Notepad++ Time-Stamp

Kudos

I’ve been keeping some form of a work journal for years; I’d highly recommend it.  I recently got annoyed with creating timestamps in Notepad++, and ran across a helpful post in a forum.  It was so helpful that I thought I’d do my best to try to give it some additional street cred.

Here is the original link:
http://sourceforge.net/p/notepad-plus/discussion/331753/thread/3458d1da#62f2

What day of the week was 4/22/2006 anyway?

Before I start, if you have the TextFX plugin already setup in Notepad++, it provides 2 static methods of inserting a datetime stamp:

Menu: TextFX > TextFX Insert > I:Date & Time: short format: 3:56 PM 3/22/2013
Menu: TextFX > TextFX Insert > I:Date & Time: long format:  3:56 PM Friday, March 22, 2013

If these look good enough to you, you can skip to the section on how to map a keyboard shortcut to these.  However, in addition to the time and date, I also wanted the day of the week, like this:

03:36 PM 03/22/2013 (Friday)

Steps

It turns out this can easily be done with a simple Python script.  I don’t even know Python that well and I was able to do it.

1. Install the python plugin:

• The plugin’s name is: Python Script
• It’s recommend you do this via the NP++ Plugin Manger (Menu: Plugins > Plugin Manger)
• Here’s a link to the project page:  http://npppythonscript.sourceforge.net/
• The script includes some basic Python libraries, so you shouldn’t need to install Python or other 3rd party libraries

2. Setup script in Notepad++:

• Menu:  Plugins > Python Script > New Python Script
• It will ask you for a new file name, I choose: npp_timedate_stamp.py
• A new tab will appear in NP++ for you to enter the script.
• This is the script I used:

  
  # Add date/time stamp in Notepad++ 03:28 PM 03-22-2013 (Friday)
  import time
  editor.addText( time.strftime( '%I:%M %p %m/%d/%Y (%A) ' ) )
  
  

• Here is a link to the Python documentation which shows what all the format string characters: http://docs.python.org/2/library/time.html
• Save your script

3. Configure Notepad++ to use the script:

• Menu: Plugins > Python Script > Configuration
• You should see your script under the User Scripts section
• Add it to Toolbar and/or Menu
• I put it in both, but I only managed to find it under menu
• It shows up as its own entry under Menu: Plugins > Python Script > npp_timedate_stamp

4. Create a keyboard shortcut (my preferred method):

• Menu: Settings > Shortcut Mapper
• Switch to Plugin
• Scroll down until you see your script name (i.e. npp_timedate_stamp)
• Click on it, choose Modify, and choose a key.  I used: CTRL + ;

Furthermore

This was exciting to me in more ways than one, because in the past I’ve looked for ways of modifying Notepad++, and plugins can be a daunting undertaking.  Apparently the Python plugin is mapped to all the Notepad++ features, so I might utilize it more in the future.