1 This is notes-mode.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.13 from notes-mode.texi.
4 * Notes-mode: (notes-mode). Organizing on-line note-taking.
7 Notes-mode: Organizing on-line note-taking.
9 This file documents notes-mode, a package for organizing on-line
12 Copyright (C) 1994-1996 by John Heidemann
14 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
15 manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
16 preserved on all copies.
18 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
19 this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
20 the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
21 permission notice identical to this one.
23 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
24 manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified
25 versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a
26 translation approved by John Heidemann.
29 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Top, Next: Introduction, Prev: (dir), Up: (dir)
31 This file documents notes-mode, a package for organizing on-line
32 note-taking. This is edition $Revision: 1.40 $, for notes-mode version
33 1.16, last updated $Date: 2010/06/20 18:30:34 $.
45 --- The Detailed Node Listing ---
50 * Why keep notes at all?::
51 * Why keep notes on-line?::
52 * Why use notes-mode?::
62 * The notes directories::
68 * Notes-mode configuration::
75 * Useful conventions::
79 * Notes-mode history::
84 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Introduction, Next: Basics, Prev: Top, Up: Top
89 What is notes-mode and why should you (perhaps) use it?
94 * Why keep notes at all?::
95 * Why keep notes on-line?::
96 * Why use notes-mode?::
102 File: notes-mode.info, Node: What is it?, Next: Why keep notes at all?, Prev: Introduction, Up: Introduction
107 Notes-mode is an indexing system for on-line note-taking. Notes-mode
108 is composed of two parts, the visible part, a major-mode for emacs to
109 aid note-taking; and the invisible part, scripts which periodically
110 index your notes for you.
112 Note that notes-mode provides tools to "index" your notes, not to
113 "search" them. (Other existing tools such as `grep', `agrep', and
114 `glimpse' already allow file search.)
116 A digression about indexing vs. searching: Indexing in this sense
117 means organize them according to categories you give, while searching
118 looks through all text for arbitrary strings. Drawing on the World
119 Wide Web for examples, Yahoo (`http://www.yahoo.com/') is an index,
120 while Alta Vista (`http://www.altavista.digital.com/') is a
121 search-engine. In (potentially) more familiar terms, the yellow pages
122 (1) are an index, while directory information (411 in the USA) is sort
125 ---------- Footnotes ----------
127 (1) Trademarked, in Great Britain, Sunone tells me.
130 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Why keep notes at all?, Next: Why keep notes on-line?, Prev: What is it?, Up: Introduction
132 1.2 Why keep notes at all?
133 ==========================
135 So why should you use notes-mode? Well, first, consider why you should
136 (perhaps) keep your notes on line. First, I assume that you take notes
137 as part of your work or school. If you don't, you can stop reading now
138 and go back to watching TV.
140 If you keep notes, ask yourself why you keep them. Reasons vary for
141 different people, but some include:
143 * To remember what is said or done.
145 * To focus on what is important about what is said.
147 * To provide proof of having done something at a particular time or
150 * I know there were other reasons here, but they slipped my mind.
153 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Why keep notes on-line?, Next: Why use notes-mode?, Prev: Why keep notes at all?, Up: Introduction
155 1.3 Why keep notes on-line?
156 ===========================
158 OK, I've talked you into keeping notes. Why do it on-line? Again,
159 there are different reasons for different people. If you don't want to
160 consider keeping your notes on-line, you're welcome to go back to your
161 (clay tablets) paper notes.
163 However, if you do much of your work on-line, or if you have
164 portable computer, then you might want to consider keeping your notes
167 * It's faster to type than write, and possibly more legible at high
170 * Often information is already on-line. For example, in software
171 development, bug reports, measurement results, and everything else
172 that's useful is on-line.
174 * You can take down more detail than you otherwise would (especially
175 if the data is already on-line). Taking more copious notes can be
176 helpful when you go back to figure out why that strange thing was
179 * On-line notes are easy to search. Full-text search with grep,
180 agrep, and glimpse are all much faster and are often more accurate
181 than paging through paper notes looking for a particular keyword.
