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*notes.txt*  Easy note taking in Vim

The notes.vim plug-in for the Vim text editor makes it easy to manage your
notes in Vim:

 - Starting a new note: Execute the |:Note| command to create a new buffer and
   load the appropriate file type and syntax

 - You can also start a new note with the selected text as title using the
   |:NoteFromSelectedText| command

 - Saving notes: Just use Vim's |:write| and |:update| commands, you don't need to
   provide a filename because it will be set based on the title (first line)
   of your note (you also don't need to worry about special characters,
   they'll be escaped)

 - Editing existing notes: Execute ':Note anything' to edit a note containing
   'anything' in its title (if no notes are found a new one is created with
   its title set to 'anything')

 - Deleting notes: The |:DeleteNote| command enables you to delete the current
   note

 - Searching notes: ':SearchNotes keyword …' searches for keywords and
   ':SearchNotes /pattern/' searches for regular expressions

 - Smart defaults: Without an argument |:SearchNotes| searches for the word
   under the cursor (if the word starts with '@' that character will be
   included in the search, this means you can easily search for @tagged notes)

 - Back-references: The |:RelatedNotes| command find all notes referencing the
   current file

 - A Python 2 [1] script is included that accelerates keyword searches using an
   SQLite [2] database

 - The |:RecentNotes| command lists your notes by modification date, starting
   with the most recently edited note

 - Navigating between notes: The included file type plug-in redefines |gf| to
   jump between notes and the syntax script highlights note names as hyper
   links

 - Writing aids: The included file type plug-in contains mappings for automatic
   curly quotes, arrows and list bullets and supports completion of note
   titles using Control-X Control-U and completion of tags using Control-X
   Control-O

 - Embedded file types: The included syntax script supports embedded
   highlighting using blocks marked with '{{{type … }}}' which allows you to
   embed highlighted code and configuration snippets in your notes

Here's a screen shot of the syntax mode using the slate [3] color scheme:

    Syntax mode screen shot, see reference [4]

===============================================================================
                                                           *notes-install-usage*
Install & usage ~

Unzip the most recent ZIP archive [5] file inside your Vim profile directory
(usually this is '~/.vim' on UNIX and '%USERPROFILE%\vimfiles' on Windows),
restart Vim and execute the command ':helptags ~/.vim/doc' (use ':helptags
~\vimfiles\doc' instead on Windows). To get started execute |:Note| or ':edit
note:', this will start a new note that contains instructions on how to
continue from there (and how to use the plug-in in general).

===============================================================================
                                                                 *notes-options*
Options ~

All options have reasonable defaults so if the plug-in works after
installation you don't need to change any options. They're available for
people who like to customize their directory layout. These options can be
configured in your |vimrc| by including a line like this:
>
    let g:notes_directory = '~/Documents/Notes'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:notes_directory* option

All your notes are stored together in one directory. This option defines the
path of this directory.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:notes_suffix* option

The suffix to add to generated filenames. The plug-in generates filenames for
your notes based on the title (first line) of each note and by default these
filenames don't include an extension like '.txt'. You can use this option to
make the plug-in automatically append an extension without having to embed the
extension in the note's title, e.g.:
>
    :let g:notes_suffix = '.txt'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:notes_shadowdir* option

The notes plug-in comes with some default notes containing documentation about
the plug-in. This option defines the path of the directory containing these
notes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:notes_indexfile* option

This option defines the pathname of the optional keyword index used by the
|:SearchNotes| to perform accelerated keyword searching.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:notes_indexscript* option

This option defines the pathname of the Python script that's used to perform
accelerated keyword searching with |:SearchNotes|.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *g:notes_tagsindex* option

This option defines the pathname of the text file that stores the list of
known tags used for tag name completion and the |:ShowTaggedNotes| command.
The text file is created automatically when it's first needed, after that you
can recreate it manually by executing |:IndexTaggedNotes| (see below).

===============================================================================
                                                                *notes-commands*
Commands ~

To edit one of your existing notes you can use Vim commands such as |:edit|,
|:split| and |:tabedit| with a filename that starts with note: followed by (part
of) the title of one of your notes, e.g.:
>
    :edit note:todo

This shortcut also works from the command line:
>
    $ gvim note:todo

When you don't follow note: with anything a new note is created.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *:Note* command

When executed without any arguments this command starts a new note in the
current window. If you pass one or more arguments the command will edit an
existing note containing the given words in the title. If more than one note
is found you'll be asked which note you want to edit. If no notes are found a
new note is started with the given word(s) as title.

This command will fail when changes have been made to the current buffer,
unless you use ':Note!' which discards any changes.

