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  61 </tr></table>
  62 <h1 class="chapter"> 2. Basics </h1>
  63
  64 <p>All you need to use notes-mode
  65  in a chapter.
  66 (Except for installation, See section <a href="notes-mode_5.html#SEC27">Installation</a>.)
  67 </p>
  68 <table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0">
  69 <tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#SEC10">2.1 Getting started</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">
  70 </td></tr>
  71 <tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#SEC11">2.2 A notes file</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">
  72 </td></tr>
  73 <tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#SEC12">2.3 The notes index</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">
  74 </td></tr>
  75 <tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#SEC13">2.4 The notes directories</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">
  76 </td></tr>
  77 </table>
  78
  79 <hr size="6">
  80 <a name="Getting-started"></a>
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  96 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
  97 </tr></table>
  98 <h2 class="section"> 2.1 Getting started </h2>
  99
 100 <p>To get started with notes-mode,
 101  read the introduction this chapter,
 102  then either:
 103 </p>
 104 <ul>
 105 <li>
 106 Start emacs, do
 107  <kbd>M-x</kbd> <code>load-library</code> <kbd>RET</kbd> <code>notes-mode</code> <kbd>RET</kbd>
 108 This approach will set up notes-mode with the default parameters.
 109
 110 </li><li>
 111 OR, from the shell,
 112  run the program &lsquo;<tt>notesinit</tt>&rsquo;.
 113 This approach will ask you some questions about how you want to configure
 114  notes mode.
 115
 116 </li></ul>
 117
 118 <p>Either way these should set up everything notes-mode needs.
 119 This program will modify your environment (as described in this section),
 120  or it will give you the exact commands you should run yourself.
 121 </p>
 122 <p>After you've done one of these,
 123  start up emacs and note-away.
 124 I usually begin a
 125  day of note-taking by running the command
 126  <kbd>M-x</kbd> <code>notes-index-todays-link</code>
 127  to jump directly to today's note.
 128 You may even wish to bind this to something,
 129  perhaps with
 130  <code>(define-key global-map &quot;\C-cn&quot; 'notes-index-todays-link)</code>
 131  in your &lsquo;<tt>.emacs</tt>&rsquo;.
 132 </p>
 133 <p>If you want to browse your existing notes,
 134  you might instead want to edit the
 135  &lsquo;<tt>~/NOTES/index</tt>&rsquo;.
 136 (What is a notes file and the index? Hurry up and finish
 137  reading this chapter.)
 138 </p>
 139
 140 <hr size="6">
 141 <a name="A-notes-file"></a>
 142 <a name="SEC11"></a>
 143 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
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 154 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode.html#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
 155 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
 156 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_6.html#SEC28" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
 157 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
 158 </tr></table>
 159 <h2 class="section"> 2.2 A notes file </h2>
 160
 161
 162 <p>The notes file is the focus of most of the activity in notes-mode,
 163  it's where you take your notes.
 164 Notes files are mostly free-form text
 165  broken up into <em>entries</em>.
 166 Here's an example:
 167 </p>
 168 <a name="IDX1"></a>
 169
 170 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">8-Jun-95 Thursday
 171 -----------------
 172
 173 * Today
 174 -------
 175 prev: &lt;none&gt;
 176 next: &lt;file:///~/NOTES/199506/950609#* Today&gt;
 177
 178 next week - release notes-mode
 179
 180
 181 * Environment/notes
 182 -------------------
 183
 184 I explained notes mode to Ashvin and Geoff.
 185 ...
 186 </pre></td></tr></table>
 187
 188 <p>Each entry has a subject-block, (maybe) some links, and then (maybe) some text.
 189 </p>
 190 <p>The subject-block must begin with an asterisk-space (<kbd>* </kbd>)
 191  at the beginning of a line, followed by the subject itself.
 192 Subjects must be underlined with a row of dashes
 193  (if they're not exact, that's OK;
 194  notes-mode will fix them periodically).