183 * On-line notes are easy to index. (At least with notes-mode!) In
184 addition to full-text search, it's helpful to organize notes by
185 category. If you keep a table-of-contents of your paper notes,
186 you are either extremely fastidious or a librarian (Nadia?).
188 * You can keep all of your notes with you at all times (if you have
189 a portable computer). Even at a page a day, paper notes quickly
190 become bulky and awkward to carry around. On-line notes fit on
191 your computer's hard disk, an extraordinarily compact medium by
194 * Your notes can be automatically backed up. Paper notes can become
195 damaged with time, and as a graduate student one of my fears was
196 fire in Boelter Hall consuming all my research experiments and and
197 therefore hopes of a degree. Electronic notes are extremely easy
198 to duplicate and can be automatically backed up with the rest of
199 your computer. (You _do_ back up your computer, don't you?)
202 While these advantages are undoubtedly clear to any right-thinking
203 computer user, it should be said that there are a few disadvantages for
206 * If you don't have a computer with you most of the time, it's
207 difficult take notes on-line (because you're off-line, of course).
210 * Computers require power. If your portable computer runs out of
211 juice, you're on your own. Corollary: watch your power, or bring
212 paper. Better corollary: watch your power, _and_ bring paper.
214 * Social limitations. It's not always socially acceptable to take
215 notes-on-line. For example, at a party, few people would use a
216 computer to take down the phone number of a person to whom they're
217 attracted (at least, if they wanted the attraction to be mutual).
218 (2) Sometimes other people find the sound of typing distracting.
220 * Health issues. Repetitive stress injuries do occur writing
221 (slower) by hand is at least an alternate motion than typing.
223 * Legal limitations. If you want to use your electronic notes to
224 justify a patent or invention, you may be breaking legal ground.
225 Being on the legal cutting-edge is rarely an easy thing for the
229 ---------- Footnotes ----------
231 (1) I consider myself pretty anal about this subject, often typing
232 notes in from paper after-the-fact, and _I_ certainly don't manage to
233 back-enter my notes all time time.
235 (2) On the other hand, some folks at MIT are working on this problem
236 from both the hardware and the social side of things
237 (`http://wearables.www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables/') (Perhaps
238 they have wild parties with computers, too.)
240 (3) My hat is off to Rosa Parks and the many other normal people who
241 triggered landmark cases.
244 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Why use notes-mode?, Next: Y2K Statement, Prev: Why keep notes on-line?, Up: Introduction
246 1.4 Why use notes-mode?
247 =======================
249 OK, I've sold you on note-taking and even on on-line note-taking. What
250 about notes-mode? Naturally, it slices, dices, and makes julienne
251 fries. But wait, there's more:
253 * It automates indexing your notes, linking notes with the same
256 * It supports embedded links, allowing you to manually link together
257 different topics and external files.
259 * It includes a number of convenience-features in emacs. Subjects
260 can be completed based on existing subjects. The usual emacs
261 customization mechanisms are available.
263 * Notes containing sensitive information can be encrypted.
265 * Notes-mode seems better than the other, currently available
268 What are the alternatives? I'm glad you asked. (1)
270 * *HTML*. HTML has better formatting capabilities than notes-mode,
271 and it has excellent linking capabilities. Unfortunately, HTML's
272 tags are fairly intrusive (each is at least four characters long
273 and most come with a pair), tags can get confused with normal
274 text, errors in HTML can be bad (obscuring data), and there's no
275 automatic indexing feature (at least with plain HTML). Besides,
276 all data should be kept as close to the ASCII from whence it came,
277 as God Intended (hi, Steve).
279 * *Word Processors*. Word processors are strong in the formatting
280 department, but most don't really have linking capabilities, and
281 have poor or restricted indexing.
284 ---------- Footnotes ----------
286 (1) If you think I'm missing an alternative, please let me know.
289 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Y2K Statement, Next: Related work, Prev: Why use notes-mode?, Up: Introduction
294 Notes mode uses dates extensively, both two-digit years and
295 seconds-since-1970. However, notes-mode has been coded to function
296 correctly through the year 2038.
