Protesilaos Stavrou

Emacs: tmr version 0.4.0

TMR is an Emacs package that provides facilities for setting timers using a convenient notation. Lots of commands are available to operate on timers, while there also exists a tabulated view to display all timers in a nice grid.

The general theme of this release is that TMR became simpler, better, and more robust. Daniel Mendler provided lots of patches and is now recognised as co-author of the package together with Damien Cassou and me (Protesilaos). With the exception of documentation changes and other accompanying tweaks, all of the following are courtesy of Daniel Mendler. Consult the git log for the minutia.

  • Timers can also be set using an absolute time input. For example, 21:45 will set a timer from now until the specified time. The familiar ways of starting timers with relative values, work as they did before. This is part of a wider internal revision to make the parsing of input more strict.

  • TMR no longer maintains distinct feature sets between its minibuffer and tabulated interfaces. What works in one context, works equally in the other. All commands that were formerly available only in the tmr-tabulated-mode (accessed via tmr-tabulated-view) are now implemented anew to provide the requisite minibuffer capabilities. When called from inside the tmr-tabulated-mode, the commands operate on the timer at point. Otherwise they prompt for completion among the available timers (where relevant). This covers all operations for creating, cloning, [re-]describing, rescheduling, and removing timers. The tmr-tabulated-mode-map is updated thus:

    (defvar tmr-tabulated-mode-map
  (let ((map (make-sparse-keymap)))
    (define-key map "k" #'tmr-remove)
    (define-key map "r" #'tmr-remove)
    (define-key map "R" #'tmr-remove-finished)
    (define-key map "+" #'tmr)
    (define-key map "t" #'tmr)
    (define-key map "*" #'tmr-with-description)
    (define-key map "T" #'tmr-with-description)
    (define-key map "c" #'tmr-clone)
    (define-key map "e" #'tmr-edit-description)
    (define-key map "s" #'tmr-reschedule)
    map)
  "Keybindings for `tmr-tabulated-mode-map'.")

    Similarly, our sample key bindings are these:

    ;; OPTIONALLY set your own global key bindings:
(let ((map global-map))
  (define-key map (kbd "C-c t t") #'tmr)
  (define-key map (kbd "C-c t T") #'tmr-with-description)
  (define-key map (kbd "C-c t l") #'tmr-tabulated-view) ; "list timers" mnemonic
  (define-key map (kbd "C-c t c") #'tmr-clone)
  (define-key map (kbd "C-c t k") #'tmr-cancel)
  (define-key map (kbd "C-c t s") #'tmr-reschedule)
  (define-key map (kbd "C-c t e") #'tmr-edit-description)
  (define-key map (kbd "C-c t r") #'tmr-remove)
  (define-key map (kbd "C-c t R") #'tmr-remove-finished))

  • The tabulated view now shows the remaining time for all timer objects. This is how the *tmr-tabulated-view* buffer is formatted:

    Start      End        Remaining  Description
10:11:49   10:11:54   âś”
10:11:36   10:31:36   19m 35s
10:11:32   10:26:32   14m 31s    Yet another test
10:11:16   10:21:16   9m 14s     Testing how it works

  • All timer objects are refactored to expose a properly formatted completion table. The completion category is tmr-timer. In practical terms, embark (and other standards-compliant packages) can operate on them. The manual provides sample glue code for Embark:

    (defvar tmr-action-map
  (let ((map (make-sparse-keymap)))
    (define-key map "k" #'tmr-remove)
    (define-key map "r" #'tmr-remove)
    (define-key map "R" #'tmr-remove-finished)
    (define-key map "c" #'tmr-clone)
    (define-key map "e" #'tmr-edit-description)
    (define-key map "s" #'tmr-reschedule)
    map))
    
(with-eval-after-load 'embark
  (add-to-list 'embark-keymap-alist '(tmr-timer . tmr-action-map))
  (cl-loop
   for cmd the key-bindings of tmr-action-map
   if (commandp cmd) do
   (add-to-list 'embark-post-action-hooks (list cmd 'embark--restart))))

    The Embark Wiki is updated accordingly.

  • The new user option tmr-confirm-single-timer governs how TMR should behave while operating on the sole timer. If non-nil (the default), TMR will always use the minibuffer to select a timer object to operate on, even when there is only one candidate available. If set to nil, TMR will not ask for confirmation when there is one timer available: the operation will be carried out outright. The default value is optimal for use with Embark.

  • The existing user option tmr-description-list is revised to accept either a list of strings (the old approach) or a symbol of a variable that holds a list of strings. In the latter case, this can be the tmr-description-history, which is a variable that stores the user’s input at the relevant minibuffer prompt. We have made this the new default value, as it grows naturally to reflect one’s usage of TMR. Minibuffer histories can persist between sessions if the user enables the built-in savehist library. Sample configuration:

    (require 'savehist)
(setq savehist-file (locate-user-emacs-file "savehist"))
(setq history-length 10000)
(setq history-delete-duplicates t)
(setq savehist-save-minibuffer-history t)
(add-hook 'after-init-hook #'savehist-mode)

  • Fixed an edge case where a when-let* form did not return the expected value. Thanks to Nathan R. DeGruchy for the patch. The patch is below the ~15 line threshold and thus does not require copyright assignment to the Free Software Foundation.

  • Named the mailing list address as the Maintainer: of Denote. Together with the other package headers, they help the user find our primary sources and/or communication channels. This change conforms with work being done upstream in package.el by Philip Kaludercic. I was informed about it here: https://lists.sr.ht/~protesilaos/general-issues/%3C875ykl84yi.fsf%40posteo.net%3E.

  • Updated the manual to reflect the aforementioned.

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