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1 ;;; remember --- a mode for quickly jotting down things to remember
3 ;; Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007,
4 ;; 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6 ;; Author: John Wiegley <johnw@gnu.org>
7 ;; Created: 29 Mar 1999
8 ;; Version: 2.0
9 ;; Keywords: data memory todo pim
10 ;; URL: http://gna.org/projects/remember-el/
12 ;; This file is part of GNU Emacs.
14 ;; GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
15 ;; it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
16 ;; the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
17 ;; (at your option) any later version.
19 ;; GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
20 ;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
21 ;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
22 ;; GNU General Public License for more details.
24 ;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
25 ;; along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
27 ;;; Commentary:
29 ;; * The idea
31 ;; Todo lists, schedules, phone databases... everything we use
32 ;; databases for is really just a way to extend the power of our
33 ;; memory. To be able to remember what our conscious mind may not
34 ;; currently have access to.
36 ;; There are many different databases out there -- and good ones --
37 ;; which this mode is not trying to replace. Rather, it's how that
38 ;; data gets there that's the question. Most of the time, we just
39 ;; want to say "Remember so-and-so's phone number, or that I have to
40 ;; buy dinner for the cats tonight." That's the FACT. How it's
41 ;; stored is really the computer's problem. But at this point in
42 ;; time, it's most definitely also the user's problem, and sometimes
43 ;; so laboriously so that people just let data slip, rather than
44 ;; expend the effort to record it.
46 ;; "Remember" is a mode for remembering data. It uses whatever
47 ;; back-end is appropriate to record and correlate the data, but it's
48 ;; main intention is to allow you to express as _little_ structure as
49 ;; possible up front. If you later want to express more powerful
50 ;; relationships between your data, or state assumptions that were at
51 ;; first too implicit to be recognized, you can "study" the data later
52 ;; and rearrange it. But the initial "just remember this" impulse
53 ;; should be as close to simply throwing the data at Emacs as
54 ;; possible.
56 ;; * Implementation
58 ;; Hyperbole, as a data presentation tool, always struck me as being
59 ;; very powerful, but it seemed to require a lot of "front-end" work
60 ;; before that data was really available. The problem with BBDB, or
61 ;; keeping up a Bibl-mode file, is that you have to use different
62 ;; functions to record the data, and it always takes time to stop what
63 ;; you're doing, format the data in the manner expected by that
64 ;; particular data interface, and then resume your work.
66 ;; With "remember", you just hit `M-x remember' (you'd probably want
67 ;; to bind this to an easily accessible keystroke, like C-x M-r), slam
68 ;; in your text however you like, and then hit C-c C-c. It will file
69 ;; the data away for later retrieval, and possibly indexing.
71 ;; Indexing is to data what "studying" is in the real world. What you
72 ;; do when you study (or lucubrate, for some of us) is to realize
73 ;; certain relationships implicit in the data, so that you can make
74 ;; use of those relationships. Expressing that a certain quote you
75 ;; remembered was a religious quote, and that you want the ability to
76 ;; pull up all quotes of a religious nature, is what studying does.
77 ;; This is a more labor intensive task than the original remembering
78 ;; of the data, and it's typical in real life to set aside a special
79 ;; period of time for doing this work.
81 ;; "Remember" works in the same way. When you enter data, either by
82 ;; typing it into a buffer, or using the contents of the selected
83 ;; region, it will store that data -- unindexed, uninterpreted -- in a
84 ;; data pool. It will also try to remember as much context
85 ;; information as possible (any text properties that were set, where
86 ;; you copied it from, when, how, etc). Later, you can walk through
87 ;; your accumulated set of data (both organized, and unorganized) and
88 ;; easily begin moving things around, and making annotations that will
89 ;; express the full meaning of that data, as far as you know it.
91 ;; Obviously this latter stage is more user-interface intensive, and
92 ;; it would be nice if "remember" could do it as elegantly as
93 ;; possible, rather than requiring a billion keystrokes to reorganize
94 ;; your hierarchy. Well, as the future arrives, hopefully experience
95 ;; and user feedback will help to make this as intuitive a tool as
96 ;; possible.
