GENERAL USAGE

If you don't know, how to run note, try "note -h" first. It will tell you all available command line options.

To create a new note, simply run "note". You can enter the note (the length is by default limited to 4096 bytes, which you can change from your config file if you are using the binary backend, otherwise there is no limitation). End by typing a . on a line itself. note will tell you the number of the note.

If you want to view the note, type "note 1", if the notenumber was 1.

If you want to get an overview of all notes, type "note -l". You will get a list of all notes, containing the number, the first line and the creation date. If topic-support is turned on (which is by default), then all subtopics under the current topic will be displayed first. If you want to see the timestamps, use "-L" instead of "-l". Read more about topics below in the section "Topics". You can also specify the topic which notes you want to see: "-l mytopic" does the trick. Additional, you might want to get an overview of your topic- structure. You can use the command "-t" in this case, which will display a tree-view of your topic-structure. You can use the command "-T" if you want to see the notes under each topic too. "-T" will also show the number of each note.

To edit a certain note, type "note -e 1". It will invoke your editor (vi or pico). You can edit it, after saving, note will store the changed note to the database.

Of course you can drop a certain note: "note -d 1" deletes note number 1. If a note in the middle or the beginning of the database will be deleted, note will recount the other existent notes. For example there are 3 notes, number 1, 2 and 3. If you delete number 2, then number 3 will become number 2. You can also make use of the extended delete-syntax: To delete note 1 and 2, use "-d 1,2" To delete note 1,2 and 3, use "-d 1-3".

SEARCHING

If you cannot remember, which note you are looking for, you can use the search capability of note: "note -s <searchstring>". note will search the whole note database case insensitive for an occurrence of this string and tell you the number and first- line it has.

You can extend the searchstring using AND, OR ( and ) and shell-like wildcards:

 $ note -s "moses AND lenin"

or:

 $ note -s "(mike OR arnold) AND (jackson OR schwarzenegger)"

If note finds a note, which first line is a topic, then it will display it's second line.

These rules apply for the interactive search too.

You need to know, that note searches for the expression in every note. In other words, "moses AND lenin" searches for an occurrence of "moses" and "lenin" in ONE note. Or, if you are looking for "mike OR daniel", then it searches for an occurrence of "mike" or daniel" in ONE note. Thus a note with the text "mike oldfield" will match that search.

TOPICS

If topic-support is turned on (which is by default), the various notes are sorted under various topics. There is no special database field for the topic. Instead the topic will be stored right in the note. If the first line of your note contains some text bordered by slashes (or whatever you prefer, set "TopicSeparator" in your config! default is slash), then note will consider it as the topic of this certain note. For examle:

 B</TodoList/>

If you are using topics, no data after the topic is allowed, if there is any text, note will consider it as a subtopic! Therefore, don't for- get to put a newline after the topic-line.

The list-command will only show you notes under this topic. If you create a new note, it will automagically inserted under the current topic (note will prepend the string "/topicname/" to the text of your note).

You can create at any time from any point a new topic. Just create a new note and type the name of the new topic bordered by slashes (or TopicSeparator) at the first line of this note. After saving, there will be available a new topic with one note in it.

You can create as many subtopics as you like, the format is similar to a filesystem-path. An example, say, you want to create such a structure:

 (root - top level)
 |
 |----test
 |      |----subtopic
 |      |       |--note 1
 |      |       |--note 2
 |      |
 |      |--note 4
 |
 |--note 3

Then you may create those 4 new notes:

 --- snip ---
 /test/subtopic/
 note 1
 --- snip ---
 /test/subtopic/
 note 2
 --- snip ---
 note 3
 --- snip ---
 /test/
 note 4
 --- snip ---

I hope, you got the point ;-)

If a note does not contain the "magic" /topic/ construction on the first line, it will be listed under the "root" of note, that is the point you are at the startup of note.

You can subsequently move a note without a topic to a certain topic. Simply edit it and insert at the first line the above mentioned construction.

Note: Please don't forget the prepending and appending a slash of a topic. You will get strange results without it!

INTERACTIVE MODE

If you start note with the command line flag -i, then it starts with an interactive interface. It will start with a listing under the default top-topic ("/"). You can enter the name of a topic to change to that topic. This works similar to a filesystem structure. The current topic will be displayed on the top of the screen.

