[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: A small idea to simplify (further) time input in the date/time promp
From: |
stardiviner |
Subject: |
Re: A small idea to simplify (further) time input in the date/time prompt |
Date: |
Tue, 02 Jun 2020 21:58:52 +0800 |
User-agent: |
mu4e 1.4; emacs 28.0.50 |
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256
Gustavo Barros <gusbrs.2016@gmail.com> writes:
> Hi All,
>
> the Org date/time prompt does deliver the promise in the manual that we "start
> getting annoyed by pretty
> much any other way of entering a date/time out there". It has indeed become
> so
> for me, as the date/time prompt is very neat. But there is one place where
> input could be even shorter, which is time input.
>
> Currently, time input mostly requires "hour colon minutes", thus a full time
> specification even when minutes are "00". And "mostly" because you can get
> away
> with that last part if you use am/pm convention (alas, I do not belong to
> those
> strange corners of the world). Besides, the colon is a shift-key in many
> common
> keyboard layouts (from a simple search, it seems to be so in British,
> American,
> US International, German, Spanish, and Portuguese layouts, it doesn't seem to
> be
> so for the French layout though).
>
> So I'd like to suggest a simplification there, which is: a string in the
> format
> "hour h minute" (that's small caps letter "H"), but in which "hour h" would
> also
> be recognized as a full hour and "00" minutes presumed. The mnemonic is
> obvious
> for "hour", which works well for English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, not so
> much for German.
>
> With this, we'd have some example inputs, and their respective results:
>
> 8h -> 08:00
> 10h30 -> 10:30
> 18h -> 18:00
> 9h-10h -> 09:00-10:00
> 9h30-10h -> 09:30-10:00
> 14h+1h -> 14:00-15:00
>
Which date/time prompt do you mean? Like set schedule or deadline? If just raw
timestamp, it makes me confused whether it is time continuance.
> This would ease input in two ways. First, it presumes the minutes in full
> hours, thus dispensing with this typing. Considering full hours are a very
> common case for scheduling and appointments, that shortening should be
> significant. It is also one key shorter than the am/pm way for full hours,
> and
> two keys shorter for non full hours in the same case. Second, it is easier to
> type "h" than it is to type ":", it is easier to reach and it is not a
> shift-key, so the chord is gone too.
>
> One corner case which will arise is if "zero hour" should also be presumed.
> Arguably midnight is not that common in most people's agenda, and could be
> either "0h" or "24h", so we should not really worry in shortening something
> like
> "midnight and thirty minutes" as "h30". But this is more tricky with duration
> specification, that is with "+". In this case minutes not comprising a full
> hour might well be common. So, how to specify an appointment starting at
> 10:00
> that lasts 30 minutes? Some alternatives could be: "10h+0h30", "10h+h30",
> "10h+30m". On a first thought I like the last one better, but I'm really not
> sure what the best approach should be here.
>
> Needless to say, current input conventions should not change. This is just
> thought as an additional way of inputting time, alongside the ones which
> already
> exist. I'm unaware of any use of "h" in the date/time prompt (or of "m", for
> that matter), so I presume this should be viable without conflicting with
> other
> currently recognized input forms.
>
>
> That's the small suggestion I had to make for the date/time prompt. I guess,
> technically, this should be filed as "feature request". But it is just an
> idea
> I bring to your consideration, in the hope someone else here also likes it.
>
>
> Best,
> Gustavo.
- --
[ stardiviner ]
I try to make every word tell the meaning that I want to express.
Blog: https://stardiviner.github.io/
IRC(freenode): stardiviner, Matrix: stardiviner
GPG: F09F650D7D674819892591401B5DF1C95AE89AC3
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
iQFIBAEBCAAyFiEE8J9lDX1nSBmJJZFAG13xyVromsMFAl7WWxwUHG51bWJjaGls
ZEBnbWFpbC5jb20ACgkQG13xyVromsOi4Qf/RpkotaYxjmrDA+SsjqK4ep7sLM+Y
tLwm+N47cYYDGPNR3M9o9WZYNxLncygdxXF2eYQjX7DQHmuZ8rLLyNa3Yb9P7vUb
OYywOyTWgSa5wgp1cOJepcFS384DZvZeSg+odhrJDr5wPfhfN7NpbhB3VB3TLiEr
hIHx1XzBfZbNifMR90gupPIZt2IEfHqcoI7zGa1uHfoDRPYDU61m2cVj4ZZDc1Ya
H8gPAFQD+oGbg32PUw6vQn4a6x7Qk668G0kP52e5yCISG8S5P7BKrk0HSKClPUxM
GjH0kYVm5DzEOm6YQvnWfGr2EIDuHLlMxvBaxyIXmMYc+k61RBAisKS1WA==
=QSbI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----