[Howm-eng 117] Defaults for incomplete dates

[areiner at tph.tuwien.ac.at (Albert Reiner)]

Hello,
and thanks again for your help with my last wish!  Here is another one:

When entering a date, current howm assumes that any parts not specified 
are the same as for the current date (i.e., either "today" or the date 
previously displayed).  It seems to me, that defaulting to the *closest* 
date instead would be far preferable and more natural, especially 
towards the end of the year when I am far more likely to enter dates for 
the next year, rather than the current one.

So, e.g., starting from today's date, i.e., [2016-09-26],

- entering 5 would result in [2016-10-05] (as this is closer than 9/5 to 
  9/26)  (current howm: [2016-09-05]);

- or, entering 2-15 would give me [2017-02-15] (closer than the same 
  date in 2016)  (current howm: [2016-02-15]);

- whereas entering 8-20 would give me [2016-08-20] (as is the case for 
  current howm).

In the case of a tie, i.e., when both candidate dates, past and future, 
differ by the same amount from the current one, I would opt for the 
later one, as I am more likely to enter a future reminder than to record 
something long past; thus, e.g., again starting from [2016-09-26], 
entering 11 should yield [2016-10-11], rather than [2016-09-11], both of 
which are 15 days from the starting date.

I hope that the idea is clear from this sketch; obviously, the same 
logic should apply to all parts of the dates.  Certainly, howm already 
has everything that is needed as it computes and displays date 
differences all the time, e.g. in todo and schedule buffers.

I would appreciate it if you could show me how to make howm behave this 
way.

Thanks a lot in advance,

Albert.