Edit Facts and Metadata

Each Fact has 6 attributes you can edit:

  • Start time.
  • End time.
  • Activity.
  • Category.
  • Tags.
  • Description.

You can specify the start and end time directly in the editor using a text input, described next, or you can edit time using special “nudge” commands, described in a later section.

You can change the Activity, Category, and Tags using the Awesome Prompt.

Finally, you can edit the description using your normal text editor, as previously described.

Edit Start Time and End Time

When dob starts, it starts with focus on the description area – you should see a blocky white cursor in the upper-left of the description box.

You can run most dob commands from this “mode”, but you can also change focus to the start time and end time controls to directly edit those values.

To edit the start time directly, press s to focus its control.

  • You can also press Tab or Shift-Tab to shift focus between the start time, end time, and the description.
  • When finished editing the start time value, press Enter to apply it, or press s to toggle away from the control (which also applies it), or press Tab or Shift-Tab (which also shift focus and apply the new time).

You can likewise access the end time control by pressing e, and editing the end time in a manner similar to editing the start time.

Note that you do not have to enter a complete date and time in the field. You can enter just the date, or just the time (for today’s date), or even a + or a - followed by a delta time to add or remove minutes from the field’s original value.

Directly editing the time value can feel tedious, so dob provides more convenient ways to change a Fact’s start and end time.

Edit Activity, Category, and Tags

The Activity and Category is edited as one unit (colloquially called the “act@gory”).

Press a to launch the Activity prompt.

  • Type the Activity@Category name, or use auto-complete to fill it in, or choose an act@gory from the drop-down list.

    Press Enter to accept the Activity and return to dob. Or press Ctrl-q to cancel the prompt without changing the Activity.

  • You’ll notice there are a number of commands shown in the bottom toolbar.

    • You can press Alt-i to toggle auto-complete case sensitivity.

    • You can press Alt-m to toggle whether auto-complete should match in the middle of strings, or just at the start.

    • Use the F-keys – F2 through F6 – to change how the drop-down list is ordered.

      • Press F2 to order alphabetically, by name.
      • Press F3 to order by start time, i.e., show the activities you’ve applied to recent Facts.
      • Press F4 to order by count, i.e., show the most-used activities.
      • Press F5 to order by time, i.e., show the activities that have the most accumulated time spent on them (by adding up all their Facts’ durations).
      • Press F6 to order by most recently used in the app (not to be confused with most recently used by any Facts, which F3 shows).

      Each F-key has three states. Pressing the same F-key again will cycle through these states: Show the drop-down list sorted normally, show the drop-drop sorted in reverse, or hide the dropdown.

You’ll also use a special prompt to add and remove Tags.

Press t to edit Tags.

  • You can type a Tag name and press Enter to add it.

    Or you can start to type a Tag name, and then press Tab to choose the auto-complete suggestion, if appropriate.

    Or you can use the arrow keys to select a Tag from the drop-down list, followed by Enter.

  • When you’re done with Tags, press Enter on an empty input field to close the Tags prompt.

    For example, type a Tag name, press Enter to add it, and then press Enter again to close the prompt.

  • To remove a Tag, you can type the Tag name to remove, and press Enter.

    Or, press F8 to view the list of Tags that have been applied, and then use the arrows keys to select one from the drop-down list, followed by Enter to remove it.