298 To avoid problems with the year 2000, notes-mode assumes that any
299 two-digit years before "70" are 20xx, not 19xx. Notes-mode should
300 therefore work correctly in both the year 1999 and 2000.
302 (Notes-mode 1.17 released February 1999 fixes a lingering Y2K
305 Because notes-mode uses seconds-since-1970 for some date calculations
306 it will fail beyond the year 2038 on computers with 32-bit integers.
308 If I'm still using notes-mode then on a 32-bit machine I'll see what
312 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Related work, Next: Staying on top, Prev: Y2K Statement, Up: Introduction
317 What would a document be without related work?
319 Notes-mode is not related in any way to Lotus Notes.
321 I am told (by David Weisman) that it's something like the now
322 defunct Lotus Agenda.
324 Ashvin Goel, one of the contributors to notes-mode, has gone off
325 and done a from-scratch reimplementation called records-mode. It's
326 very similar to notes mode, and emphasizes on-the-fly updates to entry
327 links but lacks a manual. You may want to check it out at
328 `http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~ashvin/software.html'.
330 Hyperbole (by Bob Weiner) offers better linking facilities than
331 notes-mode, but it has a bunch of stuff notes-mode doesn't need and
332 it's missing notes-specific indexing provided by notes-mode. For
333 people already using Hyperbole it would be interesting to replace
334 notes-mode's linking with Hyperbole's. Contributions in this area are
335 welcome, provided they make Hyperbole optional.
338 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Staying on top, Prev: Related work, Up: Introduction
343 The most recent distribution of notes-mode is always available via
344 `http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/SOFTWARE/NOTES_MODE/'.
346 After you've installed notes mode you're encouraged to subscribe to
347 the mailing lists. To subscribe, go to the web page Send the message
349 `http://www.heidemann.la.ca.us/mailman/listinfo/notes-mode-announce' or
350 `http://www.heidemann.la.ca.us/mailman/listinfo/notes-mode-talk'.
352 The announce list will contain only release announcements and so is
353 guaranteed to be very low bandwidth.
356 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Basics, Next: Advanced Features, Prev: Introduction, Up: Top
361 All you need to use notes-mode in a chapter. (Except for
362 installation, *Note Installation::.)
369 * The notes directories::
372 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Getting started, Next: A notes file, Prev: Basics, Up: Basics
377 To get started with notes-mode, read the introduction this chapter,
380 * Start emacs, do `M-x' `load-library' `RET' `notes-mode' `RET'
381 This approach will set up notes-mode with the default parameters.
383 * OR, from the shell, run the program `notesinit'. This approach
384 will ask you some questions about how you want to configure notes
388 Either way these should set up everything notes-mode needs. This
389 program will modify your environment (as described in this section),
390 or it will give you the exact commands you should run yourself.
392 After you've done one of these, start up emacs and note-away. I
393 usually begin a day of note-taking by running the command `M-x'
394 `notes-index-todays-link' to jump directly to today's note. You may
395 even wish to bind this to something, perhaps with `(define-key
396 global-map "\C-cn" 'notes-index-todays-link)' in your `.emacs'.
398 If you want to browse your existing notes, you might instead want
399 to edit the `~/NOTES/index'. (What is a notes file and the index?
400 Hurry up and finish reading this chapter.)
403 File: notes-mode.info, Node: A notes file, Next: The notes index, Prev: Getting started, Up: Basics
408 The notes file is the focus of most of the activity in notes-mode,
409 it's where you take your notes. Notes files are mostly free-form text
410 broken up into "entries". Here's an example:
418 next: <file:///~/NOTES/199506/950609#* Today>
420 next week - release notes-mode
426 I explained notes mode to Ashvin and Geoff.
429 Each entry has a subject-block, (maybe) some links, and then (maybe)
432 The subject-block must begin with an asterisk-space (`* ') at the
433 beginning of a line, followed by the subject itself. Subjects must be
434 underlined with a row of dashes (if they're not exact, that's OK;
435 notes-mode will fix them periodically). For convenience, notes-mode
436 will automatically add the underlines when you hit `<RTN>'
437 (`notes-electric-return'), and `<TAB>' on a partially completed
438 subject will invoke completion based on indexed subjects
439 (`notes-complete-subject').
