etm provides a format for using plain text files to store actions, events, notes, and tasks and a PyQt based GUI for creating and modifying items as well as viewing them. Available data types are discussed in the Data tab. Possible views include Day, Week, Month, Past due, Next, Folder, Keyword and Tag. These are discussed in the Views tab. Custom, report views that can be exported and printed are discussed in the Reports tab. There are keyboard shortcuts for all actions which are discussed in the Shortcuts tab. Possible user preference settings are discussed in the Preferences tab.
The main window is illustrated below with the Day view selected.
Use Control-J to jump to a fuzzy parsed date, e.g., "-1/1" to go the first day of the previous month or "+90" to go to the date that is 90 days from today. The Day, Week and Month views will all change to show the selected date.
Details about item types and options are available in the Data tab.
To create a new item, either click on the new item button or press Control-N. This will open an edit window for your entry. When done, click on the Save Icon or press Control-S to save your entry and choose a file from the dialog.
Need to schedule an event? Use the week view to find a free period and then double click on the desired date and time. The editor will open with the date and time you selected already entered.
To create a new action, either click on the new action button or press Control-T to create a new action timer.
Enter a summary of your new action and press Return to start the timer. The display will change to show timer control buttons and elapsed time:
When you are finished, either click on the stop timer button or press Shift + Control-T to stop the timer and open an edit window to record the action. Your summary, the date and time you began the action and the elapsed time will automatically be entered:
Want to work on a task and record the time you spend? Select the task and then click on "create a new action timer based on this item" to start a timer with all the relevant details of the task already entered.
Need to quickly enter some information before you forget? Press Control-S to open the scratch pad. Type whatever you want to remember. You can either leave the scratch pad open or press Control-Return to close it. When you next open the scratch pad, even if you have closed and restarted etm, your previous entry will be there for you to copy or edit. Additionally, when you are editing a item or an action, you can press Control-I to insert the contents of the scratch pad at the cursor.
To examine the details of an item, either select it and press Return or double click on it. The details of the selected item will be displayed along with a number of possible actions related to the item:
With repeating items, choosing either edit or delete entails a further choice of what to change/delete:
You can enter an expression, either a plain string or a regular expression, in the pattern filter to limit the display in any of the tree (outline) views to items whose summaries (titles) or branches match the pattern. As each character is entered the display is updated to show only items that still match. Note the effect of changing the pattern from "v" to "vo" in the day view below:
You can identify items with a particular tag by switching to the tag view and then entering a pattern for the tag(s) you want in the pattern filter. Only items from the matching tag branches will be displayed. This approach also works for filtering items in the keyword or folder view, the latter illustrated below. Note that the effect of entering "us" in the pattern filter is to expand the matching branches and summaries:
Press Escape to clear the filter and activate the Select view menu.
The etm editor supports both syntax highlighting for etm data files and automatic completion. As illustrated below, different colors are provided for different item types and both @key and &key entries are highlighted. Entries using unsupported keys, such as @h below, are also highlighted as errors.
Automatic completion uses a list of possible completions in a text file specified by auto_completions in your etm.cfg. Each line in this file provides a possible completion, for example:
@c computer
@c home
@c errands
@c office
@c phone
@z US/Eastern
@z US/Central
@z US/Mountain
@z US/Pacific
dnlgrhm@gmail.comAs soon as you enter "@c", for example, a list of possible context completions will pop up and then, as you type further characters, the list will shrink to show only those that still match:
Up and down arrow keys change the selection and either Tab or Return inserts the selection.
etm's version numbering now uses the major.minor.patch format where each of the three components is an integer:
Major version numbers change whenever there is a large or potentially backward-incompatible change.
Minor version numbers change when a new, minor feature or a set of smaller features is introduced. A change in the minor version from zero to one indicates a change in the status of the major version from beta to stable.
Patch numbers change for new builds involving small bugfixes or the like. Some new builds may not be released.
When the major version number is incremented, both the minor version number and patch number will be reset to zero. Similarly, when the minor version number is incremented, the patch number will be reset to zero. All increments are by one.
Copyright (c) 2009-2012 Daniel Graham, . All rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. See GNU License Information for details.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.