I hadn’t realized just how much I missed my Big Brother Database until today. Three networking events packed into one week meant that I hadn’t set aside enough time for follow up, and I felt my memories of the conversations getting a little hazy. Fortunately I’d taken some notes on my Palm, but I knew I had to get it into some kind of contact management system quickly, and Gmail Contacts just wasn’t compelling enough for me. So it’s back to Emacs, plain text files, and a surprisingly sophisticated contact manager.

I also promised to do some work on the book today, so everything dovetailed nicely.

The following bit of code helps me filter displayed contacts to show only the people I haven’t contacted since a certain date. This is handy for remembering to keep in touch with old friends, for example. Or at least it would be handy if I used it more often and if I actually sent the letters that pile up in my e-mail drafts and my snail mail outbox… but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

If you want to know who you have or haven’t talked to in a while, you need to do two things. First, you need to keep track of when you talked to people. Second, you need to generate reports.

To be able to quickly add contact notes to BBDB records, add the following to your ~/.emacs:

ch6-bbdb-ping.el:

(define-key bbdb-mode-map 
    "z" 'wicked/bbdb-ping-bbdb-record)
(
    defun 
    wicked/bbdb-ping-bbdb-record (bbdb-record text 
    &optional date regrind)
  
    "Adds a note for today to the current BBDB record.
Call with a prefix to specify date.
BBDB-RECORD is the record to modify (default: current).
TEXT is the note to add for DATE.
If REGRIND is non-nil, redisplay the BBDB record."
  (interactive (list (bbdb-current-record t)
                     (read-string 
    "Notes: ")
                     
    ;; 
    Reading date - more powerful with Planner, but we'll make do if necessary
                     (
    if (
    featurep '
    planner)
                         (
    if current-prefix-arg (planner-read-date) (planner-today))
                       (
    if current-prefix-arg
                           (read-string 
    "Date (YYYY.MM.DD): ")
                         (format-time-string 
    "%Y.%m.%d")))
                     t))
  (bbdb-record-putprop bbdb-record
                       'contact
                       (concat date 
    ": " text 
    "\n"
                               (or (bbdb-record-getprop bbdb-record 'contact))))
  (
    if regrind
      (
    save-excursion
        (set-buffer bbdb-buffer-name)
        (bbdb-redisplay-one-record bbdb-record)))
  nil)

  

You can then use z in BBDB buffers to add a quick note to the “contact” field of the current record. The date is automatically noted. You can create a note for a specific date by calling C-u wicked/bbdb-ping-bbdb-record with a prefix argument. For convenience, the suggested configuration binds this to “z”, because it was one of the few unbound keys I could find. Use this after you meet, call, or e-mail people, and write down a short note about the conversation you had. You might find these notes useful later on.

If you met a number of people at an event in the past and you have Planner installed and loaded, you can use planner-timewarp to set the effective date to another date. To return to today, use M-x planner-timewarp nil.

To automatically add a datestamped copy of sent e-mail subjects to people’s BBDB records, add the following to your ~/.gnus:

ch6-bbdb-message-add-subject.el:

(
    defun 
    wicked/message-add-subject-to-bbdb-record ()
  
    "Add datestamped subject note for each person this message has been sent to."
  (
    let* ((subject (concat (format-time-string 
    "%Y.%m.%d")
                          
    ": E-mail: " (message-fetch-field 
    "Subject") 
    "\n"))
         (bbdb-get-addresses-headers
          (list (assoc 'recipients bbdb-get-addresses-headers)))
         records)
    (setq records
          (bbdb-update-records
           (bbdb-get-addresses nil gnus-ignored-from-addresses 'gnus-fetch-field)
           nil nil))
    (mapc (
    lambda (rec)
            (bbdb-record-putprop rec
                                 'contact
                                 (concat subject
                                         (or
                                          (bbdb-record-getprop rec 'contact)
                                          
    ""))))
          records)))
(add-hook 'message-send-hook 'wicked/message-add-subject-to-bbdb-record)

  

Now that you have the data, how can you use it to filter? Add the following to your ~/.emacs:

ch6-bbdb-show-only-no-contact-since.el:

(
    defun 
    wicked/bbdb-show-only-no-contact-since (date 
    &optional reverse records)
  
    "Show only people who haven't been pinged since DATE or at all.
If REVERSE is non-nil, show only the people you've contacted on or since DATE.
Call with a prefix argument to show only people you've contacted on or since DATE."
  (interactive (list
                (
    if (
    featurep '
    planner)
                    (planner-read-date)
                  (read-string 
    "Date (YYYY.MM.DD): "))
                current-prefix-arg (or bbdb-records (bbdb-records))))
  (
    let (new-records
        last-match
        timestamp
        omit
        notes)
    (
    while records
      
    ;; 
    Find the latest date mentioned in the entry
      (
    let ((timestamp (wicked/bbdb-last-date
                        (
    if (vectorp (car records))
                            (car records)
                          (caar records)))))
        (
    if (
    if reverse
                
    ;; 
    Keep if contact is >= date
                (null (string< timestamp date))
              
    ;; 
    Keep if date > contact
              (string> date timestamp))
            (add-to-list 'new-records (
    if (vectorp (car records))
                            (car records)
                          (caar records)) t)))
      (setq records (cdr records)))
    (bbdb-display-records new-records)))

(
    defun 
    wicked/bbdb-last-date (rec)
  
    "Return the most recent date for REC or nil if none.
Dates should be in the form YYYY.MM.DD.  The first date in the
notes field and the first date in the contact field are used, so
dates should be in reverse chronological order."
  (
    let* ((wicked/date-regexp
          
    "\\<
    
      \\
    
    
      (
    
    [1-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]
    
      \\
    
    
      )
    
    \\.
    
      \\
    
    
      (
    
    [0-9][0-9]?
    
      \\
    
    
      )
    
    \\.
    
      \\
    
    
      (
    
    [0-9][0-9]?
    
      \\
    
    
      )
    
    \\>")
         
    ;; 
    Get the first date mentioned in the notes field
         (notes-date
          (or (and (string-match wicked/date-regexp (or (bbdb-record-notes rec) 
    ""))
                   (match-string 0 (or (bbdb-record-notes rec) 
    "")))
              
    "0000.00.00"))
         
    ;; 
    Get the first date mentioned in the contact field
         (contact-date
          (or (and (string-match wicked/date-regexp (or (bbdb-record-getprop rec 'contact) 
    ""))
                   (match-string 0 (or (bbdb-record-getprop rec 'contact) 
    "")))
              
    "0000.00.00")))
    
    ;; 
    Compare the two dates
    (or (
    if (string< notes-date contact-date) contact-date notes-date)
        
    "0000.00.00")))

  

To generate a report, use M-x wicked/bbdb-show-only-no-contact-since and specify the date. These functions are much easier to use with Planner’s date-handling functions. Planner can read dates like “-1” (yesterday), “-7fri” (seven Fridays ago), “2” (the second of this month), “1.2” (January 2 in this year), and “2007.01.02” (January 2, 2007).

You can also flip the filter by using the universal prefix argument (\{\{C-u M-x wicked/bbdb-show-only-no-contact-since\}\}) to show only the people you’ve contacted since a certain date. This is good for knowing the size of your active network. Because the filter works on displayed records, you can combine it to find all the people you talked to last year but not this year. You can also combine it with other filters to find all the people you’ve marked as friends, but who you haven’t talked to in three months. Then you can send a personalized e-mail or make a phone list, and get back in touch. And that’s how you keep track of your contact dates!