441 Following the subject may be links. (In the example, the "Today"
442 entry has links, the "Environment/notes" entry doesn't.) These links
443 will be automatically updated by notes-mode when your notes are
444 re-indexed; just leave a blank line when writing the note.
446 Links are made with pseudo-URLs, sort of like those in the World
447 Wide Web. Any of these URLs can be followed in notes-mode files by
448 clicking `S-mouse-2' on the pseudo-URL (`notes-w3-follow-link-mouse').
450 Finally comes the text. Go wild, but just don't include text that
451 looks like a subject. You can embed pseudo-URLs to link notes together
454 The more anal of you may have noticed that the lines before the
455 first subject are not part of any entry. These lines are "front
456 matter". They're not usually used for much, but they can be a good
457 place to label the file.
459 There are a number of useful conventions that can be adopted to
460 organize your notes. The most common is the "Today" entry. If you
461 keep an entry with the same subject at the beginning of each file,
462 you link all of your notes together. Notes-mode will help you out with
463 some of these convetions by automatically creating or copying some
464 fields for you; see *note Useful conventions:: for details.
466 Finally, notes-mode can also work with outline-minor-mode (thanks
467 to Tim Carroll for pointing this out). Outline-mode supports hiding
468 and revealing text and other helpful features beyond the scope of this
469 document. *Note Outline Mode: (emacs)Outline Mode, for details.
472 File: notes-mode.info, Node: The notes index, Next: The notes directories, Prev: A notes file, Up: Basics
477 The notes index lists all subjects you've kept notes about, and each
478 date of each note. Impress your friends, show your advisor why you're
479 worth the _big_ peanuts, you'll soon have the biggest index of all.
481 The index has one line per subject, listing the subject and each
482 day a note was made about that subject. For example:
484 Bicycle: 950314, 950316
485 Bicycle/maintenance/books: 951028
486 Bridge/hands: 951113, 951114, 951116, 951117
487 Bridge/UCLA: 960222, 960409
489 Clicking on any of the dates with `mouse-2' will take you to that
490 note (`notes-index-mouse-follow-link'). (You can also move the point
491 over the date and hit `<RTN>' if you're musaphobic
492 [`notes-index-follow-link'].)
494 The notes index is automatically updated by the program `mkall'.
495 Typically `mkall' is run nightly by `cron'. On most modern versions of
496 Unix, you can add this command to cron by running `crontab -e' and
499 0 4 * * * /usr/local/lib/notes-mode/mkall
501 (Assuming that your notes programs are installed in
502 /usr/local/lib/notes-mode, the default location.)
505 File: notes-mode.info, Node: The notes directories, Prev: The notes index, Up: Basics
507 2.4 The notes directories
508 =========================
510 The final thing needed to tie basic notes-mode together his how the
511 pieces fit together. Since my graduate work is in file systems, you
512 can bet that directories are involved.
514 Notes-mode keeps its files in a two-level hierarchy:
520 ~/NOTES/199603/960329
521 ~/NOTES/199603/960330
523 ~/NOTES/199604/960401
525 The top level, `~/NOTES', is the notes directory. It keeps all
526 notes in one place. (The name of this directory is configurable, *Note
527 Notes-mode configuration::.)
529 Inside the notes directory are two files and a number of directories.
530 The files are `index', the index of all entries (*note The notes
531 index::), and `rawindex', used internally.
533 The notes directory also contains a number of subdirectories,
534 sometimes called "intermediate directories". These directories group
535 the actual notes files into manageable chunks, keeping any directory
536 from getting too large. Intermediate directories are named by the
537 four-digit year and the two-digit month of the entries they contain.
538 (The format of intermediate directories is configurable, *Note
539 Notes-mode configuration::.)
541 Finally, each intermediate directory are the notes files themselves,
542 named according to the two-digit year, month, and day-of-month.
