NEW FOR VERSIONS > 360

• Nearly all of the code has been rewritten and simplified with associated performance improvements. Screen displays in the gui version are now cached.

• All supporting files are now contained in the single '~/.etm' directory:

  ~/.etm/
      data/           # the default location for etm data files
      ical/           # the default location for iCal exports
      etmalerts       # warning alerts for the current day
      etmlock         # lock file (when the background alerts process
                        is running)
      etmrc           # configuration settings (formerly ~/.etmrc)
  

• Command line options have been simplified:

  h       Show this help message
  n       Display the latest available version of etm
  w       Start the wx(Python) based gui version of etm
  
  b [B]   Display busy/free times using command line options [first
          prompting for options and displaying help information].
  l [L]   Display a list of events, actions and tasks using command line
          options [first prompting for options and displaying help
          information].
  r [R]   Display a reckoning of time spent in events and actions
          using command line options [first prompting for options and
          displaying help information].
  a [A]   Display the agenda using command line options [first prompting
          for options and displaying help information].
  

• The old curses-based gui has been replaced by a wx(Python) based gui:

  • The new gui runs under MS Windows as well as Linux and OS X. The old curses based gui did not work under Windows.
  • The display has been simplified. The context, project and id columns have been removed and are now shown with other 'details' in a second line the display of which can be toggled off and on. The screenshot below shows the 'details' view. Other screenshots are in the images-new directory.
  • The entry bar now automatically expands by adding lines when needed.
  • Entry and display of unicode characters is supported.
  • When creating/modifying new projects, events, tasks and actions, the relevant usage information is automatically displayed above the entry bar.
  • In the entry bar, pressing <backquote>-d pops up a calendar for date selection. Similarly, pressing <backquote>-c pops up a selection list of previously used contexts and <backquote>-k pops up a selection list of previously used keywords.
  • In setting options for the standard agenda, list, busy and reckoning views, pressing <backquote>-h pops up a list of previously used view-specific option histories. Often used option strings can be specified for each of the standard views in etmrc. Option strings from the current etm session are appended to these lists.
  • Ctrl-P prints a nicely-formated version of the current display.
  • Ctrl-S saves a nicely formated version of the current agenda, list, busy/free or reckoning view to the system clipboard.
  • Item id-numbers are only displayed when needed for the pending operation.
  • Confirmations for standard actions have been streamlined. Confirming messages are temporarily displayed in the status bar and then automatically disappear after a (user controlled) number of seconds.
  • Any action can be canceled by simply pressing the <Esc> key.

• All command line displays now include a '-t' switch for producing text output suitable for cut and paste, printing and so forth.
• If hours_minutes (in etmrc) is False, then time reckonoing reports will be in hours and tenths rounded up to the nearest tenth of an hour.
• log and archive files are now hidden and backups are only rotated if the most recent is at least one day old.

TRYING OUT THE NEW VERSION

You will need python >= 2.5.2 for the command line interface plus wxPython >= 2.8.10 for the gui interface. If you have a choice between an ansi and a unicode version for wxPython, I would advise getting the unicode version. Both the command line and the gui interfaces still require dateutil >= 1.4.1.

You can try it out the new version after installing/upgrading python and wxPython without changing your existing etm setup in any way.

First unpack the tarball in a convenient spot, then cd to the unpacked etm root directory where you should find e.py, among other things, and run:

python e.py

This will create a new directory, ~/.etm, and a default configuration file, ~/.etm/etmrc. The defaults will put your etm project files in ~/.etm/data, ical exports in ~/.etm/ical and alerts in ~/.etm/alerts. You can thus test things without touching your existing projects or configuration.

You can now run:

python e.py h

for the command line usage information or:

pthon e.py w

to start the wxPython-based graphic user interface.

