Date and time syntax not working as expected in quick-add (might be me)

[nicojx]

First of all, massive thank you for this amazing piece of software, and I totally understand that keeping this being developed is a massive task and can be overwhelming. I'm not expecting a quick (or any) fix, just in case this is helpful.

Your Environment

• Version used: Web version
• Operating System and version: Windows / Chrome browser
• Desktop Environment:
• Browser Name and version: Chrome

Expected Behavior

Apologies, these are two very closely related issues, so opening one report: Both of them are about date/time and duration syntax not playing nicely with each other.

Situation 1: duration after time

I add a task with <Shift>+a on the Today view, such as:
Task1 @24/4 14:30 90m +Project1

When I press Enter, I expect that a task is created for 90 minutes, scheduled on 24 April 2025 at 2:30pm. I expect to get a reminder, if at all, on the day when the task is due.

Situation 2: time after duration

To avoid this, I tried adding the duration first, and putting the project in the middle:
Task1 90m +Project1 @24/4 14:30

I expect the same task as above to be created.

Current Behavior

Situation 1

On task entry, the task entry box shows, under the task, and as expected: Project1 1h 30min Tuesday 14:40 (the "Tuesday" may be a bit misleading as it's not the coming Tuesday, but one in the far future, but not an issue).

A task is created for 24 April 1990, 2:30pm

A reminder pops up "Due task", with the options Snooze, Add to today, Start

Situation 2

On task entry, the task entry box shows a wrong scheduled time Project1 1h 30min Today 12:32 (which is 90 minutes from now)

A task is created for 31/3 (today) at 12:32 (90 min from now), with duration of 90 min. The task retains the @24/4 14:30 as part of the task description.

Steps to Reproduce (for bugs)

1. Open web view, and add task (<Shift>+a)
2. Enter task as described above and press Enter
3. Check on task in project list

Can you reproduce this reliably?

Yes.

Console Output

Error Log (Desktop only)

[github-actions]

Thank you very much for opening up this issue! I am currently a bit overwhelmed by the many requests that arrive each week, so please forgive me, if I fail to respond personally. I am still very likely to at least skim read your request and I'll probably try to fix all (real) bugs if possible and I will likely review every single PR being made (please, give me a heads up if you intent to do so) and I will try to work on popular requests (please upvote via thumbs up on the original issue) whenever possible, but trying to respond to every single issue over the last years has been kind of draining and I need to adjust my approach for this project to remain fun for me and to make any progress with actually coding new stuff. Thanks for your understanding!

[github-actions]

Hello there nicojx! 👋

Thank you and congratulations 🎉 for opening your very first issue in this project! 💖

In case you want to claim this issue, please comment down below! We will try to get back to you as soon as we can. 👀

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[johannesjo]

Thank you for reporting this! And sorry for the bot! I am currently experimenting with this stuff, but if it continues to behave like that I probably have to shut it down :)

[bytrangle]

I experienced the same thing, but how do you know that the task was scheduled for 1990? Under both Schedule and Planner, there is no option to scroll to 1990 AFAIK.

Here's what I saw:

I also see another problem: the word "m" in "90m" is also included as part of the task title when it should have been escaped.

[nicojx]

When you open the task details pane, it shows you. To be fair, it might not be _19_90...

[bytrangle]

@johannesjo I'm trying to isolate this issue. If someone creates a task "Task @8/4", how do you tell if it's 8th of April or 4th of August?

[bytrangle]

I've discovered the root cause. Let's take the minimal example: a task named "Task @14/4 90".
SP was able to parse the date correctly up to "Task @14/4 9". The parsed date is 14/4/2025.

Once I added 0 after the number 9, the parsed date becomes 14/4/1990. Chrono interpretes the string "90" as the year.

You can try Chrono and run this example:

On 14/4 90 cats invaded my home.

The parsed date will be 14/4/1990.

Formally, the year is often written in 4-digit format. However, all bets are off in informal writing. We're using the casual mode of Chrono so it accepts two-digit.

So what we can do from now on?

1. Support a new trigger word for time estimate.

2. Customize the date parser to only accept the year if it is prepended by the same delimiter for the day and month.
   For example: "14/4-26", "14-4/26", "14/4 26", "14-4 26" all mean 14/4 after current time, 26 irrelevant.
   "14/4/26" and "14-4-26" mean 14th April 2026.
   Writing a regex for this will be a nightmare though.

And I probably can't think of all the different ways people can write date, so some scenarios will fall through the cracks.

Any other ideas?