SimonWoodtli / cmd-zet

👨‍💻 zet - a command line tool to manage a Zettelkasten (notebox) repository

zet

This is zet, a command line tool for managing your digital Zettelkasten (notebox). Many commands use fzf for easier management of a Zettelkasten repository. zet is a bash script that also uses rg for faster grep searches and fd for better filename search performance.

🧐 I strongly recommend using two Zettelkasten git repositories. A public one with a remote git repository on github.com and a private one that exists only as a local git repository.

Quick links:

• How to use
• Install

Features

• intuitive syntax: zet [OPTIONS] [<subcommand>] [<pattern>]...
• uses fzf to fuzzy find Zettels (notes).
• in vim !!zet <subcommand> works with fzf
• uses rg and fd for grep and find replacements for better performance.
• supports parallel command execution: Create or edit Zettels in different tmux or terminal windows at the same time.
• smart case: searching within fzf or with patterns is case-insensitive by default.

Demo

screencast.webm

How to use

COMMANDS:

    zet init
    zet current
    zet last
    zet delete
    zet edit
    zet get
    zet body
    zet cat
    zet count
    zet help
    zet version
    zet usage
    zet screenshot <pattern>
    zet use <pattern>
    zet create <pattern>
    zet link <pattern>
    zet query <pattern>

Installation

Since people have too many different systems with different configurations, I didn't want to write a universal setup script. However, the installation of zet is quite simple.

1. fetch the latest version and make it executable:

curl -LJ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SimonWoodtli/cmd-zet/main/zet -o $HOME/.local/bin/zet
chmod u+x $HOME/.local/bin/zet

2. install dependencies
3. create a github.com public repo called zet
4. clone your public repo to your local machine
5. decide whether you want to create another github repo for your private notes or just a local git repo also name it zet
6. adjust some settings in the zet command: vi $HOME/.local/bin/zet
   1. Look for the _configData() function and adjust the settings to your needs.
   2. zetPublicDir: the directory path to where you cloned your public zet repo
   3. zetPrivateDir: the directory path to where you created your private zet repo
   4. editor: the editor that zet will use
   5. screenshotDir: the location where your screenshots are being taken. Change this only if you want to use a different screenshot tool. Or if you want to use a specific folder. Both require changes to the __createScreenshot() function.
   6. gituser: the github.com username that belongs to you
7. enable tab completion: add complete -C zet zet to your bashrc

Dependencies

• Bash version 4 or higher is required
• fzf
• fd
• rg
• sed
• gawk
• imagemagick
• xclip
• git
• gnome-screenshot

🙏 Thanks to

📝 My old zet command simply created a file and filled it with a markdown template. It had an isosec stamp at the beginning of the title. I also just used it as a local private git repository. But ever since rwxrob developed his zet command, I've been using it and loving it. Back when I was super hyped about the Zettelkasten system but couldn't transfer the analog system to a digital version myself. I tried to inspire/persuade him to develop a command on how to implement and design a digital Zettelkasten, and he did. That meant I could abandon my own first attempt. That one failed largely because my bash and general programming skills just weren't up to it at the time.

A big thanks to rwxrob and his idea on how to manage a digital Zettelkasten with isometric seconds in Coordinated Universal Time UTC. I also took the liberty of copying a few snippets here and there into my own zet command. I tried to keep this to a minimum. But I liked the overall design of rwxrob's command, so the core ideas and design are the same. I just implemented 95% of the code base in my own way. I've been using rwxrobs' zet command since he created it, but a lot of the features and things he implemented I didn't need. So I'm glad I now have a command that gets rid of all the clutter and only does what I need.

Here's a list of some of the things and ideas I adopted. Some I had to modify quite a bit to make them work in my command.

• Design decisions: It is a good idea to name folders with an isosec timestamp and create README.md files in them. Especially if they are used on a public git hosting service like github.com. So I decided to incorporate this into my current zet command. I also welcome the idea of having two separate zet repos, one public and one private. It is a great idea to share technical knowledge with the Internet. Knowledge wants to flow freely, and the more people who embrace this idea, the better for all of us. Also, if you have your Zettels (notes) hosted on github.com, you can use github's search feature, which makes it easier to find things. However, for more personal notes, I still prefer to have a second Zettelkasten that is private.
• Tab completion/main loops: I had to modify the main loop that executes commands depending on user input, and the tab completion loop. I used associative arrays, which is the main difference, and a case that checks if $1 user input is a flag/option. My version differs quite a bit. However, the idea of how to implement tab completion in a script is definitely not mine. I might have come up with something, but I doubt it would look like this implementation.
• _newest() this function gets the last created file from a folder. I created __editLastModifiedReadme() which works similarly by retrieving the last readme file, but requires two loops and adds a lot more overhead. I created a command yesterday that was just as simple as Rob's idea. But unfortunately I didn't commit the changes and at some point I deleted it again. Needless to say, I can't remember how I did it.
• _isoSec() using isosec is a core design decision of my current zet command. It helps a lot to manage a digital Zettelkasten (notebox). I also had the idea of capturing a timestamp when I started playing around with my very first version of the Zettelkasten a couple of years ago. However, I put a timestamp at the beginning of a title and mine wasn't a UTC timestamp either.
• __create() This function is very simple, and even if I had written it myself without ever looking at Rob's command, the result would have been something very similar. There just aren't that many ways to get user input, create variables, and print them to a file.

Challenges

• integration of fzf and how to let fzf search not only for titles but also for tags at the same time
• make zet commands that require fzf work in vim with !!. E.g. !!zet cat. Inside a tmux session it was easy, but it was a challenge to do this without tmux running.
• creating a command to edit the last modified README.md zet last
• creating a command that looks for titles and tags and prints them zet link <pattern>
• changing code snippets from rwxrob to make it work in my script. The most difficult part was to change rwxrob's main command to execute user input and tab completion.
• manage flow and organize a larger script

License

Copyright 2022 Simon D. Woodtli [e-mail]
Released under Apache-2.0 License

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