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Gustavo Barros <gusbrs.2...@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-----