Features

With etm you can:

• Quickly enter an event or task on a single line using a simple format.
• Add notes that display with the relevant event or task.
• Specify a list of minutes prior to an event at which to trigger early warning alerts.
• Specify a number of days prior to the due date to be reminded to begin a task.
• Display tasks in customizable colors which depend upon their due dates.
• Keep complete records of the dates when tasks were completed.
• Easily specify tasks that repeat in complex ways, e.g., the first Tuesday after a Monday in November every four years (Presidential election day). See Repetition examples.
• Quickly enter dates and times using fuzzy parsing.
• Quickly make records of expenditures of your time and use date, context and keywords to categorize them. Use this simply to track your time or to bill clients. See Actions for details.
• View events and tasks sorted by date, project, context or keywords.
• Limit the display to events, tasks and/or actions whose titles, notes, projects, contexts and/or keywords match (regex) search string(s).
• Export the events, tasks and/or actions which satisfy the other list view criteria in iCalendar format.
• See schedules of busy and free times for a range of dates. Limit displayed free times to certain hours each day, .e.g., 8:00a-5:00p, and to periods of at least a minimum number of minutes in duration.
• Use time reports to see how your time has been used. These reports can make use of dates, contexts, keywords and descriptions to provide a myriad of possible levels of detail and groupings. See TimeReports for details.
• Dates and calendars use locale settings and thus should appear in your native language. Other settings determine the first day of the week and the words and phrases used in displays and alerts.
• Check the status of the alert queue.
• Pop up a twelve month planning calendar.
• View sun and moon data (from the US Naval Observatory) for a location specified in your ~/.etmrc for a (fuzzy parsed) date.
• View local weather conditions and forecast (from yahoo weather) for a location specified in your ~/.etmrc.
• View, edit and create remind reminders.

GTD

Making Getting Things Done easier is etm's goal. Getting Things Done, commonly abbreviated as GTD, is an action management method, and the title of a extremely popular book by David Allen. GTD rests on the common sense notion that with a complete and current inventory of all commitments, organized and reviewed in a systematic way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can focus on actually performing those tasks.

Three observations are critical:

1. Projects usually involve a series of steps, some of which must be carried out consecutively, e.g., parts must be acquired before assembly can begin.
2. The steps of a project are carried out in a context which may vary from step to step, e.g., parts may be acquired in the context 'errands' but assembly may be in the context 'shop'.
3. While focusing on projects is great for planning, for actually doing things it would be more convenient to focus on context so that, for example, you could see all actions from all projects with context 'errands' before you drive off. To focus on what needs to be done, it would also be useful to be able to hide actions that are not yet available so that, for example, 'assemble parts' is not displayed until 'acquire parts' is complete.

GTD thus requires convenient methods for:

An illustrative project

Suppose there is a department meeting at noon on Friday, March 13, 2009, that you want to remember. With etm, the following text file would accomplish this:

---- file begins -----------------
report
* staff meeting @c work @d 2009-03-13 @s 12:00p
---- file ends -------------------

The asterisk before 'staff meeting' means that this line describes an event. The staff meeting would now appear on your agenda for February 20 associated with the project report and the context work. If you would like to be alerted 15 and 10 minutes before the meeting and be reminded to bring a report with you to the meeting, then change the event line to:

* staff meeting @c work @d 2009-03-13 @s 12:00p @a 15, 10 @n bring report

To make things more interesting, suppose that you are responsible for preparing the report and presenting it at the meeting. The following:

---- file begins -----------------
report @c work @d 2009-03-13
* staff meeting @s 12:00p @a 15, 10 @n bring report
+ prepare report @b 1
---- file ends -------------------

would remind you of this task one day before the meeting.

Still more interesting, suppose you need sales data from Joe and inventory data from Mary before you can prepare the report. Just add two more tasks:

 ---- file begins -----------------
report @c work @d 2009-03-13
 * staff meeting @s 12:00p @a 15, 10 @n bring report
 + get sales from Joe @b 2
 - get inventory from Mary @b 2
 + prepare report @b 1
 ---- file ends -------------------

Tasks can begin either with a plus or a minus sign. The plus sign before Joe means that Mary can be started before Joe is done. The minus sign before Mary means, on the other hand, that Mary, and thus Joe as well, must be finished before report, can begin.

