harrison-broadbent / gedit-insert-date

A Gedit extensions to insert the date and time with a keyboard shortcut.

Gedit Insert Date

Insert the date and time using a keyboard shortcut in Gedit.

Contents

• Installation
  • Simple
  • Manual
• Customization
  • Change date format
  • Change padding text
  • Change shortcut key
• Sources

Installation

Simple (1 Minute)

• Download / clone this repository.

• Copy the "insert-date" file to the Gedit tools directory in your ~/home directory.

  • /home/username/.config/gedit/tools

• Open Gedit and press Menu (☰)>Preferences>Plugins and tick "External Tools".

Press F2 to insert a time/datestamp into your file in Gedit.

See "Customization" below for details on adjusting the behavior of the extension.

Manual (3 Minutes)

• Open Gedit and press Menu (☰)>Preferences>Plugins and tick "External Tools".
• Press Menu (☰)>Manage External Tools...>+ (bottom left) to add a new tool.
• Give it a name, set a desired shortcut key (F2 works well), and change "Output" to "Insert at cursor position".
• Copy and paste the following script into the editor pane -

#!/bin/sh
echo "--- $(date +%c) ---\n"

Press F2 to insert a time/datestamp into your file in Gedit.

Customization

Navigate to the Gedit entry for the tool.

• Menu (☰)>Manage External Tools...> select the name of the tool from the sidebar.
  • ("Add Date" if you followed the simple instructions).

Change date format

• The "$(date +%c)" part of the script is where the date is inserted, via the Bash "date" command.

• Run "date --help" in a terminal to get the full list of possible options.

• Some helpful ones (from: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/date , date --help) -

  Sequence	Description
  %c	locale's date and time (e.g., Thu Mar 3 23:05:25 2005)
  %D	date; same as %m/%d/%y
  %F	full date; same as %Y-%m-%d
  %T	time; same as %H:%M:%S
  %V	ISO week number, with Monday as first day of week (01..53)

• You can also use the following format modifiers -

  By default, date pads numeric fields with zeroes. The following optional flags may follow '%':

  Sequence	Description
  -	(hyphen) do not pad the field
  _	(underscore) pad with spaces
  0	(zero) pad with zeros
  ^	use upper case if possible
  #	use opposite case if possible

Change padding text

• By default the date is wrapped as "--- $(date) ---\n"

  • This inserts "---", followed by the date, followed by "---", then 2 (two) trailing newlines.
  • Gedit automatically inserts a newline, then this script inserts a second.

• You can adjust the text around the "$(date)" -

  • Example: changing the line to -

  #!/bin/sh
  echo "--> DATE: $(date +%c) <--"
  

• would insert something like -

  • --> DATE: Sun 07 Mar 2021 17:08:00 <--
  • Followed by a single trailing newline

Change shortcut key

• Select "Shortcut key" from the Gedit tool pane, and then enter a new combination.

Sources

• Date (Bash) reference document : https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/date
• AskUbuntu thread : https://askubuntu.com/questions/1168156/gedit-is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-in-gedit-itself-to-insert-date-and-time