Hello All !
I would like to submit the new function org-find-timestamps for disussion.
Citing its documentation:
Find inactive timestamps within a date-range and maybe sort them.
This function can help to bring the notes, that you take within
org-mode, into a chronological order, even if they are scattered
among many different nodes. The result is somewhat like a diary,
listing your notes for each successive day. Please be aware
however: This intended usage requires, that you routinely
insert inactive timestamps into the notes that you write.
org-find-timstamps works by creating a regular expression to
match a given range of dates, doing a search for it and
displaying the results either as a sparse tree or with the help
of occur. The original buffer is not modified.
I would be grateful to for any comments; please find the defun below.
regards, Marc
(defun org-find-timestamps ()
Find inactive timestamps within a date-range and maybe sort them.
This function can help to bring the notes, that you take within
org-mode, into a chronological order, even if they are scattered
among many different nodes. The result is somewhat like a diary,
listing your notes for each successive day. Please be aware
however: This intended usage requires, that you routinely
insert inactive timestamps into the notes that you write.
org-find-timstamps works by creating a regular expression to
match a given range of dates, doing a search for it and
displaying the results either as a sparse tree or with the help
of occur. The original buffer is not modified.
(interactive)
(let ((working-buffer (get-buffer-create *org-find-timestamps working
buffer*))
(occur-buffer-name *Occur*)
(occur-header-regex ^[0-9]+ match\\(es\\)?) ;; regexp to match for
header-lines in *Occur* buffer
first-date
last-date
pretty-dates
swap-dates
(days 0)
date-regex
position-before-year
collect-method
buff
org-buffers)
(save-window-excursion
;; temporary buffer for date-manipulations
(set-buffer working-buffer)
(erase-buffer)
;; ask user for date-range
(setq first-date (org-read-date nil nil nil Starting date: nil nil))
(setq last-date (org-read-date nil nil nil End date: nil nil))
;; swap dates, if required
(when (string last-date first-date)
(setq swap-dates last-date)
(setq last-date first-date)
(setq first-date swap-dates))
(setq pretty-dates (concat from first-date to last-date))
;; construct list of dates in working buffer
;; loop as long we did not reach end-date
(while (not (looking-at-p last-date))
(end-of-buffer)
;; only look for inactive timestamps
(insert [)
(setq position-before-year (point))
;; Monday is probably wrong, will be corrected below
(insert first-date Mo]\n)
(goto-char position-before-year)
;; advance number of days and correct day of week
(org-timestamp-change days 'day)
(setq days (1+ days))
)
(end-of-buffer)
;; transform constructed list of dates into a single, optimized regex
(setq date-regex (regexp-opt (split-string (buffer-string) \n t)))
;; done with temporary buffer
(kill-buffer working-buffer)
)
;; ask user, which buffers to search and how to present results
(setq collect-method
(car (split-string (org-icompleting-read Please choose, which
buffers to search and how to present the matches: '(multi-occur -- all
org-buffers, list org-occur -- this-buffer, sparse tree) nil t nil nil
occur -- this buffer, list)))
)
;; Perform the actual search
(save-window-excursion
(cond ((string= collect-method occur)
(occur date-regex)
)
((string= collect-method org-occur)
(if (string= major-mode org-mode)
(org-occur date-regex)
(error Buffer not in org-mode))
)
((string= collect-method multi-occur)
;; construct list of all org-buffers
(dolist (buff (buffer-list))
(set-buffer buff)
(if (string= major-mode org-mode)
(setq org-buffers (cons buff org-buffers
(multi-occur org-buffers date-regex)))
)
;; Postprocessing: Optionally sort buffer with results
;; org-occur operates on the current buffer, so we cannot modify its
results afterwards
(if (string= collect-method org-occur)
(message (concat Sparse tree with matches pretty-dates))
;; switch to occur-buffer and modify it
(if (not (get-buffer occur-buffer-name))
(message (concat Did not find any matches pretty-dates))
(set-buffer occur-buffer-name)
(toggle-read-only)
(goto-char