Finally, the following slight modification would cover such meetings when they repeat on the second Friday of every month:

---- file begins -----------------
report @c work @d 2009-03-13 @r m @w FR(2)
* staff meeting @s 12:00p @a 15, 10 @n bring report
+ get sales from Joe @b 2
- get inventory from Mary @b 2
+ prepare report @b 1
---- file ends -------------------

What could be easier?

Here's a slightly more complicated example for a course I'm teaching:

---- file begins -----------------
ECO 207
# classes meet on Tu and Th at 2:50 from 1/8 until 4/21 save for the
# midterm on 2/24 and spring break on 3/10 and 3/12
* ECO 2O7 @d 2009-01-08 @c class @r w @w (TU, TH) @s 2:50PM @a (10, 2, 0)
    @u 2009-04-21 @x (2009-02-24, 2009-03-10, 2009-03-12)
# exams
* ECO 2O7 Midterm @d 2009-02-24 @s 2:50PM @a (10, 2, 0) @c exam
* ECO 2O7 Final @d 2009-04-27 @s 2:00PM @a (10, 2, 0) @c exam
# preparation
- prepare syllabus @d 2009-01-08 @b 7 @c mac
- xerox syllabus @d 2009-01-08 @b 7 @c office
- prepare midterm @d 2009-02-24 @b 7 @c mac
- xerox midterm @d 2009-02-24 @b 7 @c office
- prepare final @d 2009-04-27 @b 7 @c mac
- zerox final @d 2009-04-27 @b 7 @c office
---- file ends -------------------

Lines beginning with # are comments.

Project details

Project files are text files with the default extension .txt within etmdata ('~/.etmdata' by default) and any sub-directories.

• The first line of each project file gives the project title together with any optional arguments.
• Subsequent lines describe tasks, events and actions.

Arguments provided on the first line can include most of those used on subsequent lines. When provided, they become the default values for subsequent tasks, events and activities.

The important distinctions among events, tasks and activities are the following:

Event lines have the following format:

* <event name> [Options]
Options:
    date         @d YYYY-MM-DD with fuzzy parsing (required)
    context      @c string
    keywords     @k string or list of strings
    repeat       @r d)aily, w)eekly, m)onthly, y)early, l)ist
                    Default: none. With l)ist only dates specified
                    by @l will be included
        interval @i 2, 3, ... Default: 1
        until    @u YYYY-MM-DD with fuzzy parsing. Default: forever
        weekday  @w MO, TU, ..., MO(-1) or a list of weekdays.
                 Integers can be used instead with 0=MO, 1=TU and
                 so forth.
        week     @W integer week number or list of week numbers
        monthday @m integer month day or list of monthdays
        month    @M integer month number or list of month numbers
        include  @l a list of (non matching) dates to
                    include
        exclude  @x a list of (matching) dates to
                    exclude
    starttime    @s HH:MM[AP] fuzzy parsing
    endtime      @e HH:MM[AP] fuzzy parsing (requires starttime)
    alerts       @a a list of minutes before --starttime
                    for alerts. The separate program ew.py must be
                    running for alerts to be triggered.
    note         @n string

Events without a starttime are regarded as all-day events.

Note: Lists in events (above) and tasks (below) must be comma separated and enclosed in parentheses. A list of numbers can also be specified using the range operator, e.g., range(1,5) = (1,2,3,4) and range(5,20,3) = (5,8,11,14,17).

Tasks lines have a slightly different format:

[+-] <task name> [Options]
    +: a parallel task (the next task can be started before this one is finished)
    -: a series task (the next task cannot be started before this one is finished)
Options:
    date         @d YYYY-MM-DD with fuzzy parsing (required for repeating tasks)
    context      @c string
    keywords     @k string or list of strings
    repeat       @r d)aily, w)eekly, m)onthly, y)early, l)ist
                    Default: none. With l)ist only dates specified
                    by @l will be included
        interval @i 2, 3, ... Default: 1
        until    @u YYYY-MM-DD with fuzzy parsing. Default: forever
        weekday  @w MO, TU, ..., MO(-1) or list of weekdays.
                 Integers can be used instead with 0 = MO, 1=TU and so forth.
        week     @W integer week number or list of week numbers
        monthday @m integer month day or list of monthdays
        month    @M integer month number or list of month numbers
        include  @l a list of (non matching) dates to include
        exclude  @x a list of (matching) dates to exclude
        overdue  @o k)eep, r)estart, s)kip. Default: k
    note         @n string
    begin        @b integer number of days before date
    finished     @f YYYY-MM-DD with fuzzy parsing

