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  44 <a name="Basics"></a>
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  61 <a name="Basics-1"></a>
  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#Installation">Installation</a>.)
  67 </p>
  68 <table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0">
  69 <tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Getting-started">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="#A-notes-file">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="#The-notes-index">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="#The-notes-directories">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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  82 <tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Basics" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
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  96 </tr></table>
  97 <a name="Getting-started-1"></a>
  98 <h2 class="section">2.1 Getting started</h2>
  99 <a name="index-notesinit"></a>
 100 <a name="index-setup"></a>
 101
 102 <p>To get started with notes-mode,
 103  read the introduction this chapter,
 104  then either:
 105 </p>
 106 <ul>
 107 <li>
 108 Start emacs, do
 109  <kbd>M-x</kbd> <code>load-library</code> <kbd>RET</kbd> <code>notes-mode</code> <kbd>RET</kbd>
 110 This approach will set up notes-mode with the default parameters.
 111
 112 </li><li>
 113 OR, from the shell,
 114  run the program &lsquo;<tt>notesinit</tt>&rsquo;.
 115 This approach will ask you some questions about how you want to configure
 116  notes mode.
 117
 118 </li></ul>
 119
 120 <p>Either way these should set up everything notes-mode needs.
 121 This program will modify your environment (as described in this section),
 122  or it will give you the exact commands you should run yourself.
 123 </p>
 124 <p>After you&rsquo;ve done one of these,
 125  start up emacs and note-away.
 126 I usually begin a
 127  day of note-taking by running the command
 128  <kbd>M-x</kbd> <code>notes-index-todays-link</code>
 129  to jump directly to today&rsquo;s note.
 130 You may even wish to bind this to something,
 131  perhaps with
 132  <code>(define-key global-map &quot;\C-cn&quot; 'notes-index-todays-link)</code>
 133  in your &lsquo;<tt>.emacs</tt>&rsquo;.
 134 </p>
 135 <p>If you want to browse your existing notes,
 136  you might instead want to edit the
 137  &lsquo;<tt>~/NOTES/index</tt>&rsquo;.
 138 (What is a notes file and the index? Hurry up and finish
 139  reading this chapter.)
 140 </p>
 141
 142 <hr size="6">
 143 <a name="A-notes-file"></a>
 144 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
 145 <tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Getting-started" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
 146 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#The-notes-index" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
 147 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 148 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Basics" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
 149 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Basics" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
 150 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_3.html#Advanced-Features" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
 151 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 152 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 153 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 154 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 155 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode.html#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
 156 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
 157 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_6.html#Keystroke-index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
 158 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
 159 </tr></table>
 160 <a name="A-notes-file-1"></a>
 161 <h2 class="section">2.2 A notes file</h2>
 162
 163 <a name="index-Notes-files"></a>
 164
 165 <p>The notes file is the focus of most of the activity in notes-mode,
 166  it&rsquo;s where you take your notes.
 167 Notes files are mostly free-form text
 168  broken up into <em>entries</em>.
 169 Here&rsquo;s an example:
 170 </p>
 171 <a name="index-Notes-entries"></a>
 172
 173 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">8-Jun-95 Thursday
 174 -----------------
 175
 176 * Today
 177 -------
 178 prev: &lt;none&gt;
 179 next: &lt;file:///~/NOTES/199506/950609#* Today&gt;
 180
 181 next week - release notes-mode
 182
 183
 184 * Environment/notes
 185 -------------------
 186
 187 I explained notes mode to Ashvin and Geoff.
 188 ...
 189 </pre></td></tr></table>
 190
 191 <p>Each entry has a subject-block, (maybe) some links, and then (maybe) some text.
 192 </p>
 193 <p>The subject-block must begin with an asterisk-space (<kbd>* </kbd>)
 194  at the beginning of a line, followed by the subject itself.
 195 Subjects must be underlined with a row of dashes
 196  (if they&rsquo;re not exact, that&rsquo;s OK;
 197  notes-mode will fix them periodically).
 198 For convenience,
 199  notes-mode will automatically add the underlines when you
 200  hit <kbd>&lt;RTN&gt;</kbd> (<code>notes-electric-return</code>),
 201  and <kbd>&lt;TAB&gt;</kbd> on a partially completed subject will
 202  invoke completion based on indexed subjects (<code>notes-complete-subject</code>).
