How to create option to insert time stamp?

Question

While editing text documents I need to put time stamps frequently. I thought of automating it in 2 different ways. None of these seem to be working.

1. Using nautilus-actions

I set up a new right-context action which runs the command date|xclip

This right-context doesn't show up when I right click in other applications (such as terminal, or browser). Moreover when it appears, and I click on it, it doesn't do anything.

2. Using keyboard shortcut

I setup a new keyboard shortcut which is supposed to execute date command but doesn't.

Any pointers?

Thanks.

Answer 1

GNOME keyboard shortcuts should work.

Here's why what you tried didn't work: Your keyboard shortcut runs the date command, but does nothing with the output (which just gets discarded). You should pipe it to xclip, as date | xclip to copy it to the X selection (not clipboard). Then you can paste it into your document by middle-clicking. If you want to be able to use Ctrl-V, instead use date | xclip -selection c to copy it to the actual clipboard.

Another alternative is to use xdotool to type the date directly into your document. Assign to your shortcut

xdotool type "$(date)"

Then, when you press the shortcut key, it will calculate the current date and type the characters it into your document.

For ISO 8601 format, use xdotool type "$(date --rfc-3339=s)".

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If it doesn't work: Because these are shell commands (as opposed to executables), you might have to pass the command to bash when specifying them in your shortcut. Your command would then be:

bash -c 'xdotool type "$(date --rfc-3339=s)"'

Answer 2

I've been successfully using this as a custom keyboard shortcut assigned to Ctrl+Shift+D:

bash -c 'sleep 0.3 && xdotool type "$(date -u +%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%SZ)"'

I found adding a slight delay solved the issues with missing initial characters, and doesn't pollute my clipboard.

Note that I'm using a slightly customized version of RFC 3339/ISO 8601 format: I often use this in contexts where I want to avoid the space in date's RFC 3339 output, but I find the T that separates the date from the time in ISO 8601 timestamps rather unintuitive and difficult to read, so I find an underscore works well.

Answer 3

bash -c 'xdotool keyup super && xdotool type "$(date +%Y.%m.%d)"'

I use Super+Q as my shortcut, and I need to clear the super modifier before sending the date. I tried --clearmodifiers but that would cause the unity dash to pop up after the shortcut is run [1]

[1] The reason unity dash would pop up afterward is before the super is restored if --clearmodifiers is used Quote from man xdotool

CLEARMODIFIERS
       Any command taking the --clearmodifiers flag will attempt to clear any
       active input modifiers during the command and restore them afterwards.