Ask for Date

gianthobbit · August 26, 2016, 3:57pm

I use a scheduling system to book meetings. I can tailor the URL to show a certain date only ie:

https://calendly.com/username/long-meeting-1-hour/08-26-2016

What I want to be able to do is have KBM prompt me for a date (ideally with a date picker), convert the text into a token (with above syntax) and then append that to a some text (I can figure that part out). I don’t know where to get started though even on the first two actions.

Would anyone be able to help? Thanks!

DanThomas · August 26, 2016, 4:47pm

See this post for one example of a date picker:

ccstone · August 26, 2016, 7:28pm

Hey Brandon,

I'm generally not a big fan of date-pickers, although they can be very convenient at times.

The following AppleScript will take a text date written in various formats and output a formatted date-string of the type you're looking for.

For instance:

today
tomorrow
monday
dec 7
jan 1

See the script for a few more...

If this method interests you we can turn it into something reasonably user-friendly.

-Chris

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Auth: Christopher Stone { Heavey Lifting by Shane Stanley }
# dCre: 2016/08/26 13:30
# dMod: 2016/08/26 14:02
# Appl: AppleScriptObjC
# Task: Use Data-Detectors to find a date from a string and create a formatted date-string.
# Libs: None
# Osax: None
# Tags: @Applescript, @Script, @Data_Detectors, @Find, @Date, @String, @Create, @Formatted, @DateString
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
use framework "Foundation"
use scripting additions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# For reference – today's date is 2016/08/26

set dateStr to "may 4"
set newDateStr to my getMyDateStringFrom:dateStr

--> "05-04-2017"

set dateStr to "4 may 1961"
set newDateStr to my getMyDateStringFrom:dateStr

--> "05-04-1961"

set dateStr to "may 4 1961"
set newDateStr to my getMyDateStringFrom:dateStr

--> "05-04-1961"

set dateStr to "today"
set newDateStr to my getMyDateStringFrom:dateStr

--> "08-26-2016"

set dateStr to "tomorrow"
set newDateStr to my getMyDateStringFrom:dateStr

--> "08-27-2016"

set dateStr to "sunday"
set newDateStr to my getMyDateStringFrom:dateStr

--> "08-28-2016"

set dateStr to "friday"
set newDateStr to my getMyDateStringFrom:dateStr

--> "09-02-2016"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--» HANDLERS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
on formatDate:theDate usingFormat:formatString
   if class of theDate is date then set theDate to my makeNSDateFrom:theDate
   set theFormatter to current application's NSDateFormatter's new()
   theFormatter's setLocale:(current application's NSLocale's localeWithLocaleIdentifier:"en_US_POSIX")
   theFormatter's setDateFormat:formatString
   set theString to theFormatter's stringFromDate:theDate
   return theString as text
end formatDate:usingFormat:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
on getDatesIn:aString
   set anNSString to current application's NSString's stringWithString:aString
   set {theDetector, theError} to current application's NSDataDetector's dataDetectorWithTypes:(current application's NSTextCheckingTypeDate) |error|:(reference)
   set theMatches to theDetector's matchesInString:anNSString options:0 range:{0, anNSString's |length|()}
   set theDates to current application's NSMutableArray's array()
   repeat with i from 1 to theMatches's |count|()
      set thisMatch to (theMatches's objectAtIndex:(i - 1))
      (theDates's addObject:(thisMatch's |date|()))
   end repeat
   
   return theDates as list
   
end getDatesIn:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
on getMyDateStringFrom:dateStr
   set dateList to my getDatesIn:dateStr
   if length of dateList = 0 then
      error "No dates were returned from the given string!"
   else if length of dateList = 1 then
      set dateStr to item 1 of dateList
      set dateString to my formatDate:dateStr usingFormat:"MM-dd-Y"
   else if length of dateList > 1 then
      error "Too many dates were found in the given string!"
   end if
   return dateString
end getMyDateStringFrom:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
on makeNSDateFrom:theASDate
   set {theYear, theMonth, theDay, theSeconds} to theASDate's {year, month, day, time}
   if theYear < 0 then
      set theYear to -theYear
      set theEra to 0
   else
      set theEra to 1
   end if
   set theCalendar to current application's NSCalendar's currentCalendar()
   set newDate to theCalendar's dateWithEra:theEra |year|:theYear |month|:(theMonth as integer) ¬
      |day|:theDay hour:0 minute:0 |second|:theSeconds nanosecond:0
   return newDate
end makeNSDateFrom:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gianthobbit · August 28, 2016, 2:45pm

Thanks for the replies guys!

Dan - that GUI looks great but reading that post and see that it is a bit above my head.

Ccstone - this would be a natural language parser right? I could say Tuesday, 1 week, or something and it returns the date? That would be pretty incredible and if it can be done inside KBM (vs outside apple scripts etc) sounds ideal/clean.

Thanks!

ccstone · August 28, 2016, 9:01pm

Hey Brandon,

Yes.

1 week wouldn't work, because that's not an identifiable date.

BUT.

It would be easy to add your own idioms to your macro and add something like “n weeks from today” or “today + 2 weeks”.

It would take a little creative parsing, but it wouldn't be too hard. Here's the most basic example with just the script I posted earlier:

Produce Formatted Date-String from Text v1.00.kmmacros (7.1 KB)

Feed it any kind of date-string Apple Data Detectors understands, and it will spit out your preferred format date-string.

today
tomorrow
Friday
1 jan 2020
…

Here's an uber-simple parser that understands the format:

today + <number> <days, months, or years>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Auth: Christopher Stone
# dCre: 2016/08/28 15:56
# dMod: 2016/08/28 15:56 
# Appl: Miscellaneous
# Task: Parse a natural language string into a date.
# Libs: None
# Osax: None
# Tags: @Applescript, @Script, 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# A sample date specifier
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

set dateStr to "today + 7 weeks"

# Understands days, weeks, years

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Process the specifier into a valid date string.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if dateStr contains "today" then
   set theDate to current date
   set time of theDate to 12 * hours -- workaround for dst
   set newDateStr to date string of theDate
end if
if dateStr contains "+" then
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "+ "
   set dateOptions to text item 2 of dateStr
   set numOpt to word 1 of dateOptions
   set multOpt to word 2 of dateOptions
end if
set theScript to "(date \"" & newDateStr & "\") + " & numOpt & " * " & multOpt
set parsedDate to run script theScript
set time of parsedDate to 12 * hours

return date string of parsedDate

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are a number of things I'd do to make this more capable and robust, but all that takes time.

-Chris