Actions are simpler still:

~ <Description of activity> [Options]
Options:
    date         @d a date. Required.
    period       @p elapsed time in minutes. Required.
    context      @c string.
    keywords     @k string or list of strings. Keywords containing a
                 colon(s), e.g., "x:y", "x:z", will be split to form
                 groups and subgroups when aggregating times.
    note         @n string

See Actions for a discussion of how the gui verion of etm makes creating records of time expenditures particularly easy.

entering        would give after fuzzy parsing
--------        -------------------------------
tue                 2009-02-17
thu                 2009-02-19
mon                 2009-02-23
23                  2009-02-23
mar 2               2009-03-02
3/2                 2009-03-02
2/1/2010            2010-02-01

Once every other week:             Monthly on the 2nd and 15th:
  @r w @i 2                          @r m @m (2,15)

Monthly on the 2nd-15th:           Monthly on the first and last days:
  @r m @m range(2,16)                @r m @m (1,-1)

Monthly on the third Monday:       30 days from the last completion:
  @r m @w MO(+3)                     @r d @i 30 @o r

The 3rd, 10th and 25th of April:   Every 13th which is a Friday:
  @r l @l apr 3, apr 10, apr 25      @r m @m 13 @w FR

Weekly on Tu and Th until May 7:   The first Tuesday after a Monday
  @r w @w (TU,TH) @u 2009-05-07    in November every four years
                                   (presidential election day):
                                     @r y @i 4 @M 11 @m range(2,9) @w TU

Creating new entries and changing existing ones

The GUI version of etm makes it easy to create and change events, tasks, actions and reminders:

e:  Create a new event. Prompt for file number, display event help
    and prompt for entry.
t:  Create a new task. Prompt for file number, display task help
    and prompt for entry.
a:  Start the timer for a new action. Pressing 'a' again stops
    the timer, prompts for a file number to record the entry, shows
    action help information and prompts for the completion of an
    entry that already contains the date and elapsed time.
p:  Create a new project. Prompt for file name, display project
    help and prompt for entry.
r:  Create a new (remind) event. Display remind help and prompt for
    entry.
f:  Toggle the finished status of a task. Prompt for the task number.
    If an argument is provided it will be (fuzzy) parsed for the
    completion date. Otherwise TODAY (today's date) will be used.
    Note: the finished status can only be turned off for a
    non-repeating task.
m:  Modify an existing task, event or reminder. Prompt for the number.
P:  Open an existing project for editing. Display a numbered list
    of existing projects and prompt for the file number to use.
D:  Delete an existing task, event, action or reminder. Prompt for
    the item number. Warning. This cannot be undone!

The process of creating a new task (t) is illustrated below. After pressing 't', the file number prompt appears:

After entering the file number, the new task entry prompt appears. Here the 'prepare report' task being entered:

If this task were being entered on Tuesday, 10 March 2009, then fuzzy parsing of 'thu' would return 2009-03-12.

The confirmation screen gives an opportunity to cancel creating the task, make further changes or append the task to the selected file.

For a more interesting example, suppose I want to be reminded to vote in the 2012 presidential election. I enter the recurrence rule from the repetition examples but, since I'm too lazy to look up the date of the 2012 election, I simply enter '2012' for the date:

Note that in the confirmation screen, '2012' has been replaced by the actual date of the election from the recurrence rule. This is not only convenient, but also provides a check that the recurrence rule is working correctly.

Note also that 'tue' has been replaced by 'TU' which is the weekday abbreviation required for the recurrence rule. If instead of 'tue', I had entered 'teu' by mistake, then I would have seen:

In this way the GUI version of etm provides a user-friendly method for creating new tasks, events and actions by automatically correcting minor issues and informing the user of the others.