544 For the most part, notes-mode will automatically maintain this
545 organization of files, once you create the top-level directory.
546 Notes-mode will also automatically insure that all files in the notes
547 directory are unreadable by anyone other than their owner. Notes are
548 personal things. (This behavior is not currently configurable, but it
552 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Advanced Features, Next: History, Prev: Basics, Up: Top
557 Notes-mode, the minutiae, and some other good stuff.
563 * Notes-mode configuration::
566 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Notes files, Next: Notes indices, Prev: Advanced Features, Up: Advanced Features
576 * Useful conventions::
579 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Getting around, Next: Subject summary, Prev: Notes files, Up: Notes files
584 Moving between notes entries and around the hierarchy is fairly common,
585 so there are some accelerators.
588 Jump to the index entry for the current entry's subject
589 (`notes-goto-index-entry').
594 Move to the next or prior note with the same subject
595 (`notes-follow-next-link' and `notes-follow-prev-link'). These
596 functions follow the links in the note, if they're defined. If
597 not, they look through the index file. This approach usually
598 works, but will fail if there are multiple new entries created
599 with the given subject between when the index is recomputed.
602 Follow the link under the point (`notes-w3-follow-link'), a
603 keyboard equivalent of <S-mouse-2>.
608 Jump to the beginning or end of the current note entry
609 (`notes-beginning-of-defun' and `notes-end-of-defun').
612 Copies the pseudo-URL for the current note into the kill-ring
613 (`current-url-as-kill'). To link two entries, go to the target,
614 grab its URL with `C-c C-k', go to where you want to make the
615 link, and yank the URL with `C-y'.
618 Notes mode supports imenu, if you have it bound to something (I
619 use `(global-set-key [down-mouse-3] 'imenu)').
622 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Subject summary, Next: Encryption, Prev: Getting around, Up: Notes files
624 3.1.2 Subject summary
625 ---------------------
627 It's often helpful to look at all entries for a given subject `C-c C-s'
628 collects all entries with the subject of the current entry in a new
629 buffer (`notes-summarize-subject').
632 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Encryption, Next: Useful conventions, Prev: Subject summary, Up: Notes files
637 Notes occasionally contain private material. While Unix has strong
638 services for file protection (compared to other, say, more
639 wide-selling operating systems), in many systems root passwords are
640 shared, while other systems are vulnerable to physical compromise. In
641 such systems, properly used encryption is the best approach to
644 Notes-mode encryption is based Phill Zimmerman's PGP (Pretty Good
645 Privacy) (see `http://www.mantis.co.uk/pgp/pgp.html') and either with
646 Rick Campbell's emacs interface, PAM (PGP Augmented Messaging) (from
647 `ftp://h.gp.cs.cmu.edu/usr/rfb/pam/') (note that as of January 1997,
648 PAM is no longer at this ftp site and appears to not be publicly
649 available), or LoPresti and Choi's mailcrypt (from
650 `http://cag-www.lcs.mit.edu/mailcrypt/').
653 Encrypt the current note (`notes-encrypt-note'). By default this
654 function encrypts the whole entry. With a prefix argument, only
655 the part from the point to the end of the entry is encrypted.
658 Decrypt the current note (`notes-decrypt-note').
660 By default notes-mode determines your public key by looking up your
661 `user-full-name' in your PGP keyring. You can override this default by
662 setting `notes-encryption-key-id' to the desired key-id.
665 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Useful conventions, Prev: Encryption, Up: Notes files
667 3.1.4 Useful conventions
668 ------------------------
670 There are a number of conventions which can make notes-mode easier to
671 use. These conventions are a matter of personal taste, of course. Do
674 First, I find it helpful to keep the date of each notes-file at the
675 top of the file. This makes the file self-identifying if the
678 Second, I find it useful to have the first entry of each file have
679 the same subject (perhaps "Today"). This entry then links all notes
680 together, making it easy to go to yesterday and tomorrow. I keep a
681 to-do list on this entry, bringing the list forward each day.
