forms and org-mode

forms and org-mode

[Jude DaShiell]

Would it even be useful to write a set of forms files and use those to
populate an org-mode table?

Re: forms and org-mode

[Ihor Radchenko]

Can you elaborate?

Re: forms and org-mode

[Jude DaShiell]

A table with a time stamp column, a text column for notes and an interval
column rounded to nearest hour.  Any statistics to be calculated on that
intervals column.


On Sat, 21 Aug 2021, Ihor Radchenko wrote:

> Can you elaborate?
>
>

Re: forms and org-mode

[Tim Cross]

So you are asking about using Emacs forms for data input into an org
table?

Just not clear on what exactly your asking about.

Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:

> A table with a time stamp column, a text column for notes and an interval
> column rounded to nearest hour.  Any statistics to be calculated on that
> intervals column.
>
>
> On Sat, 21 Aug 2021, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
>
>> Can you elaborate?
>>
>>

Re: forms and org-mode

[Jude DaShiell]

My reason for using forms to do data input into org tables is to minimize
errors in the data input to the org tables.

On Sat, 21 Aug 2021, Tim Cross wrote:

>
> So you are asking about using Emacs forms for data input into an org
> table?
>
> Just not clear on what exactly your asking about.
>
> Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:
>
> > A table with a time stamp column, a text column for notes and an interval
> > column rounded to nearest hour.  Any statistics to be calculated on that
> > intervals column.
> >
> >
> > On Sat, 21 Aug 2021, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
> >
> >> Can you elaborate?
> >>
> >>
>
>
>

Re: forms and org-mode

[Tim Cross]

OK, but I'm still a little unclear exactly what you are asking about.

If it is just a general question about whether Emacs Forms could be used
for data input into an org table, the basic answer is yes, I think so.

If your asking if anyone has done this - not that I'm aware of.

If your asking how hard it would be to do, well that depends.

The biggest challenge I can see is that Emacs forms expects a data file
which  just consists of one record per line where each record is
separated by a specific character. That part is not too hard. However,
where things might get tricky is if you want to keep the data in an org
file with other org data.

I imagine you could maintain a table in a data file fairly easily. You
can use the org '|' as the field separators and you would likely need to
write an input and output filter function to remove white space and add
it back on writing. None of this would be too hard.

However, if you wanted an emacs forms interface to one or more tables
inside a normal org file, it might be more tricky. You would need a far
more sophisticated input/output filters and possibly need to narrow the
file or do something else to help the filter functions target the data.

It has been many years since I used Emacs Forms. From memory, I gave up
on them as the level of maintenance exceeded the usefulness. I guess it
all really depends on how much data you need to edit and how predictable
the target data files are.

.
Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:

> My reason for using forms to do data input into org tables is to minimize
> errors in the data input to the org tables.
>
> On Sat, 21 Aug 2021, Tim Cross wrote:
>
>>
>> So you are asking about using Emacs forms for data input into an org
>> table?
>>
>> Just not clear on what exactly your asking about.
>>
>> Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:
>>
>> > A table with a time stamp column, a text column for notes and an interval
>> > column rounded to nearest hour.  Any statistics to be calculated on that
>> > intervals column.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sat, 21 Aug 2021, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
>> >
>> >> Can you elaborate?
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>>

Re: forms and org-mode

[Jude DaShiell]

Interesting, thanks for your response.  I keep tables in their own files,
one table per file to minimize complexity.


