Declined Date key idea

[Charles Dye]

I'm curious whether other folks think this would be a useful idea, or whether it's just another smelly brain fart.

How about a key, e.g. Ctrl-D, which inserts the current date and/or time at the prompt, as per an environment variable DATEKEY? DATEKEY would be interpreted as the format param to @DATEFMT. So, if DATEFMT=%F, then pressing Ctrl-D would insert 2020-04-05 at the prompt. (And if DATEKEY is undefined, the keystroke would do nothing.)

Would anybody actually use such a feature?

 

[vefatica]

I wouldn't use it. In fact, I'd forget it was there very quickly (like I often do with an alias I thought was nifty at the time). I'm curious Charles ... how often do you put the current date in a command?

 

[Charles Dye]

Rarely. Sometimes while backing up files I'm about to change, sometimes while constructing date ranges. But all in all... rarely.

 

[ben]

I use a system-wide keyboard mapper for that. I have hotkeys for many things, including inserting the date and time, that work identically in all applications.

 

[David Marcus]

I have similar aliases that write to the clipboard. If I want it on the command line, I paste. E.g., I have

cdate=echos %_isodate > clip:
cwd=echos %_cwds > clip:
ffn=echos %@full[%1] > clip:

 

[Rick Reinckens]

It would probably be better to have a set of keys that can be user-defined, perhaps calling routines in a library.

I don't see a good reason to limit it to a particular key that only inserts the date.

Maybe have one key that activates a "next key" routine. So Ctrl+d jumps to a library routine that waits for the next key and then calls a routine or performs an action based on that second key.

So, for instance, Ctrl+d, i or Ctrl+d,c

Ctrl+d triggers the "next key" routine, then the i key "inserts" the date.

Ctrl+d triggers the "next key" routine, then the c key "copies to clipboard" the date.

 

[Charles Dye]

It would probably be better to have a set of keys that can be user-defined, perhaps calling routines in a library.

I don't see a good reason to limit it to a particular key that only inserts the date.

Maybe have one key that activates a "next key" routine. So Ctrl+d jumps to a library routine that waits for the next key and then calls a routine or performs an action based on that second key.

So, for instance, Ctrl+d, i or Ctrl+d,c

Ctrl+d triggers the "next key" routine, then the i key "inserts" the date.

Ctrl+d triggers the "next key" routine, then the c key "copies to clipboard" the date.

Interesting. Reminds me of WordPerfect, somehow.

 

[vefatica]

Got a plugin keyhandler hanging around, Charles? If you want to play with this idea, here's a start. I wanted to see what it would take. I've used Ctrl-K as the lead-in keystroke. After that, 'f' (or 'b') will cause "foo " (or "bar ") to be entered on the current command line. I suppose I counld insert anything I wanted. It's not perfect ... if you're in the middle of a command line, writing stuff at lpki->pszCurrent overwrites whatever may already be there ... I suppose I could copy the tail and append it later.

INT WINAPI KEYHANDLER( LPKEYINFO lpki )
{
    static BOOL bSpecial = FALSE;
    if ( bSpecial )
    {
        bSpecial = FALSE;
        switch ( lpki->nKey )
        {
            case L'f' : Sprintf(lpki->pszCurrent, L"foo ");
                        lpki->pszCurrent += 4;
                        lpki->fRedraw = 1;
                        lpki->nKey = 0;
                        break;
            case L'b' : Sprintf(lpki->pszCurrent, L"bar ");
                        lpki->pszCurrent += 4;
                        lpki->fRedraw = 1;
                        lpki->nKey = 0;
                        break;
        }
        return 1;
    }

    if ( !lstrcmp(lpki->pszKey, L"Ctrl-K") )
    {
        bSpecial = TRUE;
        lpki->nKey = 0;
        lpki->pszKey[0] = 0;
        return 0;
    }
    // other stuff omitted
}

 

[Rick Reinckens]

Interesting. Reminds me of WordPerfect, somehow.

Maybe that's because I'm an "old-time" lawyer and I use WordPerfect constantly--including loads of macros activated by custom keystroke combinations. Beats the heck out of having to click through a bunch of drop-downs and icons in Word.

 

[AnrDaemon]

Typing "date +%F" is about as fast as remembering that shortcut you set years ago and haven't used in months.

 

[David Marcus]

When I type that, I get TCC: Invalid date "+".

 

[AnrDaemon]

Because that's for POSIX date command.
For TCC that would be

DATE /T /F4

 

[oph]

I'm curious whether other folks think this would be a useful idea, or whether it's just another smelly brain fart.

How about a key, e.g. Ctrl-D, which inserts the current date and/or time at the prompt, as per an environment variable DATEKEY? DATEKEY would be interpreted as the format param to @DATEFMT. So, if DATEFMT=%F, then pressing Ctrl-D would insert 2020-04-05 at the prompt. (And if DATEKEY is undefined, the keystroke would do nothing.)

Would anybody actually use such a feature?

I discovered an application Hotkeys. I am using it to insert date and time to emails, Ctrl-Alt-D does the job

2020-05-07 08:01:55

A similar tool embedded in TC / TCC will be welcome.

 

[hensh]

I might use it. As far as remembering that it was there, I would hope that I could do the same thing I do when trying to remember all of the aliases that I have created. That is, I simply type 'alias' to get the entire list.