This is a learning project, only semi-tested on my machine (macOS 13.6, zsh 5.9) so far. For a more reliable and portable way to manage text notes, I recommend trying this notes shell script.
I've kept a directory of text files in ~/notes for several years. It's a easy way to collect personal cheatsheets that are easily edited and viewed from the command line. Highly recommended.
Last year, as a learning project, I created a simple function, note, to display file stored in ~/notes. I ended up using it even more than I'd expected to.
Inspired by usefulness of my note function, and a general desire to learn more about shell scripting, I've created another function, nnote, to add note entries from the command line. I'm still test-driving nnote and am not sure if it will as useful as the note function. We'll see.
Usage examples:
% nnote -b Dated note file example
% note 20231004_note
▶️ Dated note file example
% nnote -bd -n example Example note entry with bullet and timestamp.
% note example
▶️ [Wed Oct 4 21:32:34 CDT 2023] Example note entry with bullet and timestamp.
% nnote A plain note entry example
% note example
▶️ [Wed Oct 4 21:32:34 CDT 2023] Example note entry with bullet and timestamp.
A plain note entry example
% print piped text | nnote -d -n pipe-example Pipe example
% note pipe-example
[Wed Oct 4 21:34:22 CDT 2023] Pipe example
piped text
note - display file(s) stored configurable notes directory
Usage:
note NOTE show NOTE
note list files in notes directory
Options:
-e --edit NOTE edit note
-h --help show this message
--version show version
Environment parameters:
NOTE_HOME notes directory, default={HOME}/notes
See repo for updates, comments, issues, etc:
https://github.com/PostgreSqlStan/note-functions
nnote - add entry to default note
Usage:
nnote [OPTIONS] [TEXT] add entry to default note
Options:
-b --bullet include bullet
-d --datetime include date/time
-h --help show this message
-n --note NOTE set default to NOTE
-s --squeeze no empty line before entry
-v --paste add clipboard to entry
--version show version
Environment parameters:
NOTE_HOME notes directory, default={HOME}/notes
NOTE_NAME note to create/append, set with -n option
NOTE_BULLET default='▶️ '
The -n option set the default note for the current shell session:
nnote -n example Entry Example
nnote 2nd entry
Piped text is added to a note entry:
print piped text | nnote Pipe Example
Use -v to add the clipboard to an entry:
print pasted text | pbcopy && nnote -v Clipboard Example
The -b and -d options add a bullet and stampstamp:
nnote -bd Bullet Timestamp Example
If the -n option has not be used and NOTE_NAME is not set, a note
named with the current date (yyyymmdd_note) is used.
See repo for updates, comments, issues, etc:
https://github.com/PostgreSqlStan/note-functions
There are various ways to save and load custom zsh functions. The simplest way is to include the functions in your zsh config (.zshrc). See my zdotdir for an example of having them loaded automatically from a specified directory.
To test the functions with a temporary directory, from the repo directory:
source note.zsh nnote.zsh
NOTE_HOME=$(mktemp -d)
nnote Test note entry # add entry to yyyymmdd_note
note # list notesAdd custom zsh completions by including the following commands to your zsh config (.zshrc).
Configure note completions to show files from the notes directory:
compdef '_path_files -W "${NOTE_HOME:-${HOME}/notes/}" -g "^.*"' noteConfigure nnote to display completions for its options:
compdef _gnu_generic pbnoteUnderstanding zshcompletions is a challenge. I'm still trying to figure out to refine these completions further and have them loaded automatically from a directory.
alias n=note
alias nn=nnote