683 A third useful convention is to keep an entry with the name based
684 on the day of the week in each file. Analogous to "Today", this entry
685 links together weeks.
687 Notes-mode supports these conventions. When you make a new
688 notes-file in emacs, notes-mode searches for the preceding file. If
689 it follows any of these conventions, the new file is initialized
690 appropriately. Currently the approach to do this process (in the
691 program `mknew') is fairly sensitive, so it may not work in all cases.
692 In particular, the date convention works only on for English-language
693 dates. (If you use notes-mode with a non-English language, let me
694 know and I'll work with you to fix this limitation.)
696 If you find other helpful conventions, please let me know.
697 Modifications to `mknew' to implement new conventions are also invited.
699 If you don't want to use these conventions, or if you want to use
700 different ones, set the emacs variable
701 notes-mode-initialization-program to nil or the name of your
702 initialization program.
705 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Notes indices, Next: Notes-mode configuration, Prev: Notes files, Up: Advanced Features
710 Only two features of notes index mode haven't yet been described.
711 First, you can open any notes-file based on date with
712 `notes-index-link', normally bound to <o>.
714 Second, you can get a subject-summary with <C-c C-s> (*note
715 Subject summary::). The subject defaults to that of the current index
719 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Notes-mode configuration, Prev: Notes indices, Up: Advanced Features
721 3.3 Notes-mode configuration
722 ============================
724 Several aspects of notes mode are particularly visible to the user.
725 Because I'm not a fascist, a user can change most of these.
727 Preferences are specified in `~/.notesrc'. This file lists things
730 # lines beginning with a hash are comments
734 Currently, two things can be changed:
737 Specifies the root of the notes directory hierarchy (*note The
738 notes directories::).
741 Specifies the form of the intermediate directory. A limited
742 subset of `strftime(3)' formatting is allowed.
744 The subset of `strftime(3)' supported in `int_form' is:
752 A two-digit numeric month.
757 In addition to `.notesrc', there are a number of emacs-specific
758 variables. These variables are documented in the file
759 `notes-variables.el'.
762 File: notes-mode.info, Node: History, Next: Installation, Prev: Advanced Features, Up: Top
767 More about notes-mode than you wanted to know, and some thanks.
771 * Notes-mode history::
774 * Suggested features::
777 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Notes-mode history, Next: Credits, Prev: History, Up: History
779 4.1 Notes-mode history
780 ======================
782 Briefly, I started keeping notes on-line shortly after I got a
783 portable computer in January, 1994. After a month-and-a-half of
784 notes, I realized that one does not live by grep alone, so I started
785 adding indexing facilities.
787 In June of 1995 some other Ficus-project members started keeping
788 and indexing on-line notes using other home-grown systems. After some
789 discussion, we generalized my notes-mode work and they started using
792 Over the next 18 months notes-mode grew. Finally, in April, 1996 I
793 wrote documentation, guaranteeing that innovation on notes-mode will
794 now cease or the documentation will become out of date.
797 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Credits, Next: Changes, Prev: Notes-mode history, Up: History
802 I (John Heidemann, <johnh@isi.edu>) started, documented, and currently
803 maintain notes-mode. I take ultimate responsibility for the code,
804 especially for the ugly parts that I won't let others change.
806 Ashvin Goel <ashvin@ficus.cs.ucla.edu> has been a very
807 enthusiastic notes-mode user and contributor. He is responsible for at
808 least the ideas behind `notes-summarize-subject' and the ideas and
809 initial implementations of some of the original generalization and
810 modularity improvements, `notes-follow-next-link' and
811 `notes-follow-prev-link', `notes-goto-index-entry', programmed
812 subject completion, and context-sensitive mouse-2 handling. In
813 addition, he is an invaluable second opinion about what and how
814 things should be done (even if I don't always agree with him).
816 Geoff Kuenning <geoff@ficus.cs.ucla.edu> has been another
817 enthusiastic notes-mode user and victim. He is responsible for
818 finding several bugs, motivation for mouse-less operation, comments
819 about the documentation, the day-of-week convention, and an initial
820 implementation and the idea of multiple entries with the same subjects
821 in a single notes-file.
