Go-doo

Description

Go-doo is a command line notes/todo manager that lets you create, read & edit your notes or todo items - deletions coming soon. It supports both local and remote storage. Local is the default, and the remote option is determined by a config file. It uses SQLite for storage.

The remote storage option is only intended for use on the same LAN, rather than over the internet, to allow multiple machines/people to share share the same database for notes/todo items.

Notable features

Go-doo is intended for quick note-taking in the terminal so it uses a forgiving input parser. It can handle spaces in input, so you're not required to use quotation marks like you are in commit messages, for example. So godoo add -b input with spaces would create an item with a body of "input with spaces". You can also leave out some flags in different contexts, so the above example could be shortened to godoo add input with spaces and it would still be valid input.

It also uses a shorthand date format, where e.g. 1y1m8d is interpreted as 1 year, 1 month and 8 days from now. Full date strings like 2022-06-01 are also supported. The date shorthand also allows negative numbers, so searching for an item with a deadline of -8m means the deadline was 8 months ago. You can work with date ranges using the same shorthand. E.g. godoo get -d -7d:7d would return items with a deadline within a 14 day range, from 7 days before to 7 days from now.

In remote mode, there is also the option to run a priority queue based on the priority rating of items in the database. When creating or editing items, you can set their priority - none (n), low (l), medium (m), or high (h). You can then use godoo get -n to retrieve the item with the highest priority.

Usage

Creating new items

To create items, you use the add command with any combination of the following flags:

Flag	Name	Description	Example	Notes
-b	body	sets the body/content of the item you're creating	add -b this is the body of the item	-b can be omitted here and often elsewhere
-c	childOf	the item will be the child of the item whose id is passed as the argument	add -c 8
-d	deadline	sets a deadline for the created item	add -d 1 m 3 d	same as add -d 1m3d
-m	mode	sets the priority rating of the new item	add important note -m h	support values are: n, l, m, h (none, low, medium, high)
-t	tag	adds tag to created item	add -t work	item given 'work' tag

Notes

Date ranges aren't supported for item creation. Multiple tag input is supported by add -t t1*t2*t3. The created item would have 't1', 't2' and 't3' tags. The delimiter (*) is configurable, but CLI interpreters don't allow certain characters, like semicolons.

You can often omit the body flag -b as the parser will try to figure out when the flag is missing and where to add it in. This is to allow for quick item creation, basically getting your thoughts out quickly. Typically, if the body is the first thing you write then you won't need to explicitly state the -b flag, but if the body follows other flags with string-based arguments then you're more likely to run into problems.

Examples:

• godoo add this item has no body flag
  • would create a new item with a body of "this item has no body flag"
• godoo add flagless body -d 3d
  • would create a new item with a deadline 3 days from now, and a body of "flagless body"
• godoo add -d 3d flagless body
  • would return an error because, when creating items, arguments for the deadline flag can be upto 10 characters (configurable) so the parser can't (yet) determine where one argument ends and the next one begins
• godoo add -c 77 flagless body
  • would create an item with body of "flagless body" whose parent item's id is 77 because the parser is able to figure out where the argument for the -c flag (77) ends and can implicitly add the -b flag

You can use these flags in various combinations when creating items. As above, the -b flag will be assumed where possible:

• godoo add add tests to project -t dev*testing d 1m
  • would create an item with a body of "add tests to project", tags of "dev" & "testing", and a deadline one month from now.

Retrieving items

To search for items that you have already created you use the get command, which supports the following flags:

Flag	Name	Description	Example	Notes
-b	body	search by key phrase within body	godoo get -b salmon fishcakes	find items whose body contains phrase 'salmon fishcakes'
-i	id	search by id number	godoo get -i 8	get item with id of 8
-d	deadline	search by deadline date	godoo get -d 0d	get items with a deadline of today
-e	creationDate	search by date item was created	godoo get -e -7d:-3d	get items created in a 4 day window between 7 and 3 days ago
-c	childOf	search by item's parent id	godoo get -c 8	get items with a parentId of 8
-t	tag	search by tag	godoo get -t dev	return items marked with 'dev' tag
-a	all	get all items	godoo get -a	get every item
-f	finished	search by items marked as complete	godoo get -f	get all finished items
-F	unfinished	search by items marked as incomplete	godoo get -F	get all unfinished items
-n	next	get the next item with the highest priority	godoo get -n	the priority queue only contains unfinished items

Notes

Whenever a new item is successfully created, the prompt outputs the id number of the created item. It's this id number that you can search for using the -i flag.

