make a tree with headlines not in any todo subtree."
  (interactive)
  (org-occur (concat "^" org-outline-regexp " *"  ) nil (lambda () (not (org-todo-subtree-p)))))

Activate the command with M-x org-show-non-todo-tree .

I guess that's it. But no guarantees, as always.