98 ;; * Future Goals
100 ;; This tool hopes to track (and by doing it with as little new code
101 ;; as possible):
103 ;; - The raw data that gets entered
105 ;; - The relationships between that data (either determined
106 ;; implicitly by parsing the input, or explicitly by the user's
107 ;; studying the data).
109 ;; - Revisioning of the data
111 ;; - Where it came from, and any context information that can be
112 ;; programmatically determined.
114 ;; - Allowing particular views of the initially amorphous data pool
115 ;; (ala the Xanadu concept).
117 ;; - Storage of the data in a manner most appopriate to that data,
118 ;; such as keeping address-book type information in BBDB, etc.
120 ;; * Using "remember"
122 ;; As a rough beginning, what I do is to keep my .notes file in
123 ;; outline-mode format, with a final entry called "* Raw data". Then,
124 ;; at intervals, I can move the data that gets appended there into
125 ;; other places. But certainly this should evolve into an intuitive
126 ;; mechanism for shuffling data off to its appropriate corner of the
127 ;; universe.
129 ;; To map the primary remember function to the keystroke F8, do the
130 ;; following.
132 ;; (autoload 'remember "remember" nil t)
134 ;; (define-key global-map [f8] 'remember)
136 ;; * Feedback
138 ;; If Emacs could become a more intelligent data store, where
139 ;; brainstorming would focus on the IDEAS involved -- rather than the
140 ;; structuring and format of those ideas, or having to stop your
141 ;; current flow of work in order to record them -- it would map much
142 ;; more closely to how the mind (well, at least mine) works, and hence
143 ;; would eliminate that very manual-ness which computers from the very
144 ;; beginning have been championed as being able to reduce.
146 ;; Have you ever noticed that having a laptop to write on doesn't
147 ;; _actually_ increase the amount of quality material that you turn
148 ;; out, in the long run? Perhaps its because the time we save
149 ;; electronically in one way, we're losing electronically in another;
150 ;; the tool should never dominate one's focus. As the mystic
151 ;; Faridu'd-Din `Attar wrote: "Be occupied as little as possible with
152 ;; things of the outer world but much with things of the inner world;
153 ;; then right action will overcome inaction."
155 ;; * Diary integration
157 ;; To use, add the following to your .emacs:
159 ;; ;; This should be before other entries that may return t
160 ;; (add-to-list 'remember-handler-functions 'remember-diary-extract-entries)
162 ;; This module recognizes entries of the form
164 ;; DIARY: ....
166 ;; and puts them in your ~/.diary (or remember-diary-file) together
167 ;; with an annotation. Dates in the form YYYY.MM.DD are converted to
168 ;; YYYY-MM-DD so that diary can understand them.
170 ;; For example:
172 ;; DIARY: 2003.08.12 Sacha's birthday
174 ;; is stored as
176 ;; 2003.08.12 Sacha's birthday
178 ;;; History:
180 ;;; Code:
182 (provide 'remember)
184 (defconst remember-version "2.0"
185 "This version of remember.")
187 (defgroup remember nil
188 "A mode to remember information."
189 :group 'data)
191 ;;; User Variables:
193 (defcustom remember-mode-hook nil
194 "Functions run upon entering `remember-mode'."
195 :type 'hook
196 :options '(flyspell-mode turn-on-auto-fill org-remember-apply-template)
197 :group 'remember)
199 (defcustom remember-in-new-frame nil
200 "Non-nil means use a separate frame for capturing remember data."
201 :type 'boolean
202 :group 'remember)
204 (defcustom remember-register ?R
205 "The register in which the window configuration is stored."
206 :type 'character
207 :group 'remember)
209 (defcustom remember-filter-functions nil
210 "*Functions run to filter remember data.
211 All functions are run in the remember buffer."
212 :type 'hook
213 :group 'remember)
215 (defcustom remember-handler-functions '(remember-append-to-file)
216 "*Functions run to process remember data.
