Notekeeper

A tiny bash script for taking and organizing simple text notes.

• Write a TODO list.
• Use as a copy/paste clipboard.
• Make ASCII art. :)

:question: Why use this instead of just typing vim /path/to/my/note.md ?

• Type fewer characters.
• Print and manage note files easily.
• Open the same note from any directory.
• Automatically organizes notes with a sane directory structure.

Installation

Homebrew

• Notekeeper can be easily installed via homebrew!

brew tap dcchambers/tap
brew update && brew install notekeeper

Arch Linux

• Maintained by Luis Pérez - thank you!

paru -S notekeeper

Manual Install

• Simply download the note.bash script file.
• Place it somewhere nice (mv note.bash /usr/local/bin/note).
• Make it executable with chmod +x /usr/local/bin/note
• Add it to your path if necessary (e.g. export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin)
• You can then run the script anywhere by simply typing note at the command line.

Usage

• Running note by itself with no arguments will create a new note file at ~/$NOTE_DIR/$year/$month/$day/$year-$month-$day.md if one does not exist, and will open that note file in Vim.

• -c | --create

  • Use the -c flag to create a note without opening it.

• -p | --print

  • Use the -p flag to print the contents of the note.

• -n | --name <FILENAME>

  • Set filename for note. Will be created in $NOTE_DIR. Can be combined with other options (-c, -p, -t)

• -e | --edit <FILENAME>

  • Use the -e flag with a DATE argument to edit a note from a specific date.

• -h | --help

  • Use the -h flag to print usage information.

• -t | --time

  • Use the -t flag to add a timestamp when creating/opening note.

• -d | --delete <FILENAME

  • Use the -d flag to move a file into trash ($NOTE_DIR/trash)

• --destroy <FILENAME>

  • Use the --destroy flag to permanently delete a note.

• -l | --list [<FILE EXTENSION>]

  • Use this --list flag to list note files. Defaults to .md files if no extension is specified.

Demo (Asciinema)

File Organization

❱❱ tree ~/notes
/home/username/notes
└── 2020
    ├── 06
    │   ├── 21
    │   │   └── 2020-06-21.md
    │   └── 22
    │       └── 2020-06-22.md
    └── 07
        └── 28
            ├── 2020-07-28.md
            └── another-note.md

Configuration

• The default editor is set by your $EDITOR environment variable.
  • If no default editor is set, it will use Vim.
    • It opens Vim in insert mode.
• The default location to store notes is in the ~/notes/ directory.
  • To change this, set a NOTE_DIR value in your noterc file.

Customize with noterc

You can use a noterc file to customize Notekeeper!

• Create this file at ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/notekeeper/noterc
  • On MacOS, this will be ~/.config/notekeeper/noterc
• Example noterc file

The following variables can be set to overwrite Notekeeper defaults:

• NOTE_DIR - The base directory for storing notes.
  • Default is ~/notes
• EDITOR
  • By default Notekeeper uses whatever is in your system $EDITOR variable, and falls back to vim if none is set.
• NOTE_FORMAT - File format (file extension) used to create new notes.
  • Default is .md
• NOTE_NAME - Default name for new notes that are created.
  • The default is $YEAR-$MONTH-$DAY.$NOTE_FORMAT
• PRINT_TOOL
  • Default is cat
• organize_by_date
  • Default is true. Set organize_by_date=false if you do not want to use a date-based directory structure for organizing notes.

Dependencies

• Notekeeper uses a few simple tools that you probably already have installed.
  • A text editor (such as Vim or Emacs)
  • The find program
  • A program to print files (like cat)
  • Basic programs that should be included in almost all Linux/Unix distributions, including mkdir, touch, mv, rm, echo, printf