You can use most of the flags listed in the above table in various combinations to build up very specific search criteria. The body flag can often be inferred in the same way described above, so it can be omitted in certain contexts.

The -a and -n flags can only be used in isolation - i.e. not as part of a larger query. If you do include them as part of a larger query/command, then the other flags & arguments will be ignored.

Examples

• godoo get -F -d 0d
  • find any unfinished (not done) items with a deadline of today
• godoo get -f -d -8d
  • find any complete/finished items with a deadline of 8 days ago
• godoo get unique phrase -F -e -7d:0d
  • find any unfinished items created in the last 7 days whose body contains the words 'unique phrase'
• godoo get unique phrase -F -e -7d
  • find any unfinished items created exactly 7 days ago whose body contains the words 'unique phrase'
• godoo get -d -1m:1m -t notes -c 17 interesting fact -F -e -17d:0d
  • find items with a deadline between 1 month ago and 1 month from now; with a tag called 'notes'; which is a child of item 17; whose body contains the phrase 'interesting fact'; that is not marked as finished/complete; and that was created some time over the last 17 days

Note that there is no sense checking for conflicting dates. So it is possible that the last example above could return one or more items with a deadline that pre-dates its creationDate. I think it's useful for retrospective note-taking but there are reasonable grounds for adding sense-checking in future.

Editing existing items

The command to use for changing or updating existing items is edit. There are two categories of flag for editing: lowercase for searching, or determining which item(s) to edit, and uppercase for actually modifiying the data of one or more items.

This distinction enables you to use a single command to simultaneously search for and edit items. The searching component of this works in exactly the same way as it does for the get command (see above).

Flag	Function	Name	Description	Notes
-b	search	body	search by key phrase in item body
-i	search	id	search by item idNumber
-d	search	deadline	search by item deadline	supports shorthand, longhand, date ranges
-c	search	childOf	search by parent idNumber
-e	search	creationDate	search by creation date	supports shorthand, longhand, date ranges
-f	search	finished	search by completed items
-B	edit	changeBody	edit the body field
-C	edit	changeParent	change item's parent idNumber
-D	edit	changeDeadline	change item's deadline	no date ranges
-F	edit	toggleComplete	toggle item's completion status	if complete, change to incomplete; if incomplete, change to complete
-M	edit	changeMode	change the item's/items' priority	as above, supported values are n/l/m/h
--append	behaviour	append	add new data to existing field	only relevant for string fields like item's body
--replace	behaviour	replace	replace existing data with new data	only relevant for string fields like item's body

Notes

Date ranges are only supported by lowercase flags, or those with a 'search' function. Uppercase or editing flags do not support date ranges because a deadline is a specific date.

Examples

• godoo edit -i 15 -F
  • ex. 1: item is incomplete
    • item with idNumber 15 marked complete
  • ex. 2: item is complete
    • item with idNumber 15 marked incomplete
• godoo edit -c 3 -F
  • ex. 1: item incomplete
    • mark items with a parentId of 3 as done
  • ex. 2: item complete
    • mark items with a parentId of 3 as not done
• godoo edit -b key phrase -D 1y
  • find item/s with 'key phrase' in the body and change the deadline to 1 year from now
• godoo edit -i 3 -B --append something interesting
  • find item with id 3 and append the phrase 'something interesting' to the existing body
  • use the --replace flag to completely replace the body
    • if you don't pass either of them, you will be prompted to enter 'a' or 'r'
  • placement of standalone flags like --append, --replace, -f, -F doesn't matter
• godoo edit -d -1m:5d -b golden badgers -e -3d:0d -B more common than you might think -D 12d --append
  • find items that: have a deadline of between 1 month before today, and 5 days after today; whose bodies contain the phrase 'golden badgers'; and which were created at some point over the last 3 days
  • append the phrase 'more common than you might think' to the existing body, and change the deadline to 12 days from now

Deleting items

Not yet supported but will be.

TODO

• Easier setup/installation
  • Configuration is via an env file (Viper). The path for this is currently set in the SetConfigVals() method in go-doo/app/app.go
  • example config/env file in go-doo/example-env
• Support deletions
  • need to decide if it should be by id only, or to allow the same search functionality as in the get and edit commands but maybe with user confirmation