Re: A small idea to simplify (further) time input in the date/time prompt

[stardiviner <numbchild@gmail.com>]

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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.


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[ stardiviner ]
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