brain_dump

brain_dump allows to quickly write notes, todos, snippets, etc. in text files.

Tempate files (Golang text/template + sprig) can be used to control and format what will be written in the files.

Project status

This project is in a very early stage.

I use this tool since the beginning and got only one issue, which is fixed by now.

No new features are planned right now unless some users have suggestions.

Documentation

$ brain_dump --help
USAGE: brain_dump [-c] [-e] [-p PROFILE] INPUT

INPUT must be a list of arguments or - to get the input from the STDIN.
The input can also contains arguments using key=value format to pass variables for the template.
If no input is given, the output file will be opened in a text editor.

OPTIONS:
  -c    print the default configuration to STDOUT
  -e    open the editor after writing the file
  -p string
        name of the profile to use (default "default")

Dumping a note without any configuration or any template.

Notice: if no configuration is found, the tool will print a log message explaining that the default configuration will be used.

$ brain_dump the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Dumping a note without any configuration or any template and then edit the file.

$ brain_dump -e the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Passing variables to the template file.

To fill the templates, the user can either add variables in a per profile configuration or pass them at the command line.

$HOME/.config/brain_dump/templates/snips.tmpl

{{ if .desc }}
{{ .desc }}
{{ end }}
```{{ if .lang }}{{ .lang }}{{ end }}
{{ trim .input }}
```

$HOME/.config/brain_dump/brain_dump.json

{
  // ...
  "snip": {
    // ...
    "template_vars": {
      "lang": "raw"
    }
  },
  // ...
}

$ brain_dump -p snip lang=bash desc="Hello World in bash" echo Hello, World

Predefined functions and variables.

brain_dump use Golang text/template and sprig but it also provide predefined variables cwd, short_cwd, home, user and predefined functions shortenPath, expandTilde, expandEnv.

Write mode, keys case and date/time variables.

1. When writing to a file, the default method is to append rather than overwriting. This can be modified by setting write_mode to write in the profile configuration.

2. By default the case for variables keys in the templates is snake_case but you can also use the CamelCase by setting keys_case to CamelCase in the profile configuration. (see ./samples/templates/test.tmpl)

3. To use date/time variables the user has to provide a map to the formats key in the profile configuration. Each keys of the map is the name for the variable and each value is the format.

Here is an example of configuration for the points mentioned above.

$HOME/.config/brain_dump/brain_dump.json

{
  // ...
  "test": {
    "file": "${HOME}/Documents/brain_dump/test.md",
    "template_file": "${HOME}/.config/brain_dump/templates/test.tmpl",
    "write_mode": "write"               // <-- 1.
    "keys_case": "CamelCase",           // <-- 2.
    "formats": {                        // <-- 3.
      "date": "2006-01-02",
      "datetime": "2006-01-02 15:04",
      "time": "15:04",
      "datetime_file": "20060102_1504"
    },
  }
}

Configuration

Configuration and template samples can be found in ./samples/.

Here is the default configuration ( brain_dump -c ) :

{
  "default": {
    "file": "~/Documents/brain_dump.md",
    "write_mode": "append",
    "template_file": "",
    "template_vars": null,
    "formats": {
      "date": "2006-01-02",
      "datetime": "2006-01-02 15:04:05",
      "time": "15:04:05"
    },
    "keys_case": "snake_case",
    "editor": "$EDITOR",
    "editor_args": null
  }
}

Here is an example of bash configuration :

if command -v brain_dump &> /dev/null; then
  alias bd=brain_dump
  alias link='brain_dump -p link'
  alias note='brain_dump -p note'
  alias snip='brain_dump -p snip'
  alias todo='brain_dump -p todo'
  export BRAINDUMP_CONFIG_FILE="$HOME/.config/brain_dump/brain_dump.json"
  export BRAINDUMP_DEBUG=1
fi