The following commands are available:

L [topic]

This command lists all notes with a timestamp. If you specify a topic, it will only list the notes under this topic. If you are under a certain subtopic, then it will only display the notes under this topic.

l [topic]

This commands behaves similar to L but it does not display the timestamp. You can achieve the same result by simply pressing enter at any time.

N

You can create a new note by simply pressing N or n. You favorite editor will be started and you can enter your note text. If you are already under a topic then this new note will automatically go to this topic. note adds an additional line to the top of the note with the topic. But you can, of course, specify your own topic.

Note will tell you which number it has assigned to the newly created note.

E number

By entering E or e and a note-number you can edit an existing note using your favorite editor. This way you can also move an existing note from one topic to another one by editing the first line of the note.

D number

E or e deletes one or more existing note(s). It requires a note number or a set of note numbers. 1-5 and 1,7,9 are possible values. After one or more notes has been deleted note will recount all remaining notes. Say if you delete 1 and 2, then 3 will become 1, 4 will become 5 and so forth.

S [expression]

You can search for the occurrence of a text in your notes-database with the command S or s. If you omit an expression note will ask you for one.

If your search criteria matches on exactly one entry, note will display that note entry instead of displaying its number.

T

This prints a tree-view of your topic-structure. T displays the tree with notes, t displays just the topics without notes.

C

It is possible to change note's behavior at runtime. Specify the parameter you'd like to modify followed by equalsign and the new value. Use with care! However, database related parameters cannot be changed at runtime. Entering just "c" without parameters displays the customizable variables.

cd topic

Change the actual topic under which you are. This works identical like just entering the topic but it has some advantages. You can enter cd .. if you want to go one level up in the topic-structure. And you can enter cd / to go to the top of the structure. You can always leave out the 'cd' keyword too.

Additional it is possible to enter a note-number instead of a topic name. For this feature to be active you need to set the config option ShortCd to 1 or yes. If you use a number and the note with this number is under a certain topic then you will "cd" to this topic. This allows you to do kind of jumps over multiple levels of topics.

If is possible to abbreviate a topic. This works only if the abbreviation matches on one single topic. If it matches more than one topic then the available ones will be suggested.

? or h

Display a short help screen.

Q

Quit note.

BACKUP

You can also dump the contents of your note-database into a ASCII-textfile(-D). You can use this file later to import it into your note-database(-I). This is useful, if you want quickly trans- fer your notes from one host to another (i.e. you could mail your note-dump form your office to home and import it there for further use).

The dumps from the two versions of note are in the same format. Using dumps it is also possible to reinitialize your database. You can use the "-o" switch which causes note to overwrite your existing database. This is very handy if you changed heavily your config. And it is required, if you changed: encryption, db-driver, (binary-format) and the password. You can use the following command for reinitializing:

 $ note -D - | note -o -I -

What the hell, does this do?! Step by step:

• note -D - creates a note-database dump and prints it out to standard output.
• | this is the shell's pipe command. It takes the output of the left program and gives it to the right program as standard input.
• note -o -I - imports a note-database dump from standard input and overwrites an existing database.

Before you use the -o switch, I consider you to make a backup!

BACKUP FILE FORMAT

Caution: since version 1.3.8 note uses a new file format for backups: YAML. The old format is only supported by the -I option to import old backups. New backups are always created as YAML files. See YAML.

FORMATING

Another very nice feature is the possibility to format the note-text (as much as shell allows it). First, you can use the note-internal "magic-strings" for colorizing. Those strings looks much like HTML: "<green>here is a green line of text</green> no more green." As you see, the beginning of another color starts with a tag(kinda) of the color <colorname> and ends with an end tag </colorname>.

The following colors are available: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white.

Beside colorizing text, you can also create bold or underlined text! If you decide to use this (additional) feature, you need to set the Config-Option "FormatText" to 1 which turns it on. Usage is very straightforward, if a word (a word is defined as some text with at least one space surrounded) is between a magic mark- character. Here are the available things, you can do:

 bold:       **word**
 underlined: __word__
 inverse:    {{word}}
 hidden:     //word//

The text will be formatted using the actually note-color.

The hidden formatting will use blue foreground and blue background to hide a string from the terminal, which is useful for passwords.

If you set "FormatText" to simple then the formatting can be done this way instead:

 bold:       *word*
 underlined: _word_
 inverse:    {word}
 hidden:     /word/