datapimp / brief

brief lets you build a database on top of all of your writing

Brief

Turning writers into object oriented programmers

Brief lets writers build applications on top of collections of markdown files. Brief lets you define different classes or types of documents, called Models which are responsible for defining certain writing conventions that apply to a group of documents.

When documents conform to these conventions, it is possible to treat them as software entities with attributes, and give the documents and their content unique identities that can be mapped to other parts of the software systems we work with every day.

Turn documents into data

The most basic way of combining writing with data, is through the use of YAML Frontmatter as metadata for the document. For example:

---
type: post
status: draft
tags:
  - help
  - ruby
---

# This is a title
## This is a subtitle

This is the first paragraph.

This is another pargraph.

This YAML content at the top gets turned into data associated with the document.

post = Post.new("/path/to/post.md") 
post.status # => 'draft'
post.tags # => ['help','ruby']

The YAML data is useful, but where the brief model system really shines is in the ability to extract data and metadata from the writing itself.

Each Model prescribes its own specific structure, usually in the form of heading hierarchys (h1, h2, h3, etc). Any CSS selector can be used against the rendered HTML produced by the markdown. A model can define attributes that will be extracted from the writing, for example:

define "Recipe" do
  content do
    title "h1:first-of-type"
    subtitle "h2:first-of-type"
    excerpt "p:first-of-type"

    # parses YAML blocks inside the document
    settings 'code.yaml', :serialize => true

    define_section("Ingredients") do
      each("li").is_a(:ingredient).has(:name=>"li")
    end

    define_section("Steps") do
      each("li").is_a(:step).has(:description=>"li")
    end

    helpers do
      def ingredient_names
        sections.ingredients.items.map(&:name)
      end

      def have_inventory?
        !ingredient_names.detect {|ingredient| inventory[ingredient].to_i <= 0 }
      end
    end
  end
end

define "Ingredient" do
  content do
    title "h1:first-of-type"
    summary "p:first-of-type"

    define_section("Vendors") do
      each("h2").is_a(:vendor).has(:title=>"h2",:website=>"a:first-of-type")
    end
  end

  helpers do
    def vendor_websites
      sections.vendors.items.map(&:website)
    end
  end
end

Document Structure

Brief works by processing the markdown that is rendered by default, and building a hierarchal structure based on the headings you use. A Brief::Model can be assigned to a certain folder of documents, and if all of those documents follow the same heading structure, you can interact with the documents as data structures and treat them as relatable entities in your object oriented software system.

This opens up writing as a possible user interface for a number of systems.

That is powerful stuff.

Getting Started

gem install brief
brief --help

Structure of a Briefcase

• docs/ contain diferent markdown files with YAML frontmatter.
• models/ define your own model classes.
• data/ dump data sources as JSON in here to use them in the renderer
• assets/ you can include / reference assets like PNG or SVG images
• brief.rb the brief config file

Servers

Brief ships with a number of different "servers" which can sit on top of a single briefcase or a folder with a bunch of different briefcases.

These servers provide an interface for common things like searching a collection of documents, rendering documents, or adding,editing,removing documents.

Currently there is a standard REST interface, and a Websockets interface.

Apps

The brief gem ships with a couple of apps. These apps are collections of models and represent a sample application you can use.

You can use an app by saying so in your config file:

# brief.rb
use "blueprint" # => $BRIEF_GEM/apps/blueprint

This will give you access to all of the models and document types from that app.

Creating your own app

brief help create app
brief create app cookbook # => $HOME/.brief/apps/cookbook 

This will let you start defining models, and then re-using this app across different writing projects.

Other neat features (TODO)

Special Link & Image Tags

• You can include the content from other documents pretty easily

  [include:content](path=feature.html.md)

• You can create links to other documents pretty easily

  [link:title](path=feature.html.md)
  

  This will find the document at the specified path, and link to it with the title attribute from that document

• You can inline SVG assets pretty easily:

  ![inline:svg](path=diagrams/test.svg)