On Sat, 21 Aug 2021, Tim Cross wrote:

>
> OK, but I'm still a little unclear exactly what you are asking about.
>
> If it is just a general question about whether Emacs Forms could be used
> for data input into an org table, the basic answer is yes, I think so.
>
> If your asking if anyone has done this - not that I'm aware of.
>
> If your asking how hard it would be to do, well that depends.
>
> The biggest challenge I can see is that Emacs forms expects a data file
> which  just consists of one record per line where each record is
> separated by a specific character. That part is not too hard. However,
> where things might get tricky is if you want to keep the data in an org
> file with other org data.
>
> I imagine you could maintain a table in a data file fairly easily. You
> can use the org '|' as the field separators and you would likely need to
> write an input and output filter function to remove white space and add
> it back on writing. None of this would be too hard.
>
> However, if you wanted an emacs forms interface to one or more tables
> inside a normal org file, it might be more tricky. You would need a far
> more sophisticated input/output filters and possibly need to narrow the
> file or do something else to help the filter functions target the data.
>
> It has been many years since I used Emacs Forms. From memory, I gave up
> on them as the level of maintenance exceeded the usefulness. I guess it
> all really depends on how much data you need to edit and how predictable
> the target data files are.
>
> .
> Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:
>
> > My reason for using forms to do data input into org tables is to minimize
> > errors in the data input to the org tables.
> >
> > On Sat, 21 Aug 2021, Tim Cross wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> So you are asking about using Emacs forms for data input into an org
> >> table?
> >>
> >> Just not clear on what exactly your asking about.
> >>
> >> Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:
> >>
> >> > A table with a time stamp column, a text column for notes and an interval
> >> > column rounded to nearest hour.  Any statistics to be calculated on that
> >> > intervals column.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Sat, 21 Aug 2021, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Can you elaborate?
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>

Re: forms and org-mode

[Ihor Radchenko]

Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:

> Interesting, thanks for your response.  I keep tables in their own files,
> one table per file to minimize complexity.

A possible alternative to forms could be using custom capture templates
for table lines. You can restrict the captured information to a specific
list or a function (like org-read-date).

Best,
Ihor

Re: forms and org-mode

[Greg Minshall]

Ihor,

> A possible alternative to forms could be using custom capture templates
> for table lines. You can restrict the captured information to a specific
> list or a function (like org-read-date).

wasn't there also some talk a while back about whatever form'ish
technology "magit" uses?  my sense was it provides something similar to
Emacs forms.

cheers, Greg

Re: forms and org-mode

[Ihor Radchenko]

Greg Minshall <minshall@umich.edu> writes:

> wasn't there also some talk a while back about whatever form'ish
> technology "magit" uses?  my sense was it provides something similar to
> Emacs forms.

To clarify, I am not aware about Emacs forms (unless you refer to
widgets used in customize interface). Magit uses transient which is one
of the possible completion interfaces in Emacs.

Best,
Ihor

Re: forms and org-mode

[Tim Cross]

Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com> writes:

> Greg Minshall <minshall@umich.edu> writes:
>
>> wasn't there also some talk a while back about whatever form'ish
>> technology "magit" uses?  my sense was it provides something similar to
>> Emacs forms.
>
> To clarify, I am not aware about Emacs forms (unless you refer to
> widgets used in customize interface). Magit uses transient which is one
> of the possible completion interfaces in Emacs.
>

Yes, Emacs Forms is part of Emacs and provides an interface for
collecting data - either it is based on Emacs widgets or something very
similar. Very much like old 'form' data entry interfaces we use to see
on terminals in the 80s. A bit like ncurses with a little 'window'
decoration. 

Transient on the other hand is a UI library for getting user input where
the options are a little too complex/large for the more common input
methods - for example, it could be a good candidate for the export
'menu'. which I find can be very frustrating on a smaller screen when
you have lots of defined export back-ends.

Re: forms and org-mode

[Ihor Radchenko]

Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> writes:

> Transient on the other hand is a UI library for getting user input where
> the options are a little too complex/large for the more common input
> methods - for example, it could be a good candidate for the export
> 'menu'. which I find can be very frustrating on a smaller screen when
> you have lots of defined export back-ends.

I agree. Other good candidates are org-agenda dispatcher and org-attach
dispatcher.

Best,
Ihor

Re: forms and org-mode

[Ihor Radchenko]

Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com> writes:

> A table with a time stamp column, a text column for notes and an interval
> column rounded to nearest hour.  Any statistics to be calculated on that
> intervals column.

I am still not sure if I understand you clearly. Does clocktable do what
you want?

Best,
Ihor