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Add reference documentation to docs site and separate out "Tips and Tricks" and "External Editors" from "Recipes" (#1332)
* First draft of command line reference, mostly pulled from help screen * Add first draft of config file reference, mostly pulled from advanced.md * Clean up config file doc for readability * Add --config-file and remove examples from CLI reference * Add warning about time zone in timeformat * More small changes, and adding template config keyword * Cleaning up and re-ordering config file reference * Clean up reference and anything else from advanced documentation that can live elsewhere and linking to config file reference wherever config file is mentioned * Fix syntax highlighting in command line reference, clean up content a bit, include --diagnostic * Mention version config key * Apply minor changes suggested in PR review * Rename "recipes" to "Tips and Tricks", pull "External Editors" out of it into its own page, and redirect old recipes link to tips-and-tricks * Revert broken mkdocs-redirects usage from last commit
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docs/tips-and-tricks.md
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<!-- Copyright (C) 2012-2021 jrnl contributors
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License: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html -->
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# Tips and Tricks
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This page contains tips and tricks for using `jrnl`, often in conjunction
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with other tools, including external editors.
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## Co-occurrence of tags
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If I want to find out how often I mentioned my flatmates Alberto and
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Melo in the same entry, I run
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```sh
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jrnl @alberto --tags | grep @melo
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```
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And will get something like `@melo: 9`, meaning there are 9 entries
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where both `@alberto` and `@melo` are tagged. How does this work? First,
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`jrnl @alberto` will filter the journal to only entries containing the
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tag `@alberto`, and then the `--tags` option will print out how often
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each tag occurred in this filtered journal. Finally, we pipe this to
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`grep` which will only display the line containing `@melo`.
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## Combining filters
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You can do things like
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```sh
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jrnl @fixed -starred -n 10 -to "jan 2013" --short
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```
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To get a short summary of the 10 most recent, favourite entries before
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January 1, 2013 that are tagged with `@fixed`.
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## Statistics
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How much did I write last year?
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```sh
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jrnl -from "jan 1 2013" -to "dec 31 2013" | wc -w
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```
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Will give you the number of words you wrote in 2013. How long is my
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average entry?
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```sh
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expr $(jrnl --export text | wc -w) / $(jrnl --short | wc -l)
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```
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This will first get the total number of words in the journal and divide
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it by the number of entries (this works because `jrnl --short` will
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print exactly one line per entry).
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## Importing older files
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If you want to import a file as an entry to `jrnl`, you can just do `jrnl < entry.ext`. But what if you want the modification date of the file to
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be the date of the entry in `jrnl`? Try this
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```sh
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echo `stat -f %Sm -t '%d %b %Y at %H:%M: ' entry.txt` `cat entry.txt` | jrnl
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```
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The first part will format the modification date of `entry.txt`, and
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then combine it with the contents of the file before piping it to jrnl.
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If you do that often, consider creating a function in your `.bashrc` or
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`.bash_profile`
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```sh
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jrnlimport () {
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echo `stat -f %Sm -t '%d %b %Y at %H:%M: ' $1` `cat $1` | jrnl
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}
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```
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## Using templates
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!!! note
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Templates require an [external editor](./advanced.md) be configured.
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A template is a code snippet that makes it easier to use repeated text
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each time a new journal entry is started. There are two ways you can utilize
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templates in your entries.
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### 1. Command line arguments
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If you had a `template.txt` file with the following contents:
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```sh
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My Personal Journal
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Title:
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Body:
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```
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The `template.txt` file could be used to create a new entry with these
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command line arguments:
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```sh
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jrnl < template.txt # Imports template.txt as the most recent entry
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jrnl -1 --edit # Opens the most recent entry in the editor
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```
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### 2. Include the template file in `jrnl.yaml`
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A more efficient way to work with a template file is to declare the file
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in your [config file](./reference-config-file.md) by changing the `template`
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setting from `false` to the template file's path in double quotes:
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```sh
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...
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template: "/path/to/template.txt"
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...
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```
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Changes can be saved as you continue writing the journal entry and will be
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logged as a new entry in the journal you specified in the original argument.
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!!! tip
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To read your journal entry or to verify the entry saved, you can use this
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command: `jrnl -n 1` (Check out [Formats](./formats.md) for more options).
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```sh
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jrnl -n 1
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```
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## Prompts on shell reload
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If you'd like to be prompted each time you refresh your shell, you can include
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this in your `.bash_profile`:
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```sh
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function log_question()
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{
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echo $1
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read
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jrnl today: ${1}. $REPLY
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}
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log_question 'What did I achieve today?'
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log_question 'What did I make progress with?'
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```
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Whenever your shell is reloaded, you will be prompted to answer each of the
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questions in the example above. Each answer will be logged as a separate
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journal entry at the `default_hour` and `default_minute` listed in your
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`jrnl.yaml` [config file](../advanced/#configuration-file).
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## Display random entry
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You can use this to select one title at random and then display the whole
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entry. The invocation of `cut` needs to match the format of the timestamp.
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For timestamps that have a space between data and time components, select
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fields 1 and 2 as shown. For timestamps that have no whitespace, select
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only field 1.
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```sh
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jrnl -on "$(jrnl --short | shuf -n 1 | cut -d' ' -f1,2)"
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```
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## Launch a terminal for rapid logging
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You can use this to launch a terminal that is the `jrnl` stdin prompt so you can start typing away immediately.
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```bash
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jrnl --config-override editor ""
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```
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Bind this to a keyboard shortcut.
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Map `Super+Alt+J` to launch the terminal with `jrnl` prompt
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- **xbindkeys**
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In your `.xbindkeysrc`
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```ini
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Mod4+Mod1+j
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alacritty -t floating-jrnl -e jrnl --config-override editor "",
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```
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- **I3 WM** Launch a floating terminal with the `jrnl` prompt
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```ini
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bindsym Mod4+Mod1+j exec --no-startup-id alacritty -t floating-jrnl -e jrnl --config-override editor ""
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for_window[title="floating *"] floating enable
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```
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## Visualize Formatted Markdown in the CLI
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Out of the box, `jrnl` can output journal entries in Markdown. To visualize it, you can pipe to [mdless](https://github.com/ttscoff/mdless), which is a [less](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Less_(Unix))-like tool that allows you to visualize your Markdown text with formatting and syntax highlighting from the CLI. You can use this in any shell that supports piping.
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The simplest way to visualize your Markdown output with `mdless` is as follows:
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```sh
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jrnl --export md | mdless
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```
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This will render your Markdown output in the whole screen.
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Fortunately, `mdless` has an option that allows you to adjust the screen width by using the `-w` option as follows:
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```sh
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jrnl --export md | mdless -w 70
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```
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If you want Markdown to be your default display format, you can define this in your config file as follows:
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```yaml
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display_format: md
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# or
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display_format: markdown
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```
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For more information on how `jrnl` outputs your entries in Markdown, please visit the [Formats](./formats.md) section.
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