217 Each function is called with the current buffer narrowed to what the
218 user wants remembered.
219 If any function returns non-nil, the data is assumed to have been
220 recorded somewhere by that function. "
221 :type 'hook
222 :options '(remember-store-in-mailbox
223 remember-append-to-file
224 remember-diary-extract-entries
225 org-remember-handler)
226 :group 'remember)
228 (defcustom remember-all-handler-functions nil
229 "If non-nil every function in `remember-handler-functions' is
230 called."
231 :type 'boolean
232 :group 'remember)
234 ;;; Internal Variables:
236 (defvar remember-buffer "*Remember*"
237 "The name of the remember data entry buffer.")
239 (defcustom remember-save-after-remembering t
240 "*Non-nil means automatically save after remembering."
241 :type 'boolean
242 :group 'remember)
244 ;;; User Functions:
246 (defcustom remember-annotation-functions '(buffer-file-name)
247 "Hook that returns an annotation to be inserted into the remember buffer."
248 :type 'hook
249 :options '(org-remember-annotation buffer-file-name)
250 :group 'remember)
252 (defvar remember-annotation nil
253 "Current annotation.")
254 (defvar remember-initial-contents nil
255 "Initial contents to place into *Remember* buffer.")
257 (defcustom remember-before-remember-hook nil
258 "Functions run before switching to the *Remember* buffer."
259 :type 'hook
260 :group 'remember)
262 (defcustom remember-run-all-annotation-functions-flag nil
263 "Non-nil means use all annotations returned by
264 `remember-annotation-functions'."
265 :type 'boolean
266 :group 'remember)
268 ;;;###autoload
269 (defun remember (&optional initial)
270 "Remember an arbitrary piece of data.
271 INITIAL is the text to initially place in the *Remember* buffer,
272 or nil to bring up a blank *Remember* buffer.
274 With a prefix or a visible region, use the region as INITIAL."
275 (interactive
276 (list (when (or current-prefix-arg
277 (and mark-active
278 transient-mark-mode))
279 (buffer-substring (region-beginning) (region-end)))))
280 (funcall (if remember-in-new-frame
281 #'frame-configuration-to-register
282 #'window-configuration-to-register) remember-register)
283 (let* ((annotation
284 (if remember-run-all-annotation-functions-flag
285 (mapconcat 'identity
286 (delq nil
287 (mapcar 'funcall remember-annotation-functions))
288 "\n")
289 (run-hook-with-args-until-success
290 'remember-annotation-functions)))
291 (buf (get-buffer-create remember-buffer)))
292 (run-hooks 'remember-before-remember-hook)
293 (funcall (if remember-in-new-frame
294 #'switch-to-buffer-other-frame
295 #'switch-to-buffer-other-window) buf)
296 (if remember-in-new-frame
297 (set-window-dedicated-p
298 (get-buffer-window (current-buffer) (selected-frame)) t))
299 (remember-mode)
300 (when (= (point-max) (point-min))
301 (when initial (insert initial))
302 (setq remember-annotation annotation)
303 (when remember-initial-contents (insert remember-initial-contents))
304 (when (and (stringp annotation)
305 (not (equal annotation "")))
306 (insert "\n\n" annotation))
307 (setq remember-initial-contents nil)
308 (goto-char (point-min)))
309 (message "Use C-c C-c to remember the data.")))
311 ;;;###autoload
312 (defun remember-other-frame (&optional initial)
313 "Call `remember' in another frame."
314 (interactive
315 (list (when current-prefix-arg
316 (buffer-substring (point) (mark)))))
317 (let ((remember-in-new-frame t))
318 (remember initial)))
320 (defsubst remember-time-to-seconds (time)
321 "Convert TIME to a floating point number."
322 (+ (* (car time) 65536.0)
323 (cadr time)
324 (/ (or (car (cdr (cdr time))) 0) 1000000.0)))
326 (defsubst remember-mail-date (&optional rfc822-p)
327 "Return a simple date. Nothing fancy."
