InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by WayneK on 2019/08/04 18:07

This is a FWIW organization tip based on more than a few years of experience. It was prompted by a current thread about assigning creation dates to items, which InfoQube does automatically.

This is a feature that seems simple but is very useful. It's just one of the many reasons it pays to migrate from Ecco Pro to InfoQube. You can auto-assign dates in Ecco Pro but doing so will eventually cause problems with its resource limitations.

I'd suggest expanding auto date assignment to everything you do. If you create a list, write a memo, draw a sketch,...put the date at the top. When you later are revisiting your work and trying to figure out what's what, having the created date available is very helpful in figuring out how it fits into the scheme of things (eg is this the latest sketch of my design, or an obsolete one?).

I read this suggestion many years ago and have applied it since then and have found it to be one of the best small changes I ever made to how I work.

Wayne

Comments

I do the same. I put a date/time prefix in front of almost everything (file names, text lines) - in the format 2019.08.13.1451. That way I can sort by date ascending and descending. I use the "." as my separator because it's easier to type than just about anything else. If there was a universal file metadata system, maybe I wouldn't have to do this - but we don't have that. The only thing that is practically universal, cross-platform, etc. is the file name. Finding matching files is so easy and fast using Voidtools Everything. Works great in IQ too.

A related but probably irrelavant fact for you.

There is an international standard for the formatting of dates and times ISO 8601. This format of dates can be sorted into chronological order by a simple sort. Basically it is YYYY-MM-DD for dates and YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ for a date with a time. All digits must be present so 8am would be 08 and not 8.

It should be a format that all software supports.

If you get to look at the printed standard the date of issue printed on the front is in the traditional format and not formatted according to ISO 8601 ! Oh well ...

I found out about iso 8601 a few years ago, and started converting my all my various date formats of years of diary/journal entries in many date formats to this standard. It is so much easier to find things with a consistent date format..

I likewise use the current date preceding just about everything I put into the IQ grid and doc pane, and use this autohotkey code, such that I merely type the letter d and an apostrophe to insert the date. (I like the idea of a time stamp, so I'll probably modify it to also add the current time)

#Hotstring EndChars ' ; the apostrophe is the ending character (I think of as a "trigger key")

:o:d:: ;will produce current date tagdate

FormatTime,CurrentDateTime,,yyyy-MM-dd

SendInput %CurrentDateTime%

return

[quote=KeithB]

I likewise use the current date preceding just about everything I put into the IQ grid and doc pane

[/quote]

Doesn't that date make reading content more difficult ?

Could you not use ItemCreated / ItemModified system fields instead (or another user-defined date field) ?

(I just can't imagine starting each item I create with a date stamp...)

Pierre_Admin

IQ Designer

I do use a variety of techniques, depending on the grid involved.I do use itemcreated/itemmodified in some of my grids, but 100% of the time I'll have a date stamp in at least the doc pane.

As shown here, for a small "todo" type of grid, for example, I like to have dates showing, especially items I'm mostly likely to procrastinate on!

For the highlighted example, what I'll generally do is keep date stamping additional text added to the top of the doc pane.

As far as readability, I do sometimes put the date at the end. in the grid (and I don't mind the look either way) If I don't put a date in the grid, there will definitely be one or more in the doc pane.

I really enjoy threads like this, comparing notes of what works for each of us (and learning other things to try, such as the Julian date idea)

Would a setting to insert dates / times in ISO 8601 format be of any use ?

Pierre_Admin

IQ Designer

ISO 8601 is OK for dates but if it is a date with a time I think it is less legibile than if it didn't have the extra characters.

I would say that the there is a case for a date and time format that has the numbers in descending order and is always the same length so that it can be handled by a simple text sort but I don't think ISO 8601 is it.

InfoQube can already sort by creation date so the extra format is probably not necessary.

ISO 8601 is a great standard for dating all of your notes. I have been using it as well for years. ISO 8601 uses the Gregorian calendar. However most software use the Julian calendar for dating. The software takes the Gregorian date that has been inputed by the user and converts it to the Julian date. So, for example todays date of 20190815 would be 2458710 as a Julian date. I date all of my notes with the Julian date followed by the Gregorian date. Because then each date has a unique number. I have a Autohotkey script the gives me the Julian date as a pop up as well.

I stand amazed! Personally, I've never really datestamped anything I put into Ecco and I think IQ's auto-datestamping will fit the bill just fine for my needs. The stuff I do just doesn't seem to depend on the 'input date / time' very much...