kronCLI

This repo contains a PowerShell script for the creation of a templated markdown-based journal entry for yesterday which imports and compresses images from a given folder.

I use it as a morning ritual writing a privately distributed family chronicle which is turning out to be a keystone habbit.

1. demo

1.1. Item Creation

1.2. WebUI (optional)

2. setup

2.1. prereqs

• ImageMagick
• MikTex/Pandoc

2.2. environmental variables

• you need the following environmental variables

Name	Example Value
kronScript	c:\kronCLI\kron.ps1
kronMasterImageFolder	c:\photos
kronFolder	c:\journal

2.3. manual work

• You have to hard code the pattern catching the actual images for a selected timespan:
  • open https://github.com/pkutaj/kronCLI/blob/master/kron.ps1#L30-L34
  • based on your files, you need to properly define 2 variables: $timeStampPattern and $photosPattern
  • just navigate to your annual kronMasterImageFolder\yyyy (e.g. c:\photos\2021) and run something like

# c:\photos\2021

$timeStampPattern = "yyyyMMdd"          # put the value into script when done
$yesterdayPattern = ((Get-Date) - (New-TimeSpan -Days 1)).ToString($timeStampPattern) # IGNORE
$pattern = "IMG_$yesterdayPattern.*"    # put the value into script then done
(dir) -match $pattern | Select Name     # run interactive pattern-check 

# OUTPUT OF MATCHES
# -----------------
# IMG_20210716_1404144kron.jpg
# IMG_20210716_1416013kron.jpg
# IMG_20210716_1700289.jpg
# IMG_20210716_1700311.jpg

2.4. profile

• You can set up an alias in PowerShell profile to call a script from anywhere
  • I set an alias as k in the $profile and just hit k to run it from anywhere

$profile
Import-Module $env:kronScript
Set-Alias k new-kron

3. instructions

• Connect the phone to the PC in the PTP transfer mode
• Windows Photo starts automatically (if configured as such)
• Import your photos to the kronMasterImageFolder
  • I am syncing this with Google Photos at this point
  • I am also deleting photos from my phone

• Recommended: Navigate to the master folder and delete redundant photos
  • Total Commander for navigation
  • IrfanView for quick viewing / deletion
• Run the script . kron.ps1 (or any alias) and write about your yesterday
• The script then:
  1. Copies, renames, and compresses images from the $env:kronMasterImageFolder
  2. The script puts them in $env:kronFolder\assets
  3. It populates the newly created markdown file with the image links in markdown format
• You can write about your day with photos already populated
• To merge all posts into .pdf to print out as a hard-copy:
  1. Navigate to the folder of the previous month
  2. Run . kron.ps1 -merge

4. sharing

• I am storing and sharing my journal as a family chronicle as a private GitHub repo
• See GitHub for Storage + UI for setting that up