This command supports tab completion: If you complete one word, all existing
notes containing the given word somewhere in their title are suggested. If you
type more than one word separated by spaces, the plug-in will complete only
the missing words so that the resulting command line contains the complete
note title and nothing more.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *:NoteFromSelectedText* command

When you execute this command it will start a new note with the selected text
as the title of the note.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *:DeleteNote* command

The |:DeleteNote| command deletes a note file, destroys the buffer and removes
the note from the internal cache of filenames and note titles. If you pass a
note name as an argument to |:DeleteNote| it will delete the given note,
otherwise it will delete the current note. This fails when changes have been
made to the buffer, unless you use ':DeleteNote!' which discards any changes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *:SearchNotes* command

This command wraps |:vimgrep| and enables you to search through your notes using
one or more keywords or a regular expression pattern. To search for a pattern
you pass a single argument that starts/ends with a slash:
>
    :SearchNotes /TODO\|FIXME\|XXX/

To search for one or more keywords you can just omit the slashes, this matches
notes containing all of the given keywords:
>
    :SearchNotes syntax highlighting

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 *:searchnotes-understands-tags*
|:SearchNotes| understands @tags ~

If you don't pass any arguments to the |:SearchNotes| command it will search
for the word under the cursor. If the word under the cursor starts with '@'
this character will be included in the search, which makes it possible to
easily add @tags to your @notes and then search for those tags. To make
searching for tags even easier you can create key mappings for the
|:SearchNotes| command:
>
    " Make the C-] combination search for @tags:
    imap <C-]> <C-o>:SearchNotes<CR>
    nmap <C-]> :SearchNotes<CR>
    
    " Make double mouse click search for @tags. This is actually quite a lot of
    " fun if you don't use the mouse for text selections anyway; you can click
    " between notes as if you're in a web browser:
    imap <2-LeftMouse> <C-o>:SearchNotes<CR>
    nmap <2-LeftMouse> :SearchNotes<CR>

These mappings are currently not enabled by default because they conflict with
already useful key mappings, but if you have any suggestions for alternatives
feel free to contact me through GitHub or at peter@peterodding.com.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accelerated searching with Python and SQLite ~

After collecting a fair amount of notes (say more than 5 MB) you will probably
start to get annoyed at how long it takes Vim to search through all of your
notes. To make searching more scalable the notes plug-in includes a Python
script which uses a full text index of your notes stored in an SQLite
database.

The first time the Python script is run it will need to build the complete
index which can take a few minutes, but after the index has been initialized
updates and searches should be more or less instantaneous.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *:RelatedNotes* command

This command makes it easy to find all notes related to the current file: If
you are currently editing a note then a search for the note's title is done,
otherwise this searches for the absolute path of the current file.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *:RecentNotes* command

If you execute the |:RecentNotes| command it will open a Vim buffer that lists
all your notes grouped by the day they were edited, starting with your most
recently edited note. If you pass an argument to |:RecentNotes| it will filter
the list of notes by matching the title of each note against the argument
which is interpreted as a Vim pattern.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *:ShowTaggedNotes* command

To show a list of all notes that contains @tags@ you can use the
|:ShowTaggedNotes| command. If you pass a count to this command it will limit
the list of tags to those that have been used at least this many times. For
example the following two commands show tags that have been used at least ten
times:
>
    :10ShowTaggedNotes
    :ShowTaggedNotes 10

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The *:IndexTaggedNotes* command

The notes plug-in defines an omni completion function that can be used to
complete the names of tags. To trigger the omni completion you type Control-X
Control-O. When you type '@' in insert mode the plug-in will automatically
start omni completion.

The completion menu is populated from a text file listing all your tags, one
on each line. The first time omni completion triggers, an index of tag names
is generated and saved to the location set by |g:notes_tagsindex|. After this
file is created, it will be updated automatically as you edit notes and
add/remove tags.

If for any reason you want to recreate the list of tags you can execute the
|:IndexTaggedNotes| command.

===============================================================================
Other plug-ins that work well with the notes plug-in ~

 - The utl.vim [6] universal text linking plug-in enables links between your
   notes, other local files and remote resources like web pages

 - My shell.vim [7] plug-in also enables easy navigation between your notes and
   environment like local files and directories, web pages and e-mail
   addresses

 - The VOoM [8] outlining plug-in should work well for notes if you use the
   Markdown style headers starting with '#', however it has been reported that
   this combination may not always work so well in practice (sometimes losing
   notes!)

===============================================================================
                                                                 *notes-contact*
Contact ~

If you have questions, bug reports, suggestions, etc. the author can be
contacted at peter@peterodding.com. The latest version is available at
http://peterodding.com/code/vim/notes/ and http://github.com/xolox/vim-notes.
If you like the script please vote for it on Vim Online [9].

===============================================================================
                                                                 *notes-license*
License ~

This software is licensed under the MIT license [10]. Copyright 2011 Peter
Odding <peter@peterodding.com>.

===============================================================================
                                                              *notes-references*
References ~

[1] http://python.org/
[2] http://sqlite.org/
[3] http://code.google.com/p/vim/source/browse/runtime/colors/slate.vim
[4] http://peterodding.com/code/vim/notes/syntax.png
[5] http://peterodding.com/code/vim/downloads/notes.zip
[6] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=293
[7] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3123
[8] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2657
[9] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3375
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License

vim: ft=help