;;; um.el --- An Ultralight database for Markdown composition. -*- lexical-binding: t -*- ;; by bth ;; 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 `project' package, and standard POSIX commandline ;; tools to build out the CLI. ;; It consists of two parts: ;; 1. The elisp for functionality within emacs. ;; 2. Bash scripts for the commandline interface. ;; This is somewhat like org-roam, except without any database dependency. (And ;; it assumes Markdown rather than org, which I don't care for.) ;; This depends on a few simple ideas: ;; 1. A numbered filename specification which serves as unique id. ;; 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 `project' package to organize compositions built from ;; these source files. ;; 5. (Optional) Use `embark' to visit files with a single keystroke. ;; features provided: ;; `um-journal-header' defines the standard header ;; `um-project-find-meta' via `project-switch-project': open a file like ;; *meta.md in a given project. ;; `um-file-at-point-advice' via `embark-dwim': open file in known projects ;; with fallback to journal/ ;; `um-grep-tag': search files with same tag (require 'package) ;; Primary path glob for the journal. This allows various mountpoints. (setq um-journal-path-glob ".*/writing/journal") ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; journal header (defun um-iso-8601 () "Insert a date stamp in ISO 8601 order, but with periods in place of dashes." (format-time-string "%Y.%m.%d") ) (defun um-journal-header () "Create a um-journal-header composed of: # buffer-name minus the .md file type : date " (interactive) (insert (format "# %s\n: %s\n\n" (substring (buffer-name) 0 -3) (um-iso-8601)) ) ) ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; journal/.project.el ;; normally .git detection works fine. But for my journal/ I don't git. ;; https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2021-04-02-emacs-project-override/ (defun um-project-override (dir) "Returns the parent directory containing a .project.el file, if any, to override the standard project.el detection logic when needed. " (let ((override (locate-dominating-file dir ".project.el"))) (if override (list 'vc nil override) nil))) ;; Cannot use :hook because 'project-find-functions does not end in -hook (add-hook 'project-find-functions #'um-project-override) ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; find-file-at-point ;; the journal/ serves as content origin, so it must be treated specially. (setq um-journal-path (car (seq-filter (lambda (path) ;; this way I don't have to hardcode the full path: (string-match um-journal-path-glob path)) ;; stores all project roots in a list of strings: (project-known-project-roots)))) ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; find-file C-x C-f solution ;; combined with the hook into `file-name-at-point-functions', this means I can ;; run find-file at point, followed by M-n : ;; TODO: reuse same fallback logic as the embark advice if I keep this. (defun um-journal-find-file () (let ((default-directory um-journal-path) (thing (thing-at-point 'filename)) ) (expand-file-name thing)) ) (add-hook 'file-name-at-point-functions 'um-journal-find-file nil t) ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; Embark solution (optional) ;; Load this with an advice: ;; (advice-add 'embark-target-file-at-point :around 'um-file-at-point-advice) ;; `embark-target-file-at-point' uses `ffap-file-at-point', which uses ;; `default-directory' to expand the filename. ;; NOTE: decided to use an advice rather than add my own function to ;; `embark-target-finders', since I'd have to remove the file finder and put my ;; function in the same place in the list anyway. (defun um-file-at-point-advice (origfunc) "Like find-file-at-point, but checks all known project paths. In this order: 1. current project root 2. all other project roots 3. journal/ path Since journal/ is the origin and other projects shadow it. TODO: Use a special directory name for potentials/ or the like, in case it's not in the root dir. " (or ;; current project (funcall origfunc) ;; all other projects (let ((result)) (cl-loop for project-path in (seq-remove (lambda (path) (or (string-match um-journal-path path) (when (project-current) (string-match (caddr (project-current)) path)) )) (project-known-project-roots)) do (let ((default-directory project-path)) (setq result (funcall origfunc))) if result return result )) ;; journal path (let ((default-directory um-journal-path)) (funcall origfunc)) )) ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; C-x p p (defun um-project-find-meta () (interactive) ;; this works because `project-switch-project' overrides the dir: (find-file (expand-file-name "*meta.md" (caddr (project-current))) t) ) ;; overwrite (setq project-switch-commands '( (um-project-find-meta "open meta" "m") (project-dired "dired") (project-find-file "find file") (project-find-regexp "find regexp") )) ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; tags ;; TODO: do I want to search all projects? (defun um-grep-tag () "Run project-find-regexp on the current identifer as a journal frontmatter tag. NOTE: this searches in the current project root only. " (interactive) (project-find-regexp (concat "\\+\\ " (thing-at-point 'word))) ) ;; NOTE: to export files with a given tag: ;; grep -l '\+ TAG' *md | xargs cp -t /tmp/ ;; note the -l flag to grep to output files only, and the -t flag to cp to ;; specify a target dir (since it appends the list from xargs I think). ;; Or, in dired, run `find-grep-dired'. (provide 'um)