328 (if rfc822-p
329 (format-time-string "%a, %e %b %Y %T %z" (current-time))
330 (format-time-string "%a %b %e %T %Y" (current-time))))
332 (defun remember-buffer-desc ()
333 "Using the first line of the current buffer, create a short description."
334 (buffer-substring (point-min)
335 (save-excursion
336 (goto-char (point-min))
337 (end-of-line)
338 (if (> (- (point) (point-min)) 60)
339 (goto-char (+ (point-min) 60)))
340 (point))))
342 ;; Remembering to UNIX mailboxes
344 (defcustom remember-mailbox "~/Mail/remember"
345 "*The file in which to store remember data as mail."
346 :type 'file
347 :group 'remember)
349 (defcustom remember-default-priority "medium"
350 "*The default priority for remembered mail messages."
351 :type 'string
352 :group 'remember)
354 (defun remember-store-in-mailbox ()
355 "Store remember data as if it were incoming mail.
356 In which case `remember-mailbox' should be the name of the mailbox.
357 Each piece of psuedo-mail created will have an `X-Todo-Priority'
358 field, for the purpose of appropriate splitting."
359 (let ((who (read-string "Who is this item related to? "))
360 (moment
361 (format "%.0f" (remember-time-to-seconds (current-time))))
362 (desc (remember-buffer-desc))
363 (text (buffer-string)))
364 (with-temp-buffer
365 (insert (format "From %s %s
366 Date: %s
367 From: %s
368 Message-Id: <remember-%s@%s>
369 X-Todo-Priority: %s
370 To: %s <%s>
371 Subject: %s\n\n"
372 (user-login-name)
373 (remember-mail-date)
374 (remember-mail-date t)
376 moment (system-name)
377 remember-default-priority
378 (user-full-name) user-mail-address
379 desc))
380 (let ((here (point)))
381 (insert text)
382 (unless (bolp)
383 (insert "\n"))
384 (insert "\n")
385 (goto-char here)
386 (while (re-search-forward "^\\(From[: ]\\)" nil t)
387 (replace-match ">\\1")))
388 (append-to-file (point-min) (point-max) remember-mailbox)
389 t)))
391 ;; Remembering to plain files
393 (defcustom remember-data-file "~/.notes"
394 "*The file in which to store unprocessed data."
395 :type 'file
396 :group 'remember)
398 (defcustom remember-leader-text "** "
399 "*The text used to begin each remember item."
400 :type 'string
401 :group 'remember)
403 (defun remember-append-to-file ()
404 "Remember, with description DESC, the given TEXT."
405 (let ((text (buffer-string))
406 (desc (remember-buffer-desc)))
407 (with-temp-buffer
408 (insert "\n" remember-leader-text (current-time-string)
409 " (" desc ")\n\n" text)
410 (if (not (bolp))
411 (insert "\n"))
412 (if (find-buffer-visiting remember-data-file)
413 (let ((remember-text (buffer-string)))
414 (set-buffer (get-file-buffer remember-data-file))
415 (save-excursion
416 (goto-char (point-max))
417 (insert remember-text)
418 (when remember-save-after-remembering (save-buffer))))
419 (append-to-file (point-min) (point-max) remember-data-file)))))
421 (defun remember-region (&optional beg end)
422 "Remember the data from BEG to END.
423 It is called from within the *Remember* buffer to save the text
424 that was entered.
426 If BEG and END are nil, the entire buffer will be remembered.
428 If you want to remember a region, supply a universal prefix to
429 `remember' instead. For example: C-u M-x remember RET."
430 ;; Sacha: I have no idea where remember.el gets this context information, but
431 ;; you can just use remember-annotation-functions.
