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13 <title>Notes-mode:
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61 <a name=
"Basics-1"></a>
62 <h1 class=
"chapter">2. Basics
</h1>
64 <p>All you need to use notes-mode
66 (Except for installation, See section
<a href=
"notes-mode_5.html#Installation">Installation
</a>.)
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> </td><td align=
"left" valign=
"top">
71 <tr><td align=
"left" valign=
"top"><a href=
"#A-notes-file">2.2 A notes file
</a></td><td> </td><td align=
"left" valign=
"top">
73 <tr><td align=
"left" valign=
"top"><a href=
"#The-notes-index">2.3 The notes index
</a></td><td> </td><td align=
"left" valign=
"top">
75 <tr><td align=
"left" valign=
"top"><a href=
"#The-notes-directories">2.4 The notes directories
</a></td><td> </td><td align=
"left" valign=
"top">
80 <a name=
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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>
102 <p>To get started with notes-mode,
103 read the introduction this chapter,
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.
114 run the program
‘<tt>notesinit
</tt>’.
115 This approach will ask you some questions about how you want to configure
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.
124 <p>After you
’ve done one of these,
125 start up emacs and note-away.
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
’s note.
130 You may even wish to bind this to something,
132 <code>(define-key global-map
"\C-cn
" 'notes-index-todays-link)
</code>
133 in your
‘<tt>.emacs
</tt>’.
135 <p>If you want to browse your existing notes,
136 you might instead want to edit the
137 ‘<tt>~/NOTES/index
</tt>’.
138 (What is a notes file and the index? Hurry up and finish
139 reading this chapter.)
143 <a name=
"A-notes-file"></a>
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"Index">Index
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160 <a name=
"A-notes-file-1"></a>
161 <h2 class=
"section">2.2 A notes file
</h2>
163 <a name=
"index-Notes-files"></a>
165 <p>The notes file is the focus of most of the activity in notes-mode,
166 it
’s where you take your notes.
167 Notes files are mostly free-form text
168 broken up into
<em>entries
</em>.
169 Here
’s an example:
171 <a name=
"index-Notes-entries"></a>
173 <table><tr><td> </td><td><pre class=
"example">8-Jun-
95 Thursday
179 next:
<file:///~/NOTES/
199506/
950609#* Today
>
181 next week - release notes-mode
187 I explained notes mode to Ashvin and Geoff.
189 </pre></td></tr></table>
191 <p>Each entry has a subject-block, (maybe) some links, and then (maybe) some text.
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
’re not exact, that
’s OK;
197 notes-mode will fix them periodically).
199 notes-mode will automatically add the underlines when you
200 hit
<kbd><RTN
></kbd> (
<code>notes-electric-return
</code>),
201 and
<kbd><TAB
></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>
207 <p>Following the subject may be links.
208 (In the example, the
“Today
” entry has links,
209 the
“Environment/notes
” entry doesn
’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>
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>
224 <p>Finally comes the text.
225 Go wild, but just don
’t include text that looks like a subject.
226 You can embed pseudo-URLs to link notes together manually.
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.
232 <em>front matter
</em>.
233 They
’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>
238 <p>There are a number of useful conventions
239 that can be adopted to organize your notes.
240 The most common is the
“Today
” 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.
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
‘Outline Mode
’ in
<cite>The Emacs Editor
</cite>, for details.
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"> < </a>]
</td>
258 <td valign=
"middle" align=
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"#The-notes-directories" title=
"Next section in reading order"> > </a>]
</td>
259 <td valign=
"middle" align=
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260 <td valign=
"middle" align=
"left">[
<a href=
"#Basics" title=
"Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> << </a>]
</td>
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"middle" align=
"left">[
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"#Basics" title=
"Up section"> Up
</a>]
</td>
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"Table of contents">Contents
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269 <td valign=
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"left">[
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"notes-mode_6.html#Keystroke-index" title=
"Index">Index
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270 <td valign=
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"About (help)"> ?
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272 <a name=
"The-notes-index-1"></a>
273 <h2 class=
"section">2.3 The notes index
</h2>
275 <a name=
"index-Notes-index"></a>
277 <p>The notes index lists all subjects you
’ve kept notes about,
278 and each date of each note.
279 Impress your friends,
280 show your advisor why you
’re worth the
<em>big
</em> peanuts,
281 you
’ll soon have the biggest index of all.
283 <p>The index has one line per subject, listing the subject
284 and each day a note was made about that subject.
287 <table><tr><td> </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>
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><RTN
></kbd>
297 if you
’re musaphobic [
<code>notes-index-follow-link
</code>].)
298 <a name=
"index-mouse_002d2"></a>
299 <a name=
"index-RTN-1"></a>
301 <p>The notes index is automatically updated by the program
‘<tt>mkall
</tt>’.
302 Typically
‘<tt>mkall
</tt>’ is run nightly by
‘<tt>cron
</tt>’.
303 On most modern versions of Unix, you can add this command to cron by
304 running
‘<tt>crontab -e
</tt>’ and adding the line:
306 <table><tr><td> </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>
312 <p>(Assuming that your notes programs are installed
313 in /usr/local/lib/notes-mode, the default location.)
317 <a name=
"The-notes-directories"></a>
318 <table cellpadding=
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"About (help)"> ?
</a>]
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334 <a name=
"The-notes-directories-1"></a>
335 <h2 class=
"section">2.4 The notes directories
</h2>
337 <a name=
"index-Notes-directories"></a>
338 <a name=
"index-Directory-hierarchy"></a>
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.
345 <p>Notes-mode keeps its files in a two-level hierarchy:
347 <table><tr><td> </td><td><pre class=
"example">~/NOTES
351 ~/NOTES/
199603/
960329
352 ~/NOTES/
199603/
960330
354 ~/NOTES/
199604/
960401
355 </pre></td></tr></table>
357 <p>The top level,
‘<tt>~/NOTES
</tt>’, 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>.)
361 <p>Inside the notes directory are two files and a number of directories.
362 The files are
‘<tt>index
</tt>’,
363 the index of all entries (see section
<a href=
"#The-notes-index">The notes index
</a>),
364 and
‘<tt>rawindex
</tt>’,
366 <a name=
"index-Root-directory"></a>
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>
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>
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>
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"Table of contents">Contents
</a>]
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"left">[
<a href=
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"Index">Index
</a>]
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413 This document was generated by
<em>John Heidemann
</em> on
<em>April
4,
2012</em> using
<a href=
"http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/"><em>texi2html
1.82</em></a>.