Created attachment 85141 [details]
Example of an Existing Approach in a document utility

(In reply to Paul from comment #0)
> My apology if this is the wrong place for suggestions, but I was unable to
> find an alternative.
> 
> A useful and I would think a fairly easily implemented feature for text
> documents would be to add a date and time to the end of a document whenever
> it is opened - and position the cursor at the new end.  Some new file
> extension could be used for the files that would activate this feature.  The
> purpose of course would be to help with maintaining a journal or diary.

This is a perfectly good place for a feature/enhancement request.  Thank you for making it.

OBSERVATIONS

Please give this more consideration.  For example:

This will be contrary to what folks expect when they open a document to work where they left off or some other place.  For large documents, positioning at the end will increase the start-up time on the document and the user will need to remove the automatically inserted material if it is not wanted.

There are also formatting issues concerning what it looks like, etc.  This rapidly becomes not simple, especially when different languages and locale date-format conventions come into it.

I have used software where an "insert" operation for date-time has been provided.  Some tie that option to a function key.  (F5 sticks in my memory.)  

There is an already-available approach on Micosoft Windows.  The built-in WordPad utility has a "Date and Time" button.  What it provides is a list of forms of the current date and time that is selected by an additional click, if necessary, and then by clicking OK.  This insertion happens at the current cursor position, so there is complete control.  WordPad will also work with simple OpenDocument Text (e.g., OpenOffice Writer) documents.

That's an example of an approach that might be adaptable.  Would something like this satisfy your requirement? 

I suppose macros could be used for this.  There might be some already.  That does require more expertise and not be easy to find/use by casual users.

More thoughts please

(In reply to orcmid from comment #1)
> There is an already-available approach on Micosoft Windows.  The built-in
> WordPad utility has a "Date and Time" button.


Maybe AOO can adapt the Windows Notepad feature:
| Notepad also has a simple built-in logging function.
| Each time a file that starts with .LOG is opened,
| the program inserts a text timestamp on the last line of the file.

see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad_%28software%29
or simply try.

> I suppose macros could be used for this.  There might be some already.  That
> does require more expertise and not be easy to find/use by casual users.

A simple sample:

Sub InsertTimeStamp_mr()
	Dim oDoc As Object
	Dim oController As Object
	Dim oCursor As Object
	oDoc = ThisComponent
	oController = oDoc.getCurrentController()
	oCursor = oController.getViewCursor()
	oCursor.gotoEnd( FALSE )
	oCursor.setString( chr( 13 ) & Now() )
	oCursor.gotoEnd( FALSE )
End Sub