Viewing events and tasks

Soon view

This is the default view for both the command line and GUI versions of etm. Here events and tasks are groupded by date starting with today and continuing, by default, for an additional (user configurable) SOON days in the future. The task list for each displayed date is limited to unfinished tasks which are due on that date and which are available, i.e., not dependent on the completion of some, as yet unfinished, prior task(s).

The display of tasks and events grouped by date is followed, if necessary, by three further groups:

Waiting for prior task completion:
	Tasks which are due on or before the last displayed date but which require the prior completion of one or more currently unfinished task(s).
Available by <last displayed date>:
	Task which are not due within the listed dates but which have begin dates falling on or before the last displayed date.
Without a due date:
	Tasks for which no due date is specified.

The display can optionally be limited to those whose title or note matches a specified search string. Matching is case insensitive.

The screenshot below displays the soon view for the report illustration

Users of remind should note that the 'daylight' entry for March 11 was provided by remind.

List view

List view displays events and tasks, both unfinished and finished and both available and unavailable, whose due dates fall within a specified period. This list can be grouped by date, the default, or by project or by context.

When grouping by date, an addition group is provided, if necessary, for tasks without a due date.

The display can optionally be limited to those whose title or note match a specified search string or, when grouping by projects or contexts, to those whose project or context title matches a specified string. All matching is case insensitive.

The screenshot below shows the list view grouped by project for the report illustration.

Soon and list view options

From the help screen:

-d DAYS <integer>: Temporarily use this number of days for SOON
    (soon view) and for NEXT (list view).
-b BEGIN <date>:  With list view, display tasks/events beginning
    with this (fuzzy parsed) date. A space is required between -b
    and BEGIN, e.g., -b feb 3. Ignored with soon view where
    BEGIN is always TODAY.
-e END <date>: Display tasks/events ending with this (fuzzy parsed)
    date. A space is required between -e and END, e.g., -e mar 1.
    Default: TODAY plus SOON days for soon view; BEGIN plus RECENT
    plus NEXT days for list view.
-g GROUPBY <[dpc]>: Only with list view. How to group tasks/events:
        d: group by due date (the default).
        p: group by project.
        c: group by context.
        k: group by keyword.

Spaces and tabs are not allowed in the regular expressions below; use
'\s' for a whitespace character instead.

-f FIND <regex>: Only show tasks|events containing FIND (ignoring
    case) in either the task title or note and falling within the
    BEGIN ~ FINISH interval using the GROUPBY setting.
-c CONTEXT <regex>. Only show tasks|events with contexts containing
    CONTEXT (ignoring case) and falling within the BEGIN ~ FINISH
    interval using the GROUPBY setting.
-p PROJECT <regex>. Only show tasks|events with projects containing
    PROJECT (ignoring case) and falling within the BEGIN ~ FINISH
    interval using the GROUPBY setting.
-k KEYWORD <regex>. Only show tasks|events with keywords matching
    KEYWORD (ignoring case) and falling within the BEGIN ~ FINISH
    interval using the GROUPBY setting.
-x EXPORT. (List View only) Export list view items in iCal format to
    EXPORT.ics in the etmical directory specified in '~/.etmrc'.

After pressing 'l' to bring up 'list options', '-f mary' is entered to show items containing 'mary' in either the title or the note. Here is the result:

Unscheduled periods view

Unscheduled periods view displays a lists of scheduled (busy) and unscheduled (free) intervals starting, by default, TODAY and continuing through NEXT days after TODAY, first prompting for options. The graphical plus times display is illustrated below. A times-only display is also available.

Options for the scheduled/unscheduled view:

-d, -b, -e as with list and soon views above.
-m MINIMUM interval size in minutes to consider unscheduled/available.
-E EARLIEST time to consider unscheduled/available.
-L LATEST time to consider unscheduled/available.

