davidxmoody / diary

Command line program for writing a personal diary

About

This is a Python 3 command line program for writing and viewing a personal diary. It uses a simple plain text file format to store entries locally. You can view and search entries and print wordcount statistics.

This is a personal project of mine. It has undergone many iterations. I use it every day and can vouch for its stability. Feedback and pull requests are welcome. I have ideas for new features to add but unfortunately this project is no longer a high priority for me so it may take a while.

Dependencies

• Python 3.2+
• (Optional) python-dateutil, for smarter date parsing

How to use

Download the source code and place it anywhere you like. Run the rundiary script to start the program.

Data is stored in ~/.diary/ by default. This can be changed by launching the program with the --base option and specifying a different directory.

You may want to create an alias in your .bashrc. For example:

alias diary='~/path/to/script/diary/rundiary -b ~/path/to/data'

Examples

Functionality is split into multiple commands. Use rundiary -h to view a help message or rundiary COMMAND -h to get help on a specific command.

New

rundiary new

Open Vim on a new entry with the date of right now.

rundiary new --editor nano

Open nano on a new entry (or any other text editor).

rundiary new -d '21 Oct 2014' -m 'Hello world'

Create a new entry with the date 21 October 2014 and the content "Hello world".

Edit

rundiary edit

Open Vim to edit the most recent entry.

rundiary edit --entry-id 1413881692-david-x220

Open Vim to edit the entry with ID equal to 1413881692-david-x220. The ID can be found on the upper right of the header bar for an entry when viewing them with the list command.

rundiary edit 'hello'

Open Vim edit the first entry containing the word 'hello'.

List/search

rundiary list

Display entries in a never-ending list from newest to oldest. Entries will have a coloured header at the top with their wordcount, date and ID.

rundiary list --asc --after 2013-10-11

Display entries in ascending date order which occurred after 11 October 2013.

rundiary list --pipe-to cat

Pipe entries to cat instead of less (thus printing them to the terminal). You can substitute any command here.

rundiary search 'hello world'

Display entries containing the string 'hello world'. Also accepts any other options supported by list.

rundiary search hello world

Display entries containing both the strings 'hello' and 'world' (in any order/position).

rundiary search 'hello|world'

Display entries containing either the word 'hello' or the word 'world'.

Wordcount

rundiary wordcount

Print the total number of words and entries in your diary.

rundiary wc --month

Print the number of words and entries by calendar month. Also try --year, --day or --weekday. You can also combine with the --before, --after, --asc and --desc syntax from the list command.

Generate

rundiary generate

Generate a set of static HTML pages in $base_dir/html/ representing your diary. Text will be converted using Markdown. This is an experimental feature.