Dakota Chambers

SWE/Tech Lead at Zendesk, working on tools for Kubernetes, app configuration, and deployment.

On Keeping Notes

I made a tiny script for keeping simple text-based notes. You might find it useful too.
Introducing: Note Keeper

I am a devout member of the bullet journal cult. But I tend to be picky about what I write down in my journal and, let’s be honest, it’s often faster to type than to write, especially when you’re already sitting in front of a keyboard or you have to copy/paste a long string of nonsensical characters.

I’ve gone through a couple of iterations of note taking processes when working. I work almost exclusively in Linux these days and am regularly working from the command line. My work-flow is pretty much a shell + tmux + a hundred different command line applications.

This is how I used to keep notes:

  • Keep a master notebook at ~/notebook.md
  • Switch to my NOTES window in tmux.
  • Open up the notebook with vim.
  • Write whatever I need.
  • Switch back to my working window in tmux.

asciicast

And this is how I keep notes now:

  • Use my note script to open up a new note at ~/notes/year/month/day.md.

asciicast

Note Keeper

Originally, I had simply aliased the note command to create and edit a new markdown note in a certain location. I decided to expand upon that idea…

That became Note Keeper - a tiny shell script for keeping notes. It’s pretty basic right now. You can:

  • Create notes
  • Edit notes
  • Print a note
  • Print information about a note

Planned additions:

  • Destroy a note
  • Encrypt a secret note
  • Directly/immediately append a string to the end of a note

Use Note Keeper to make TODO lists, create ASCII art, write poems, or as a copy/paste clipboard.

  • Note Keeper will automatically create a $day.md markdown note for you
  • It will organize it in a sane way (in the directory ~/notes/$year/$month/)
  • It will open the note up for editing in Vim.
  • Simply install the script and type note on your command line.
  • Probably1 compatible with Mac OS and most Linux distributions.
  • As of v0.1.1 Note Keeper now opens vim in insert mode and puts the cursor at the end of the file for even more rapid note taking.
    • Simply type note and start writing!

Check out the source code on :octocat: Github.
Currently v0.2.1 :tada: :wink:

  1. Tested on Mac OS High Sierra and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. ↩

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