 195 For convenience,
 196  notes-mode will automatically add the underlines when you
 197  hit <kbd>&lt;RTN&gt;</kbd> (<code>notes-electric-return</code>),
 198  and <kbd>&lt;TAB&gt;</kbd> on a partially completed subject will
 199  invoke completion based on indexed subjects (<code>notes-complete-subject</code>).
 200 <a name="IDX2"></a>
 201 <a name="IDX3"></a>
 202 <a name="IDX4"></a>
 203 </p>
 204 <p>Following the subject may be links.
 205 (In the example, the &ldquo;Today&rdquo; entry has links,
 206  the &ldquo;Environment/notes&rdquo; entry doesn't.)
 207 These links will be automatically updated by notes-mode
 208  when your notes are re-indexed;
 209  just leave a blank line when writing the note.
 210 <a name="IDX5"></a>
 211 </p>
 212 <p>Links are made with pseudo-URLs,
 213  sort of like those in the World Wide Web.
 214 Any of these URLs can be followed in notes-mode files
 215  by clicking <kbd>S-mouse-2</kbd> on the pseudo-URL
 216  (<code>notes-w3-follow-link-mouse</code>).
 217 <a name="IDX6"></a>
 218 <a name="IDX7"></a>
 219 <a name="IDX8"></a>
 220 </p>
 221 <p>Finally comes the text.
 222 Go wild, but just don't include text that looks like a subject.
 223 You can embed pseudo-URLs to link notes together manually.
 224 </p>
 225 <p>The more anal of you may have noticed
 226  that the lines before the first subject
 227  are not part of any entry.
 228 These lines are
 229  <em>front matter</em>.
 230 They're not usually used for much,
 231  but they can be a good place to label the file.
 232 <a name="IDX9"></a>
 233 <a name="IDX10"></a>
 234 </p>
 235 <p>There are a number of useful conventions
 236  that can be adopted to organize your notes.
 237 The most common is the &ldquo;Today&rdquo; entry.
 238 If you keep an entry with the same subject
 239  at the beginning of each file,
 240  you link all of your notes together.
 241 Notes-mode will help you out with some of these convetions
 242  by automatically creating or copying some fields for you;
 243  see see section <a href="notes-mode_3.html#SEC19">Useful conventions</a> for details.
 244 </p>
 245 <p>Finally, notes-mode can also work with outline-minor-mode
 246  (thanks to Tim Carroll for pointing this out).
 247 Outline-mode supports hiding and revealing text and other helpful
 248  features beyond the scope of this document.
 249 See <a href="../emacs/Outline-Mode.html#Outline-Mode">Outline Mode: (emacs)Outline Mode</a> section `Outline Mode' in <cite>The Emacs Editor</cite>, for details.
 250 </p>
 251 <hr size="6">
 252 <a name="The-notes-index"></a>
 253 <a name="SEC12"></a>
 254 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
 255 <tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC11" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
 256 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC13" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
 257 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 258 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC9" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
 259 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC9" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
 260 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_3.html#SEC14" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
 261 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 262 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
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 264 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 265 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode.html#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
 266 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
 267 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_6.html#SEC28" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
 268 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
 269 </tr></table>
 270 <h2 class="section"> 2.3 The notes index </h2>
 271
 272
 273 <p>The notes index lists all subjects you've kept notes about,
 274  and each date of each note.
 275 Impress your friends,
 276  show your advisor why you're worth the <em>big</em> peanuts,
 277  you'll soon have the biggest index of all.
 278 </p>
 279 <p>The index has one line per subject, listing the subject
 280  and each day a note was made about that subject.
 281 For example:
 282 </p>
 283 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">Bicycle: 950314, 950316
 284 Bicycle/maintenance/books: 951028
 285 Bridge/hands: 951113, 951114, 951116, 951117
 286 Bridge/UCLA: 960222, 960409
 287 </pre></td></tr></table>
 288
 289 <p>Clicking on any of the dates with <kbd>mouse-2</kbd>
 290  will take you to that note
 291  (<code>notes-index-mouse-follow-link</code>).
