Next: COPYING
This manual, written by Protesilaos Stavrou, describes the customization
options for tmr
(or TMR, TMR May Ring, …), and provides every other
piece of information pertinent to it. The name of the package is
pronounced as “timer” or “T-M-R”.
The documentation furnished herein corresponds to stable version 1.0.0, released on 2024-08-30. Any reference to a newer feature which does not yet form part of the latest tagged commit, is explicitly marked as such.
Current development target is 1.1.0-dev.
tmr
Next: Overview, Previous: TMR May Ring, Up: TMR May Ring
Copyright (C) 2021-2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with the Front-Cover Texts being “A GNU Manual,” and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License.”
(a) The FSF’s Back-Cover Text is: “You have the freedom to copy and modify this GNU manual.”
Next: Installation, Previous: COPYING, Up: TMR May Ring
TMR is an Emacs package that provides facilities for setting timers
using a convenient notation. The first point of entry is the tmr
command. It prompts for a unit of time, which is represented as a
string that consists of a number and, optionally, a single character
suffix which specifies the unit of time. Without a suffix, the number
is interpreted as a count in minutes. Valid input formats:
Input | Meaning |
---|---|
5 | 5 minutes |
5m | 5 minutes |
5s | 5 seconds |
5h | 5 hours |
The input can be a floating point:
Input | Meaning |
---|---|
1.5 | 1.5 minutes (90 seconds) |
1.5h | 1.5 hours (90 minutes) |
The input can also be an absolute time, such as ‘16:00’ or ‘16:00:30’. It sets a timer from present time until the one specified.
If tmr
is called with an optional prefix argument (‘C-u’ with default
key bindings), it asks for a description to be associated with the given
timer.
An alternative to the tmr
command is tmr-with-details
. The
difference between the two is that the latter always prompts for a
description and if the timer should be acknowledged.
The command tmr-edit-description
can change the description a given
timer object.
The command tmr-toggle-acknowledge
toggles the acknowledge flag of a
given timer object. A timer that needs to be acknowledged prompts for
confirmation after it elapses. The user can either confirm and thus
dismiss the timer, or set a new duration for the next reminder, using
the familiar TMR input.
The user option tmr-descriptions-list
defines the completion
candidates that are shown at the description prompt. Its value can be
either a list of strings or the symbol of a variable that holds a list
of strings. The default value of tmr-description-history
, is the name
of a variable that contains input provided by the user at the relevant
prompt of the tmr
and tmr-with-details
commands.
When the timer is set, a message is sent to the echo area recording the
current time and the point in the future when the timer elapses. Echo
area messages can be reviewed with the view-echo-area-messages
which
is bound to ‘C-h e’ by default. To check all timers, use the command
tmr-tabulated-view
, which has more features than the generic
‘*Messages*’ buffer (Grid view).
The tmr-cancel
command cancels running timers without erasing them from
the list of created timer objects. Timers at the completion prompt are
described by the exact time they were set and the input that was used to
create them, including the optional description that tmr
and
tmr-with-details
accept.
The tmr-remove
command is like tmr-cancel
, except it is not limited
to active timers: it can target elapsed ones as well.
The tmr-clone
command directly copies the duration and optional
description of a timer into a new one. With an optional prefix argument
(‘C-u’ by default), this command prompts for a duration. If a double
prefix argument is supplied (‘C-u C-u’), the command asks for a duration
and then a description. The default values of such prompts are those of
the original timer.
The command tmr-reschedule
changes the duration of the given timer to
a new one provided at the prompt. In practice this is a shortcut to (i)
cloning the timer, (ii) prompting for duration, and (iii) cancelling the
original timer.
The tmr-remove-finished
command deletes all elapsed timers from the
list of timers. This means that they can no longer be cloned.
By default, TMR uses minibuffer completion to pick a timer object in
operations such as cloning and cancelling. If the user option
tmr-confirm-single-timer
is set to nil, TMR will not use completion when
there is only one timer available: it will perform the specified command
outright.
Timers have hooks associated with their creation, cancellation, and completion (Hooks). TMR can also integrate with the desktop environment to send notifications (Sound and desktop notifications).
TMR does not specify global key bindings. Instead, it sets up the
tmr-prefix-map
, which specifies keys for the relevant commands. The
user has the option to either bind the map to a prefix key, such as
‘C-c t’ (so tmr
is ‘C-c t t’), or bind individual commands to the
desired keys (Sample configuration).
Timers can be viewed in a grid with tmr-tabulated-view
(alias
tmr-list-timers
). The data is placed in the ‘*tmr-tabulated-view*’
buffer and looks like this:
Start End Remaining Description 10:11:49 10:11:54 ✔ 10:11:36 10:31:36 19m 35s 10:11:32 10:26:32 14m 31s Yet another test 10:11:16 10:21:16 9m 14s Testing how it works
If a timer has elapsed, it has a check mark associated with it, otherwise the ‘Remaining’ column shows the time left. A ‘Description’ is shown only if it is provided while setting the timer, otherwise the field is left blank.
Inside this grid view, all TMR commands that operate on timer objects automatically target the one at point. Whereas the global behaviour is to use minibuffer completion to pick a timer to operate on.
The tmr-tabulated-view
command relies on Emacs’ tabulated-list-mode
.
From the ‘*tmr-tabulated-view*’ buffer, one can invoke the command
describe-mode
(‘C-h m’ with standard key bindings) to learn about the
applicable functionality, such as how to expand/contract columns and
toggle sorting.