 203 <a name="index-Notes-subjects"></a>
 204 <a name="index-RTN"></a>
 205 <a name="index-TAB"></a>
 206 </p>
 207 <p>Following the subject may be links.
 208 (In the example, the &ldquo;Today&rdquo; entry has links,
 209  the &ldquo;Environment/notes&rdquo; entry doesn&rsquo;t.)
 210 These links will be automatically updated by notes-mode
 211  when your notes are re-indexed;
 212  just leave a blank line when writing the note.
 213 <a name="index-Notes-links"></a>
 214 </p>
 215 <p>Links are made with pseudo-URLs,
 216  sort of like those in the World Wide Web.
 217 Any of these URLs can be followed in notes-mode files
 218  by clicking <kbd>S-mouse-2</kbd> on the pseudo-URL
 219  (<code>notes-w3-follow-link-mouse</code>).
 220 <a name="index-Pseudo_002dURLs"></a>
 221 <a name="index-URLs"></a>
 222 <a name="index-S_002dmouse_002d2"></a>
 223 </p>
 224 <p>Finally comes the text.
 225 Go wild, but just don&rsquo;t include text that looks like a subject.
 226 You can embed pseudo-URLs to link notes together manually.
 227 </p>
 228 <p>The more anal of you may have noticed
 229  that the lines before the first subject
 230  are not part of any entry.
 231 These lines are
 232  <em>front matter</em>.
 233 They&rsquo;re not usually used for much,
 234  but they can be a good place to label the file.
 235 <a name="index-Notes-files_002c-font-matter"></a>
 236 <a name="index-Font-matter"></a>
 237 </p>
 238 <p>There are a number of useful conventions
 239  that can be adopted to organize your notes.
 240 The most common is the &ldquo;Today&rdquo; entry.
 241 If you keep an entry with the same subject
 242  at the beginning of each file,
 243  you link all of your notes together.
 244 Notes-mode will help you out with some of these convetions
 245  by automatically creating or copying some fields for you;
 246  see see section <a href="notes-mode_3.html#Useful-conventions">Useful conventions</a> for details.
 247 </p>
 248 <p>Finally, notes-mode can also work with outline-minor-mode
 249  (thanks to Tim Carroll for pointing this out).
 250 Outline-mode supports hiding and revealing text and other helpful
 251  features beyond the scope of this document.
 252 See <a href="../emacs/Outline-Mode.html#Outline-Mode">Outline Mode: (emacs)Outline Mode</a> section &lsquo;Outline Mode&rsquo; in <cite>The Emacs Editor</cite>, for details.
 253 </p>
 254 <hr size="6">
 255 <a name="The-notes-index"></a>
 256 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
 257 <tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#A-notes-file" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
 258 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#The-notes-directories" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
 259 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 260 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Basics" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
 261 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Basics" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
 262 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_3.html#Advanced-Features" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
 263 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 264 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 265 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 266 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 267 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode.html#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
 268 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
 269 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_6.html#Keystroke-index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
 270 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
 271 </tr></table>
 272 <a name="The-notes-index-1"></a>
 273 <h2 class="section">2.3 The notes index</h2>
 274
 275 <a name="index-Notes-index"></a>
 276
 277 <p>The notes index lists all subjects you&rsquo;ve kept notes about,
 278  and each date of each note.
 279 Impress your friends,
 280  show your advisor why you&rsquo;re worth the <em>big</em> peanuts,
 281  you&rsquo;ll soon have the biggest index of all.
 282 </p>
 283 <p>The index has one line per subject, listing the subject
 284  and each day a note was made about that subject.
 285 For example:
 286 </p>
 287 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">Bicycle: 950314, 950316
 288 Bicycle/maintenance/books: 951028
 289 Bridge/hands: 951113, 951114, 951116, 951117
 290 Bridge/UCLA: 960222, 960409
 291 </pre></td></tr></table>
 292
 293 <p>Clicking on any of the dates with <kbd>mouse-2</kbd>
 294  will take you to that note
 295  (<code>notes-index-mouse-follow-link</code>).
 296 (You can also move the point over the date and hit <kbd>&lt;RTN&gt;</kbd>
 297  if you&rsquo;re musaphobic [<code>notes-index-follow-link</code>].)
 298 <a name="index-mouse_002d2"></a>
 299 <a name="index-RTN-1"></a>
 300 </p>
 301 <p>The notes index is automatically updated by the program &lsquo;<tt>mkall</tt>&rsquo;.