 292 (You can also move the point over the date and hit <kbd>&lt;RTN&gt;</kbd>
 293  if you're musaphobic [<code>notes-index-follow-link</code>].)
 294 <a name="IDX11"></a>
 295 <a name="IDX12"></a>
 296 </p>
 297 <p>The notes index is automatically updated by the program &lsquo;<tt>mkall</tt>&rsquo;.
 298 Typically &lsquo;<tt>mkall</tt>&rsquo; is run nightly by &lsquo;<tt>cron</tt>&rsquo;.
 299 On most modern versions of Unix, you can add this command to cron by
 300  running &lsquo;<tt>crontab -e</tt>&rsquo; and adding the line:
 301 </p>
 302 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">0 4 * * * /usr/local/lib/notes-mode/mkall
 303 </pre></td></tr></table>
 304 <a name="IDX13"></a>
 305 <a name="IDX14"></a>
 306 <a name="IDX15"></a>
 307
 308 <p>(Assuming that your notes programs are installed
 309  in /usr/local/lib/notes-mode, the default location.)
 310 </p>
 311
 312 <hr size="6">
 313 <a name="The-notes-directories"></a>
 314 <a name="SEC13"></a>
 315 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
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 318 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 319 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC9" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
 320 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC9" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
 321 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_3.html#SEC14" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
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 326 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode.html#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
 327 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
 328 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_6.html#SEC28" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
 329 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
 330 </tr></table>
 331 <h2 class="section"> 2.4 The notes directories </h2>
 332
 333
 334 <p>The final thing needed to tie basic notes-mode together his how
 335 the pieces fit together.
 336 Since my graduate work is in file systems,
 337 you can bet that directories are involved.
 338 </p>
 339 <p>Notes-mode keeps its files in a two-level hierarchy:
 340 </p>
 341 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">~/NOTES
 342 ~/NOTES/index
 343 ~/NOTES/rawindex
 344 ~/NOTES/199603
 345 ~/NOTES/199603/960329
 346 ~/NOTES/199603/960330
 347 ~/NOTES/199604
 348 ~/NOTES/199604/960401
 349 </pre></td></tr></table>
 350
 351 <p>The top level, &lsquo;<tt>~/NOTES</tt>&rsquo;, is the notes directory.
 352 It keeps all notes in one place.
 353 (The name of this directory is configurable, See section <a href="notes-mode_3.html#SEC21">Notes-mode configuration</a>.)
 354 </p>
 355 <p>Inside the notes directory are two files and a number of directories.
 356 The files are &lsquo;<tt>index</tt>&rsquo;,
 357  the index of all entries (see section <a href="#SEC12">The notes index</a>),
 358  and &lsquo;<tt>rawindex</tt>&rsquo;,
 359  used internally.
 360 <a name="IDX16"></a>
 361 </p>
 362 <p>The notes directory also contains a number of subdirectories,
 363  sometimes called <em>intermediate directories</em>.
 364 These directories group the actual notes files into manageable chunks,
 365  keeping any directory from getting too large.
 366 Intermediate directories are named
 367  by the four-digit year and the two-digit month
 368  of the entries they contain.
 369 (The format of intermediate directories
 370  is configurable, See section <a href="notes-mode_3.html#SEC21">Notes-mode configuration</a>.)
 371 <a name="IDX17"></a>
 372 </p>
 373 <p>Finally,
 374  each intermediate directory are the notes files themselves,
 375  named according to the two-digit year, month, and day-of-month.
 376 <a name="IDX18"></a>
 377 </p>
 378 <p>For the most part,
 379  notes-mode will automatically maintain this organization of files,
 380  once you create the top-level directory.
 381 Notes-mode will also automatically insure
 382  that all files in the notes directory are unreadable by
 383  anyone other than their owner.
 384 Notes are personal things.
 385 (This behavior is not currently configurable,
 386  but it probably should be.)
 387 <a name="IDX19"></a>
 388 </p>
 389
 390
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