432 (interactive)
433 (let ((b (or beg (min (point) (or (mark) (point-min)))))
434 (e (or end (max (point) (or (mark) (point-max))))))
435 (save-restriction
436 (narrow-to-region b e)
437 (if remember-all-handler-functions
438 (run-hooks 'remember-handler-functions)
439 (run-hook-with-args-until-success 'remember-handler-functions))
440 (remember-destroy))))
442 ;;;###autoload
443 (defun remember-clipboard ()
444 "Remember the contents of the current clipboard.
445 Most useful for remembering things from Netscape or other X Windows
446 application."
447 (interactive)
448 (remember (current-kill 0)))
450 (defun remember-finalize ()
451 "Remember the contents of the current buffer."
452 (interactive)
453 (remember-region (point-min) (point-max)))
455 ;; Org needs this
456 (define-obsolete-function-alias 'remember-buffer 'remember-finalize)
458 (defun remember-destroy ()
459 "Destroy the current *Remember* buffer."
460 (interactive)
461 (when (equal remember-buffer (buffer-name))
462 (kill-buffer (current-buffer))
463 (jump-to-register remember-register)))
465 ;;; Diary integration
467 (defcustom remember-diary-file nil
468 "*File for extracted diary entries.
469 If this is nil, then `diary-file' will be used instead."
470 :type 'file
471 :group 'remember)
473 (defun remember-diary-convert-entry (entry)
474 "Translate MSG to an entry readable by diary."
475 (save-match-data
476 (when remember-annotation
477 (setq entry (concat entry " " remember-annotation)))
478 (if (string-match "\\([0-9]+\\)\\.\\([0-9]+\\)\\.\\([0-9]+\\)" entry)
479 (progn
480 ;; For calendar-date-style. This costs us nothing because
481 ;; the call to diary-make-entry below loads diary-lib
482 ;; which requires calendar.
483 (require 'calendar)
484 (replace-match
485 (let ((style (if (boundp 'calendar-date-style)
486 calendar-date-style
487 ;; Don't complain about obsoleteness.
488 (if (with-no-warnings european-calendar-style)
489 'european
490 'american))))
491 (cond ((eq style 'european)
492 (concat (match-string 3 entry) "/"
493 (match-string 2 entry) "/"
494 (match-string 1 entry)))
495 ((eq style 'iso)
496 (concat (match-string 1 entry) "-"
497 (match-string 2 entry) "-"
498 (match-string 3 entry)))
499 (t (concat (match-string 2 entry) "/"
500 (match-string 3 entry) "/"
501 (match-string 1 entry)))))
502 t t entry))
503 entry)))
505 (autoload 'diary-make-entry "diary-lib")
507 ;;;###autoload
508 (defun remember-diary-extract-entries ()
509 "Extract diary entries from the region."
510 (save-excursion
511 (goto-char (point-min))
512 (let (list)
513 (while (re-search-forward "^DIARY:\\s-*\\(.+\\)" nil t)
514 (add-to-list 'list (remember-diary-convert-entry (match-string 1))))
515 (when list
516 (diary-make-entry (mapconcat 'identity list "\n")
517 nil remember-diary-file))
518 nil))) ;; Continue processing
520 ;;; Internal Functions:
522 (defvar remember-mode-map
523 (let ((map (make-sparse-keymap)))
524 (define-key map "\C-x\C-s" 'remember-finalize)
525 (define-key map "\C-c\C-c" 'remember-finalize)
526 (define-key map "\C-c\C-k" 'remember-destroy)
528 map)
529 "Keymap used in Remember mode.")
531 (defun remember-mode ()
532 "Major mode for output from \\[remember].
533 This buffer is used to collect data that you want to remember.
535 Just hit `C-c C-c' when you're done entering, and it will file
536 the data away for latter retrieval, and possible indexing.
538 \\{remember-mode-map}"
539 (interactive)
540 (kill-all-local-variables)
541 (indented-text-mode)
542 (use-local-map remember-mode-map)
543 (setq major-mode 'remember-mode
544 mode-name "Remember")
545 (run-hooks 'remember-mode-hook))
547 ;; arch-tag: 59312a05-06c7-4da1-b6f7-5ea41c9d5577
548 ;;; remember.el ends here