Idea/Adding "past" notes

[svnsbck]

Hi Prot,
I was just wondering if it would be useful to have an option to add notes/journal entries from the past, ie creating/renaming files with a past date.

Idea here would be for example if I were to enter for a journal entry from the 1st of January, but do it today, the title would be the "right" day, but the time-stamp/identifier would be today's. Of course this can be changed after the fact, but I wonder wether it would make sense to have such an option during the creation of the note.

[protesilaos]

I wonder wether it would make sense to have such an option during the creation of the note

It does make sense and I will make it happen. Just need to think how best to accomplish it. More to follow.

[protesilaos]

Just added the denote-date command. It wasn't easy as Denote was designed around the assumption that the time is always the current one. I think I tested everything, but please test it as much as you can as well.

Thank you!

The commit:

  commit d5b62c4e58d7898ab77926ea23ea94834c281999
  Author: Protesilaos Stavrou <info@protesilaos.com>
  Date:   Thu Jun 16 12:09:33 2022 +0300
  
      Add denote-date command (notes for past date)
      
      Thanks to user svnsbck for suggesting the idea in issue 15 over at the
      GitHub repo: <https://github.com/protesilaos/denote/issues/15>.
  
   README.org |  30 +++++++++++++----
   denote.el  | 107 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------
   2 files changed, 110 insertions(+), 27 deletions(-)

[svnsbck]

Nice! I have tested this with "normal" notes and there it does seem to work as expected.

I have then tried to incorporate this into the journal-workflow, but only with limited success. :-)

(defun my-old-journal () "Create a journal entry with a past date" (interactive) (let ((denote-directory "~/Documents/journal/")) (denote (denote--date-prompt) ; ask for date (denote--title-prompt) ;Ask for title "journal")))
I tried placing the date-prompt at different places, without success either.
I had the feeling that it should work, but didn't Needless to say I'm missing something obvious here.

[protesilaos]

Nice! I have tested this with "normal" notes and there it does seem to work as expected.

Very well!

I have then tried to incorporate this into the journal-workflow, but only with limited success. :-)

No worries! I was planning to expand the manual.

This one asks for a date and a title:

(defun my-denote-journal-with-date (date title)
  "Ask for DATE and TITLE to write a journal entry.

Read the doc string of `denote-date' on what a valid DATE is."
  (interactive
   (list
    (denote--date-prompt)
    (denote--title-prompt)))
  (when-let ((d (denote--valid-date date))
             (id (format-time-string denote--id-format d))
             ((denote--barf-duplicate-id id)))
    (denote--prepare-note title "journal" nil d id)))

And this one just for a date:

(defun my-denote-journal-with-date (date)
  "Ask for DATE to write a journal entry.

Read the doc string of `denote-date' on what a valid DATE input is.

The title of the note is something like Tuesday 17 June 2020,
though you can modify the `format-time-string' specifiers as
described in its doc string."
  (interactive (list (denote--date-prompt)))
  (when-let ((d (denote--valid-date date))
             (id (format-time-string denote--id-format d))
             ((denote--barf-duplicate-id id)))
    (denote--prepare-note
     (format-time-string "%A %e %B %Y" d)
     "journal" nil d id)))

[protesilaos]

Also expanded the manual. Please let me know if you need some extra tweak but are not sure how to do it.

I will now close this issue. Thanks again!

[svnsbck]

Oh, that is great. Thanks a lot.

[protesilaos]

You are welcome!

By the way, in the manual's Acknowledgements I reference your screen name as that is all I see here. Maybe I can add the full name instead?

[svnsbck]

Absolutely! As you just say it I figured that I have not set this up :-) . My bad, just changed that. But it would Sven Seebeck, just in case things don't update here. Thanks a lot!

[protesilaos]

Done! Thank you!