103 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
103 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
# Notes
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Like most people, I needed a way to keep decent notes on my machines. The way
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that I prefer to take notes was writing text files with the option of grouping
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together hierarchical data into nested bullet-style lists.
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## Tools
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Vim (or specifically Neovim) and Markdown for reading and writing have fit the
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bill very well for me. Git has worked amazingly for syncing/merging. I setup
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some bash aliases to allow me to do this without even thinking (or even
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automatically!) and note-taking life has been good ever since.
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On occasion, I do want actual spreadsheets. I tend to use [my fork of
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`sc-im`][sc-im] and a handful of Lua scripts for it. Primarily these are finance
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or D&D-related.
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Full searchability of notes and spreadsheets is very important. Since my notes
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manifest as files on a filesystem, grep (or specifically [ripgrep][rg]) is
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incredible. When I need to find files by their filename, I tend to use find (or
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specifically [`fd`][fd]).
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Navigating between notes is also very important. For the most part, vim's `gf`
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binding does the job. Barring that, [`fzf`] and good vim buffer management have
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worked brilliantly for me.
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It's nice when editing your notes feels clean and comfortable and when they just
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*look good*. I really like the [`goyo` vim plugin by junegunn][goyo] to provide
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some space at times. Here's a [link to a screenshot][goyo-screenshot].
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My notes repository is on a private `Gitea` instance which automatically gets
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mirrored to both GitHub and GitLab because redundancy is good and hooray for
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distributed software! If I wanted, I could easily setup auto-sync (even just add
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`nsync &` to the end of all the alises/scripts below would probably suffice),
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but I find that most notes are not so urgent to sync and that I am sure to do so
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if I need them. I should also probably encrypt/decrypt them on syncing.
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I rarely ever make non-ephemeral notes on my phone and use Google Keep for those
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notes. If they are more static, I would just copy and paste later at a machine
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or if there is an emergency, I can absolutely edit my notes the same way I do on
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my laptop and desktop via [termux][termux] where my vim and bash configurations
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*just work*.
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## Aliases
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I have a handful of aliases (defined in `scripts/bin`) that do the large bulk of
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the work.
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1. `nf`: Create a **n**ote **f**ile in the repo and open it in `$EDITOR`. This
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script is rarely invoked directly and is primarily used in subsequent
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scripts.
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+ Arguments:
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+ `$1` must be the note's filename.
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+ `$2` may specify an optional subdirectory in the repo to place the file.
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I use this to segregate notes by categories such as `work/postmates` or
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`personal/jesus` or `unsorted`
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+ Examples:
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+ `nf medical.md personal/finance`
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+ `nf 2019-10-21_devotional.md personal/jesus`
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+ `nf todo.md`
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2. `N`: Invokes `nf` adding `.md` to the end of the filename.
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3. `nd`: Invokes `nf` prefixing the filename with `YYYY-MM-DD_`.
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4. `n`: Combines `N` and `nd` resulting in a filename like `$DATE$1.md`.
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5. `nsync`: Runs `git add -A && git commit -m Updates && git pull && git push`
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in the notes repository.
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6. `scn`: Invokes `nf` overriding the `$EDITOR` variable with my spreadsheet
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editor.
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7. `s`: Invokes `nf _scratch.md` which serves as both a scratchpad for temporary
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or very quick notes and as an index for `gf`-jumping (or `fzf`-ing) to other
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common files.
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## How Could This Improve?
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+ Automatic syncing
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+ Cron jobs?
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+ Building the syncing commands asynchronously into the aliases above?
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+ Just add `nsync &> /dev/null &` to each script
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+ Possibly hidden behind a flag so it can be disabled
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+ Would probably need to add options to `nsync` so that any interactive
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stuff (which would fail) gracefully fails and notifies the user
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+ Encryption
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+ I keep some personal information in these notes that I'd rather not have
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exposed on GitHub/GitLab in plaintext.
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+ Mobile editing workflow is less than ideal
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+ While this isn't necessary, perhaps a way to take good notes on my phone
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might improve my workflow
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+ Accessibility
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+ My notes are really only able to be interacted with from a machine that is
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provisioned and setup to do so (read: ssh keys). It might be nice to have
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them more available especially to my wife, church, etc. through some web
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portal.
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+ Currently, I just use a `pbin` command and share the link, which works
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well enough.
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[sc-im]: https://github.com/lytedev/sc-im
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[rg]: https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep
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[fd]: https://github.com/sharkdp/fd
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[fzf]: https://github.com/junegunn/fzf
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[goyo]: https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim
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[goyo-screenshot]: https://i.imgur.com/pRrzXLz.png
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[termux]: https://termux.com
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