 302 Typically &lsquo;<tt>mkall</tt>&rsquo; is run nightly by &lsquo;<tt>cron</tt>&rsquo;.
 303 On most modern versions of Unix, you can add this command to cron by
 304  running &lsquo;<tt>crontab -e</tt>&rsquo; and adding the line:
 305 </p>
 306 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">0 4 * * * /usr/local/lib/notes-mode/mkall
 307 </pre></td></tr></table>
 308 <a name="index-Crontab"></a>
 309 <a name="index-mkall"></a>
 310 <a name="index-re_002dindexing"></a>
 311
 312 <p>(Assuming that your notes programs are installed
 313  in /usr/local/lib/notes-mode, the default location.)
 314 </p>
 315
 316 <hr size="6">
 317 <a name="The-notes-directories"></a>
 318 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
 319 <tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#The-notes-index" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
 320 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_3.html#Advanced-Features" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
 321 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 322 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Basics" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
 323 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Basics" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
 324 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_3.html#Advanced-Features" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
 325 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 326 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 327 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 328 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 329 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode.html#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
 330 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
 331 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_6.html#Keystroke-index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
 332 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
 333 </tr></table>
 334 <a name="The-notes-directories-1"></a>
 335 <h2 class="section">2.4 The notes directories</h2>
 336
 337 <a name="index-Notes-directories"></a>
 338 <a name="index-Directory-hierarchy"></a>
 339
 340 <p>The final thing needed to tie basic notes-mode together his how
 341 the pieces fit together.
 342 Since my graduate work is in file systems,
 343 you can bet that directories are involved.
 344 </p>
 345 <p>Notes-mode keeps its files in a two-level hierarchy:
 346 </p>
 347 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">~/NOTES
 348 ~/NOTES/index
 349 ~/NOTES/rawindex
 350 ~/NOTES/199603
 351 ~/NOTES/199603/960329
 352 ~/NOTES/199603/960330
 353 ~/NOTES/199604
 354 ~/NOTES/199604/960401
 355 </pre></td></tr></table>
 356
 357 <p>The top level, &lsquo;<tt>~/NOTES</tt>&rsquo;, is the notes directory.
 358 It keeps all notes in one place.
 359 (The name of this directory is configurable, See section <a href="notes-mode_3.html#Notes_002dmode-configuration">Notes-mode configuration</a>.)
 360 </p>
 361 <p>Inside the notes directory are two files and a number of directories.
 362 The files are &lsquo;<tt>index</tt>&rsquo;,
 363  the index of all entries (see section <a href="#The-notes-index">The notes index</a>),
 364  and &lsquo;<tt>rawindex</tt>&rsquo;,
 365  used internally.
 366 <a name="index-Root-directory"></a>
 367 </p>
 368 <p>The notes directory also contains a number of subdirectories,
 369  sometimes called <em>intermediate directories</em>.
 370 These directories group the actual notes files into manageable chunks,
 371  keeping any directory from getting too large.
 372 Intermediate directories are named
 373  by the four-digit year and the two-digit month
 374  of the entries they contain.
 375 (The format of intermediate directories
 376  is configurable, See section <a href="notes-mode_3.html#Notes_002dmode-configuration">Notes-mode configuration</a>.)
 377 <a name="index-Intermediate-directories"></a>
 378 </p>
 379 <p>Finally,
 380  each intermediate directory are the notes files themselves,
 381  named according to the two-digit year, month, and day-of-month.
 382 <a name="index-Notes-files-1"></a>
 383 </p>
 384 <p>For the most part,
 385  notes-mode will automatically maintain this organization of files,
 386  once you create the top-level directory.
 387 Notes-mode will also automatically insure
 388  that all files in the notes directory are unreadable by
 389  anyone other than their owner.
 390 Notes are personal things.
 391 (This behavior is not currently configurable,
 392  but it probably should be.)
 393 <a name="index-Notes-file-permissions"></a>
 394 </p>
 395
 396
 397 <hr size="6">
 398 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
 399 <tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Basics" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
 400 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_3.html#Advanced-Features" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
 401 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
 402 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
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 406 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode.html#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
 407 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
 408 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_6.html#Keystroke-index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
 409 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="notes-mode_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
 410 </tr></table>
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