* question and use example
@ 2009-08-26 16:38 Paul Menair
2009-08-26 20:18 ` Benjamin Andresen
0 siblings, 1 reply; 3+ messages in thread
From: Paul Menair @ 2009-08-26 16:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: emacs-orgmode
Folks,
I've been struggling with something and thought I'd ask you folks.
I'm an attorney. I use org-mode for various things, because it's convenient, simple and flexible. And most case management software for lawyers is awful. Anyway, one of the things I do in org is keep my time.
The ordinary timekeeping function in org is interesting and neat in some ways, but not useful for my purposes. I need to provide my employer with a set of timeslips, where each record consists of a date, client name, description, and time interval in decimal form. Everything that I've tried that attempts to "help" me do this fails in one way or another. The solution I have is a table in org that is set up like this:
| date | client | desc | [time]--[time] | H:M | x.x |
Org is perfect for this because it does what no other time and billing solution I've seen does -- it lets me just record two timestamps in plain text and get an interval. The only other piece of software I've ever seen that does this was a calendar program that let you do this in its notes field.
My problem is this. I populate the fifth field with c-- c-u c-y. I would be nice if it happened automatically, but that's no big deal. However, I've been going through and manually entering the sixth field, and that does end up being a hassle.
Calc seems to only work on timestamps and not have any straight way to convert H:M to decimal. I suppose I could keep my in and out timestamps in separate fields and figure out a way to have calc work on them, but it seems like there should be an easier solution.
Any thoughts? In any event, I thought it might be of interest for folks to see a use case from a non-engineering professional.
Paul
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread
* Re: question and use example
2009-08-26 16:38 question and use example Paul Menair
@ 2009-08-26 20:18 ` Benjamin Andresen
2009-08-26 22:32 ` Nick Dokos
0 siblings, 1 reply; 3+ messages in thread
From: Benjamin Andresen @ 2009-08-26 20:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: emacs-orgmode
Hey Paul,
Paul Menair <pmenair@gmail.com> writes:
> My problem is this. I populate the fifth field with c-- c-u c-y. I
> would be nice if it happened automatically, but that's no big deal.
> However, I've been going through and manually entering the sixth
> field, and that does end up being a hassle.
I whipped something up that should work for you.
You need to evaluate the code below and then the below table will work
for you.
(defun ba/org-timerange (s &optional in-min)
(let* ((re "^\\(.*?\\)--\\(.*?\\)$")
(start (replace-regexp-in-string re "\\1" s))
(end (replace-regexp-in-string re "\\2" s))
(start-in-min (org-hh:mm-string-to-minutes start))
(end-in-min (org-hh:mm-string-to-minutes end))
(diff-in-min (- end-in-min start-in-min)))
(if in-min
diff-in-min
(format "%.2f" (/ diff-in-min (float 60))))))
| date | client | desc | timerange | H:M | in dec |
|------------------+--------+-------+------------------------------------------------+------+--------|
| <2009-08-26 Wed> | benny | foo'd | <2009-08-26 Wed 21:55>--<2009-08-26 Wed 21:58> | 0:03 | 0.05 |
#+TBLFM: $5='(org-minutes-to-hh:mm-string (ba/org-timerange $4 t))::$6='(ba/org-timerange $4)
If you're on the table and you press C-u C-c C-c and it should put the
correct info at the respective places.
Now what I recommend is using autocalc instead so you don't have to
worry about doing this. This would require you to change your table to
the following format:
| | date | client | desc | timerange | H:M | in dec |
|---+------------------+--------+--------+------------------------------------------------+------+--------|
| # | <2009-08-25 Tue> | benny | foo'd | <2009-08-25 Tue 20:55>--<2009-08-25 Tue 23:58> | 3:03 | 3.05 |
| # | <2009-08-26 Wed> | bar | quux'd | <2009-08-26 Wed 22:10>--<2009-08-26 Wed 22:14> | 0:04 | 0.07 |
#+TBLFM: $6='(org-minutes-to-hh:mm-string (ba/org-timerange $5 t))::$7='(ba/org-timerange $5)
The "#" in the first column achieves this. See (info "(org)Advanced features")
for more information.
> Paul
HTH,
benny
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread
* Re: Re: question and use example
2009-08-26 20:18 ` Benjamin Andresen
@ 2009-08-26 22:32 ` Nick Dokos
0 siblings, 0 replies; 3+ messages in thread
From: Nick Dokos @ 2009-08-26 22:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Benjamin Andresen; +Cc: emacs-orgmode
Benjamin Andresen <bandresen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Paul,
>
> Paul Menair <pmenair@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > My problem is this. I populate the fifth field with c-- c-u c-y. I
> > would be nice if it happened automatically, but that's no big deal.
> > However, I've been going through and manually entering the sixth
> > field, and that does end up being a hassle.
>
> I whipped something up that should work for you.
>
Very nice!
There is a simpler approach, but with the disadvantage that
it requires modifications to the structure of the table (iow, I don't
know how to do it with a time range :-) The main simplification is that
it uses built-in functions.
The table looks like this:
| | date | client | desc | start time | end time | duration in dec | H:M |
|---+------------------+--------+-------+------------------------+------------------------+-----------------+------|
| # | <2009-08-26 Wed> | benny | foo'd | <2009-08-26 Wed 14:45> | <2009-08-26 Wed 18:05> | 3.33 | 3:20 |
#+TBLFM: $7=(date(<$6>) - date(<$5>))*24;%.2f :: $8='(org-minutes-to-hh:mm-string (round (* $7 60)));N
Note that the primary result is the time interval in decimal hours - the
hh:mm result is derived from that. Note also that the rounding is necessary
because org-minutes-to-hh:mm-string assumes that its argument is an integer
and misbehaves if it is not:
(org-minutes-to-hh:mm-string 73.2) --> "1:00"
(org-minutes-to-hh:mm-string 73) --> "1:13"
I'm sure there are other approaches as well - investigating the built-in
clocking and attendant reports is probably a good idea as well. Bernt
Hansen has some information in his org-mode page[1], and there is a
tutorial about it on worg[2].
HTH,
Nick
[1] http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html
[2] http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/index.php - the tutorial itself
is at http://sachachua.com/wp/2007/12/30/clocking-time-with-emacs-org/,
but note that it's 1.5 years old and I don't know whether it's still
useful or whether it's completely out of date by this time.
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2009-08-26 16:38 question and use example Paul Menair
2009-08-26 20:18 ` Benjamin Andresen
2009-08-26 22:32 ` Nick Dokos
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