A small idea to simplify (further) time input in the date/time prompt

[Gustavo Barros]

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

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.