F5: Display twelve month calendar starting last month.
F6: Switch to the previous display.
d:  Display sun and moon data from the USNO for a (fuzzy parsed) date.
q:  Display the current contents of the etm warning queue.
v:  Check for available etm updates.
V:  Toggle displaying alerts, keywords and notes. Prefix titles with
    hidden items by [x] where x contains the keys of the hidden items.
w:  Display current weather data from yahoo.

Export to iCal views

Exporting a list view to iCal requires the python module icalendar which can be easily installed using the command:

sudo easy_install -U icalendar

List view options can be used to select the date range and show only items matching regex searches. E.g.,

e.py -l -b 6/1 -e 8/30 -c class -x classes

would create a calendar named 'classes.ics' containing all items with dates between June 1 and August 30 with a context matching 'class'.

Such calendars can be imported into any calendar application that supports this format, e.g., Sunbird, KOrganizer and iCal. One of my favorites, phpicalendar, is web based and supports daily, weekly and monthly views:

Alerts

Alerts for an event are set by adding an '@a' field to the event, e.g.,

* Staff meeting @s 10:00A @a (10, 5, 0) ...

would set alerts for 10 minutes before the event, 5 minutes before the event and at the starting time of the event. For these alerts to be triggered the etm background warning process must be running. This process is typically started by running 'ew.py -s &' at a command prompt. See Command line usage. What happens when an alert is triggered is determined by the setting for 'alertcmd' in '~/.etmrc'. With the default setting:

alertcmd = '''echo %(t)s. %(m)s. | wall'''

the current time would be substituted for '%(t)s', the text of the event title for '%(m)s' and then 'wall' would be called to display the resulting message. Under the default settings, the first alert message would be:

The time is 9:50AM. Staff meeting in ten minutes.

and the last alert message would be:

The time is 10:00AM. Staff meeting now.

On a mac (OS X leopard), you could use:

alertcmd = '''say -v "Alex" "%(t)s. %(m)s."'''

to announce the message using the voice 'Alex'. More generally, any command that will accept a string argument could be used.

Rotating files

Many times it will be convenient to create a project file to hold a collection of related tasks and events as in the illustrative case of the report. Often, however, tasks and events will be created that are independent of one another. There is no need to create separate project files in such circumstances. etm, in fact, will automatically create files that can you can use for such independent tasks and events and, further, will automatically archive these files for you after one year.

Suppose it is currently February 2009. Then etm will automatically create 'tasks_02.txt', 'evnts_02.txt' and 'jrnl_02.txt' the first time it is run. By default, tasks, events and actions created during February will be written, respectively, to these files. Similar files will be automatically be created and become the defaults as subsequent months arrive. When February 2010 rolls around 'tasks_02.txt' will automatically be moved to '2009-02_tasks', 'evnts_02.txt' to '2009-02_evnts', 'jrnl_02.txt' to '2009-02_jrnl' and new 'tasks_02.txt', 'evnts_02.txt' and 'jrnl_02.txt' files will be created. Since etm only processes files with the extension '.txt', the monthly archives of your past tasks, events and actions will be kept until you decide to delete them but only the last year's worth will be loaded and processed by etm.

etm will also create files 'done_02.txt', 'done_03.txt' and so forth and, as with the tasks, evnts and jrnl files, archive them after a year. When a non-repeating task is finished, a date stamp containing the completion date is added to the task so that if, e.g.,

+ my non-repeating task @d 2009-02-17

were marked finished on Feburary 18, 2009 then it would become:

+ my non-repeating task @d 2009-02-17 @f 2009-02-18

On the other hand, when a repeating task is marked finished, the due date for the task is updated to the next due date and a copy of the task with the repetition details removed and the completion date added is appended to the done file for the appropriate month. If, e.g.,

+ my repeating task @d 2009-02-17 @r d @i 7

were finished on Feb 18, 2009, then it would become:

+ my repeating task @d 2009-02-24 @r d @i 7

and

+ my repeating task @d 2009-02-17 @f 2009-02-18

would be appended to 'done_02.txt'.

