#EmacsConf backstage: adding notes to Org logbook drawers from e-mails
| emacs, emacsconf, notmuchSometimes I want to work with all the talks associated with an email in my inbox. For example, maybe a speaker said that the draft schedules are fine, and I want to make a note of that in the conference Org file.
First we start with a function that gets the e-mail addresses for a talk. Some speakers have different e-mail addresses for public contact or private contact, and some e-mail us from other addresses.
emacsconf-mail-get-all-email-addresses: Return all the possible e-mail addresses for TALK.
(defun emacsconf-mail-get-all-email-addresses (talk)
"Return all the possible e-mail addresses for TALK."
(split-string
(downcase
(string-join
(seq-uniq
(seq-keep
(lambda (field) (plist-get talk field))
'(:email :public-email :email-alias)))
","))
" *, *"))
Then we can use that to find the talks for a given e-mail address.
emacsconf-mail-talks: Return a list of talks matching EMAIL.
(defun emacsconf-mail-talks (email)
"Return a list of talks matching EMAIL."
(setq email (downcase (mail-strip-quoted-names email)))
(seq-filter
(lambda (o) (member email (emacsconf-mail-get-all-email-addresses o)))
(emacsconf-get-talk-info)))
We can loop over that to add a note for the e-mail.
emacsconf-mail-add-to-logbook: Add to logbook for all matching talks from this speaker.
(defun emacsconf-mail-add-to-logbook (email note)
"Add to logbook for all matching talks from this speaker."
(interactive
(let* ((email (mail-strip-quoted-names
(plist-get (plist-get (notmuch-show-get-message-properties) :headers)
:From)))
(talks (emacsconf-mail-talks email)))
(list
email
(read-string (format "Note for %s: "
(mapconcat (lambda (o) (plist-get o :slug))
talks", "))))))
(save-window-excursion
(mapc
(lambda (talk)
(emacsconf-add-to-talk-logbook talk note))
(emacsconf-mail-talks email))))
The actual addition of notes is handled by these functions.
emacsconf-add-to-logbook: Add NOTE as a logbook entry for the current subtree.
(defun emacsconf-add-to-logbook (note)
"Add NOTE as a logbook entry for the current subtree."
(move-marker org-log-note-return-to (point))
(move-marker org-log-note-marker (point))
(with-temp-buffer
(insert note)
(let ((org-log-note-purpose 'note))
(org-store-log-note))))
Then we have a function that looks for the heading for a note and then adds a logbook entry to it.
emacsconf-add-to-talk-logbook: Add NOTE as a logbook entry for TALK.
(defun emacsconf-add-to-talk-logbook (talk note)
"Add NOTE as a logbook entry for TALK."
(interactive (list (emacsconf-complete-talk) (read-string "Note: ")))
(save-excursion
(emacsconf-with-talk-heading talk
(emacsconf-add-to-logbook note))))
All together, that makes it easy to use Emacs as a very simple contact relationship management system where I can take notes based on the e-mails that come in.
These functions are in emacsconf-mail.el.