readme

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+# um
+
+An (U)ltralight database for (M)arkdown composition.
+
+`um` is an ultralight database design and emacs toolkit for organizing writing into larger compositions. It uses only unique filenames, POSIX filesystem conventions, the builtin emacs `project` package, and standard POSIX commandline tools to build out the CLI.
+
+It consists of two parts:
+
+1. Elisp for functionality within emacs. Most of it is integrated directly with the `project` interface, and consists the ability to find a file from a filename.
+
+2. Bash scripts for the commandline interface. I prefer a CLI for file creation and management rather than more emacs functions, because chaining shell commands is easy and I think of the commandline as the point of reference for all filesystem management.
+
+Conceptually, `um` is somewhat like org-roam, except without any database dependency. (And it assumes Markdown rather than org, which I don't care for.)
+
+The "database" depends on a few simple ideas:
+
+1. A numbered filename specification which serves as unique id. The files are their own representation.
+
+2. Placing that same id into the file header, so that concatenated files have reference back to their source. See the `um cat` command.
+
+3. Using a source "journal/" directory, where source files should first be composed and where we can assume a file exists if not elsewhere.
+
+4. Using the built-in emacs `project` package to organize compositions built from these source files.
+
+## config
+
+My config looks like this:
+
+```elisp
+(use-package um
+  :after (project embark)
+
+  :config
+  (defalias 'journal 'uldb-journal-header)
+
+  (advice-add 'embark-target-file-at-point :around 'uldb-file-at-point-advice)
+
+  :load-path "~/dev/um/elisp"
+)
+```