823 Ramesh Govindan <govindan@isi.edu> did the xemacs port.
825 Since it's release on Usenet in April 1996 several other folks have
826 contributed. Thanks to David Weisman <weisman@app1.osf.org>, Martin
827 L. Smith <martin@ner.com>, Jason Bastek <jason@aai.com>, Ulrich
828 Herbst <Ulrich.Herbst@t-systems.com>. See the next section (*Note
829 Changes::.) for details of their exploits.
831 Thanks to Larry Ayers <layers@marktwain.net> for popularizing
832 notes-mode with reviews in the Linux Gazette (at
833 <http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue22/notes-mode.html> and
834 <http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue35/ayers.html>).
837 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Changes, Next: Suggested features, Prev: Credits, Up: History
844 First semi-public release. 12-Jul-95: version 0.1 Shared a version
845 with Ashvin and Geoff.
847 Changed 6-Dec-95: version 0.3 Ashvin's changes for note traversal
848 added (C-c C-p and C-c C-n now move to the prev/next note in note-mode).
849 URL parsing changed so that "localhost" is optional.
851 Changed 19-Dec-95: version 0.4 More robust prev/next code added,
852 both to handle going back and forward in the middle of chains through
853 the index file, and to handle back/forward in a single file. URL
854 parsing changed so that notes-goto-index-entry correctly handles
855 lookups on notes names such as "252A".
857 Changed 20-Dec-95: version 0.5. Fixed a missing variable in
858 notes-url.el. Added a work-around to a bug in emacs-19.30's
861 Changed 24-Dec-95: version 0.6. Prev/next code re-re-written to be
864 Changed 26-Dec-96: version 0.7. Bug fix release.
866 Changed 23-Jan-96: version 0.8. Initialization code added to set
867 up a new note. New variable: notes-bin-dir.
869 I'm skipping version 0.9 because I erroneously release version 0.1
870 as version 0.9 (only on the web, not on Usenet).
872 I'm bumping from version "0" to version "1" since the code is has
873 been in production use for more than a year by several people. Minor
874 numbers are the same.
876 Changed 26-Mar-96: version 1.10. Setup code completely re-written.
877 Several incompatible changes have been made: - the lisp and Perl code
878 must be installed via make install, not by copying. - some data is
879 specified in a .notesrc file; copy and modify sample.notesrc. -
880 several internal elisp changes. - catsubject added (bound to C-cC-s):
881 collect all notes about the current subject. - new notes-files are
882 initialized with fields based on the prior day's notes; see mknew for
883 details. - daily_work is gone; mkall is rewritten to use .notesrc.
885 Changed 29-Apr-96: version 1.11. Real documentation. Mknew
888 Changed 9-Aug-96: version 1.12. Added notesinit to do all setup
891 Changed 24-Aug-96: version 1.13. Minor documentation fixes.
893 Changed 20-Dec-97: version 1.14. Autoconf support.
895 Fontification of the index buffer is now pre-computed in perl other
896 than done when the file is needed (in elisp with slow regular
897 expressions). 2000-line index files are now 1-2 seconds rather than
898 15-30 on a 100MHz Pentium. If necessary (the pre-computed version
899 isn't up-to-date) we fall back on the slower code.
901 Related work improved (suggestion by David Weisman
902 <weisman@app1.osf.org>).
904 Documentation improvement (problem found by Martin L. Smith
907 Installation improved (code by Jason Bastek <jason@aai.com>).
909 Bug in notes-index mode with subjects containing colons fixed
912 Encryption now supports mailcrypt.el.
914 Support for emacs 20 (a small font-lock change).
916 Changed 5-Jan-98: version 1.15. Bug in decryption for non-PAM
917 users fixed (suggestion by Kevin Davidson <tkld@quadstone.com>).
919 Y2K statement added (suggestion by Kevin Davidson
920 <tkld@quadstone.com>).