A repeating task that is set to skip overdue due dates presents a new situation since it can have repetitions that are never finished and yet never become overdue. Suppose, for example, that I need to put the trash on the curb for pickup every Friday:

+ take out trash @d 2009-02-20 @r w @w FR @o s

where the '@o s' means that the task will be skipped if it becomes overdue. Then if I forget to take out the trash on the 20th, on February 21 this task would be automatically be replaced by:

+ take out trash @d 2009-02-27 @r w @w FR @o s

Since the February 20 repetition of this task was skipped rather than finished, no record would be made of a completion in 'done_02.txt'. The completion record would thus show only the dates on which the task was actually marked finished.

Finally, a backup is made of any file before any action using etm -i would change it. E.g., before a task in '02_tasks.txt' would be marked finished, the file would first be copied to '.02_tasks.bk1'. If '.02_tasks.bk1' already exists, it would first be moved to '.02_tasks.bk2'. Similarly, if '02_tasks.bk2' already exists, then it would be first be moved to '02_tasks.bk3' and so forth. In this way, up to 'numbaks' (3 by default) rotating backups of are kept with '.bk1' the most recent. Further, a record showing the task before and after the change would be appended to '02_tasks.log'.

Remind support

etm provides limited support for remind users. If '~/.reminders' exists and the remind executable can be found in your path, then etm will display your reminders and provide shortcuts to edit them. Further, etm will provide a shortcut to create new reminders in this file or, optionally, another file that you specify in ~/.etmrc.

Note: If you install remind after etm, delete the entries for 'remind' and 'reminders' in '~/.etmrc' and they will be updated the next time you run etm.

etm treats all remind events as belonging to project remind and having no context. Since remind provides its own alert mechanism, remind reminders will not trigger etm alerts.

Installation/Updating

Unpack the etm source in a temporary directory, cd to that directory and then run:

sudo python setup.py install

The temporary directory can then be removed. This will download and install any necessary supporting modules (setuptools, dateutil), install the etm package in the 'site-packages' subdirectory of your python distribution and install the executables e.py and ew.py in the 'bin' subdirectory of your python distribution.

If you have setuptools installed, you can skip downloading and use:

sudo easy_install -U etm

either to install etm or to update to the latest version.

Temporary / local installation

If you would like to try etm out without installing the system files or if you don't have root privileges but would like to install etm for your own use, the process is simple. Unpack the etm source in a convenient directory, cd to that directory and then run

./e.py [options]

or

./ew.py [options]

This does not require root privileges and will not install any system files but will create the user specific configuration, data and alert files mentioned below in your home directory. You could, of course, use aliases or symbolic links to these files and avoid even having to change to this directory, e.g., if these files are located in ETMDIR, then you could add these lines to your ~/.bash_profile:

alias e.py='ETMDIR/e.py'
alias ew.py='ETMDIR/ew.py'
alias etm='(ETMDIR/ew.py -s &) && ETMDIR/e.py -i; ETMDIR/ew.py -q'

replacing ETMDIR, of course, with the actual path. These aliases would then function in the way described under Command line usage below.

Files and subdirectories used by etm

These files/subdirectories are created the first time you run either e.py or ew.py.

The following files support alerts. The idea is to let the (background) thread process sleep for most of the time but wake up at regular intervals to check for messages. Depending upon the message, the thread process will either (1) shut itself down or (2) add any new alerts to the queue, trigger any queued alerts set for the current time and then go back to sleep.

Command line usage

Run

e.py -h

or

ew.py -h

for complete usage information.

Run

e.py -i

to open the GUI interface and press F1 to see a list of available commands.

Run

ew.py -s &

to start a background process to provide warning alerts for upcoming events. The action taken when an alert is triggered can be set in ~/.etmrc.

Tip: with an alias such as

bash:
alias etm='(ew.py -f &) && e.py -i'

csh/tcsh:
alias etm '(ew.py -f &) && e.py -i'

entering 'etm' at a command prompt would (force) start a background alert process and fire up etm in interactive, gui mode.

License

Copyright (c) 2009 Daniel Graham <daniel.graham@duke.edu>. All rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.