While in this grid view, one can perform all the operations on timers we have already covered herein (the ‘C-h m’ will show you their key bindings in this mode).
[ The tmr-list-timers-action-alist
and the option to call
tmr-tabulated-view
from Lisp are part of 1.1.0-dev. ]
The user option tmr-list-timers-action-alist
controls how the
command tmr-tabulated-view
displays its buffer. Its default
behaviour is to (i) place the buffer at the bottom of the Emacs frame,
(ii) resize the window to match the height of the buffer, and (iii)
select that window.
The value of this user option is the same data that is passed to
display-buffer-alist
. It is meant to be customised by advanced
users. Evaluate ‘(info "(elisp) Displaying Buffers")’ to read the
relevant entry in the manual.
The tmr-list-timers-action-alist
is relevant only when the command
tmr-tabulated-view
is called interactively. In Lisp, the tmr-tabulated-view
requires the buffer it should use and the concomitant action alist.
Next: Sound and desktop notifications, Previous: Grid or tabulated view, Up: Overview
TMR provides the following hooks:
tmr-timer-created-functions
This is triggered by the tmr
command.
By default, it prints a message in the echo area showing the newly
created timer’s start and end time as well as its optional description
(if provided).
tmr-timer-finished-functions
This runs when a timer elapses. By default, it (i) produces a desktop notification which describes the timer’s start/end time and optional description (if available), (ii) plays an alarm sound (Sound and desktop notifications), and (iii) prints a message in the echo area which is basically the same as the desktop notification.
tmr-timer-cancelled-functions
This is called by tmr-cancel
. By
default, it prints a message in the echo area describing the timer that
was cancelled.
Next: Minibuffer histories, Previous: Hooks, Up: Overview
Once the timer has run its course, it produces a desktop notification and plays an alarm sound. The notification’s message is practically the same as that which is sent to the echo area.
The sound file for the alarm is defined in tmr-sound-file
, while the
urgency of the notification can be set through the user option
tmr-notification-urgency
. Note that it is up to the desktop
environment or notification daemon to decide how to handle the urgency
value.
If the tmr-sound-file
is nil, or the file is not found, no sound will
be played.
Sound playback depends on the ‘ffplay’ executable which is part of ‘ffmpeg’.
Desktop notifications work only if Emacs is built with DBus functionality. This is the norm. If such functionality is not available, TMR will issue a warning informing the user accordingly.
Previous: Sound and desktop notifications, Up: Overview
TMR defines two variables that store user input: tmr-duration-history
and tmr-description-history
. Minibuffer histories can persist between
sessions if the user enables the built-in ‘savehist’ library. Sample
configuration:
(require 'savehist) (setq savehist-file (locate-user-emacs-file "savehist")) (setq history-length 500) (setq history-delete-duplicates t) (setq savehist-save-minibuffer-history t) (add-hook 'after-init-hook #'savehist-mode)
Next: Sample configuration, Previous: Overview, Up: TMR May Ring
Next: Manual installation, Up: Installation
The package is available as tmr
. Simply do:
M-x package-refresh-contents M-x package-install
And search for it.
GNU ELPA provides the latest stable release. Those who prefer to follow the development process in order to report bugs or suggest changes, can use the version of the package from the GNU-devel ELPA archive. Read: https://protesilaos.com/codelog/2022-05-13-emacs-elpa-devel/.
Previous: GNU ELPA package, Up: Installation
Assuming your Emacs files are found in ‘~/.emacs.d/’, execute the following commands in a shell prompt:
cd ~/.emacs.d # Create a directory for manually-installed packages mkdir manual-packages # Go to the new directory cd manual-packages # Clone this repo, naming it "tmr" git clone https://github.com/protesilaos/tmr tmr
Finally, in your ‘init.el’ (or equivalent) evaluate this:
;; Make Elisp files in that directory available to the user. (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/manual-packages/tmr")
Everything is in place to set up the package.
Next: Integration with Embark, Previous: Installation, Up: TMR May Ring
;; Set to nil to disable the sound (setq tmr-sound-file "/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/alarm-clock-elapsed.oga") ;; Desktop notification urgency level (setq tmr-notification-urgency 'normal) ;; Read the `tmr-descriptions-list' doc string (setq tmr-descriptions-list 'tmr-description-history) ;; Set global prefix bindings (autoloaded): (define-key global-map "\C-ct" 'tmr-prefix-map) ;; Alternatively bind tmr command (autoloaded): (define-key global-map "\C-ct" 'tmr)
Next: Acknowledgements, Previous: Sample configuration, Up: TMR May Ring
The ‘embark’ package provides standards-compliant infrastructure to run
context-dependent actions on all sorts of targets (symbol at point, current
completion candidate, etc.). TMR is set up to make its timer objects
recognisable by Embark and registers the tmr-action-map
in Embark.
Next: GNU Free Documentation License, Previous: Integration with Embark, Up: TMR May Ring
TMR is meant to be a collective effort. Every bit of help matters.
Protesilaos Stavrou (maintainer), Damien Cassou, Daniel Mendler.
Christian Tietze, Ed Tavinor, Nathan R. DeGruchy.
Next: Indices, Previous: Acknowledgements, Up: TMR May Ring
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Previous: GNU Free Documentation License, Up: TMR May Ring
Previous: Variable index, Up: Indices