Function to highlight timestamp generated from org-time-stamp

Question

We can create a timestamp (e.g., <2018-01-11 Thu>) by C-c . which runs the command org-time-stamp. How can we highlight (i.e., create a region) the whole timestamp when the cursor is on it?

Answer 1

The original poster has indicated (in a comment) a desire "to create a highlighted region, so that [he/she] can copy or cut the region (i.e., the timestamp)". The following function returns the timestamp at point without permanently moving point to that location. The user can modify this function to do things like (kill-new ts) to put the timestamp into the kill-ring, or the function can be modified to delete-region using (match-beginning 0) and (match-end 0), or the function can be modified to use kill-region, or .... There is no reason that I can see to actually select the region (since it already gets highlighted on mouse-over), but the user can modify this function to do that too.

Be aware that org-at-timestamp-p has only one argument in org-mode version 8.2.10 that ships with Emacs 25.3. It has additional arguments in org-mode version 9, such as 'lax.

(require 'org)

(org-defkey org-mouse-map [C-down-mouse-3] 'ignore)

(org-defkey org-mouse-map [C-mouse-3] 'org-timestamp)

(defun org-timestamp (event)
"Return the timestamp underneath the mouse."
(interactive (list last-nonmenu-event))
  (save-excursion
    (let* ((tsr org-ts-regexp3)
           (pos (posn-point (event-start event)))
           (dummy-one (goto-char pos))
           (dummy-two (or (looking-at tsr)
                          (progn
                            (skip-chars-backward "^[<\n\r\t")
                            (if (> (point) (point-min)) (backward-char 1))
                            (and (looking-at tsr)
                                 (> (- (match-end 0) pos) -1)))))
           (ts (match-string 0)))
      (if (org-at-timestamp-p 'inactive-ok)
        (progn
          (message "TIMESTAMP: %s" ts)
          ts)
        (message "You are not at a valid timestamp!")
        nil))))

Answer 2

Org mode adds the org-date face to the timestamps, so you should be able to use the following to select the timestamp at point.

(defun your-mark-org-timestamp ()
  (interactive)
  (when (eq (get-text-property (point) 'face) 'org-date)
    (let ((beg (previous-property-change (point) nil (line-beginning-position)))
          (end (next-property-change (point) nil (line-end-position))))
      (push-mark beg t t)
      (goto-char end))))

There are other ways. For example, if you have a regexp for org timestamp, you can search for it with thing-at-point-looking-at. And you can also take a look at the code of org mode, maybe you can reuse some code of it.