922 Pointer to mailcrypt added (as a supported encryption package).
923 Problem pointed out by K. Ueda <kueda@jupiter.qse.tohoku.ac.jp>.
925 Changed 4-Nov-98: version 1.16. Bug in kill-ring handling of
926 notes-old-underline-line fixed by Tim Potter <timp@jna.com.au>. Bug
927 in whitespace handling after PGP encryption fixed by Tim Potter. Bugs
928 in handling of entries with hash signs in their name fixed (found by
929 Tim Potter). Fontification of index buffer further improved (mapcar
930 is your friend). Xemacs support added based on code contributed by
933 Changed 28-Feb-99: version 1.17: Improvement: notes-electric-return
934 now fixes up the prev/next links of new entries (only). Code
935 contributed by Takashi Nishimoto.
937 Bug fix: reversed options -batch and -q in configure.in to placate
938 XEmacs 20.0; changed notesinit to not downcase the pathname (bugs
939 found by Thierry Bezecourt).
941 Clarification: Autofilling of new notes more clear in the manual
942 (hopefully, suggested by Solofo Ramangalahy).
944 Bug fix: a y2k bug in was found and fixed in mkindex. Sigh.
946 New: Two mailing lists for notes-mode have been created:
947 `notes-mode-announce@heidemann.la.ca.us' and
948 `notes-mode-talk@heidemann.la.ca.us'. Send the line "subscribe
949 notes-mode-announce" (or "subscribe notes-mode-talk") to
950 `majordomo@heidemann.la.ca.us' to join them. [_These instructions are
951 now superceeded; to subscribe, go to
952 `http://www.heidemann.la.ca.us/mailman/listinfo/notes-mode-talk' and
953 `http://www.heidemann.la.ca.us/mailman/listinfo/notes-mode-announce'._]
955 Changed 6-Oct-99: version 1.18: Bug fix: handling of
956 electric-prevnext is better when there are existing prev/next links.
958 Clarification: I added some pointers in the code to the installation
959 instructions. (Apparently people can't RTF README.)
961 Extension: mailcrypt-3.5.x suported including pgp, pgp5 and gpg.
963 Changed (date 23-Dec-00): version 1.19: Bug fix (cosmetic): suppress
964 comments in encrypted nodes.
966 Install fixes from Kannan Varadhan: elisp directories changed on
969 Added C-j as a synonym for RET in notes-mode to parallel C++ or perl
970 mode. (Suggested by Fred Jaggi `jaggi@rsn.hp.com'.)
972 Outline-minor-mode support added and documented. (Suggested by Tim
973 Carroll `tim@boomboom.com'.)
975 Bug/typo fixes in gpg support (Contributed by William A. Perkins
976 `wa_perkins@pnl.gov', with separate patches from Knut Anders Hatlen
977 `kahatlen@online.no'.)
979 Installation improvements suggested by Christophe Troestler
980 `Ch.Troestler@linkline.be': use install-info to update the info dir,
981 warn users of -prefix that lisp files go elsewhere.
983 Changed (date 1-Feb-01): version 1.20: Bug fix: missing file
984 notes-first.el added to the distribution. (Bug found by Michael
985 Totschnig `michaelt@supernet.ca'.)
987 Changed ( 5-Dec-01): version 1.21: (backed-out--didn't work with
988 spaced URLs) URL lookup now uses thing-at-point.
990 Fix to make notes-mode work with emacs-21.1 (Fix from Klaus Zeitler
991 `kzeitler@lucent.com'.)
993 Changed ( 3-Jan-02): version 1.22: Several bugs in `notesinit' for
994 stricter Perl implementations (bug found by Paul Craven"
995 `pcraven@yorku.ca', and Kasper van Wijk `kasper@acoustics.mines.edu')
996 and to make it run cleanly more often.
998 Notes-first now autoinitializes notes mode from emacs. (As
999 instisted by rms, unfortunately about two years later than requested.)
1001 Changed (20-Feb-05): version 1.23: Outline mode is now forcebly
1002 turned on to avoid interactions with user's text-mode hooks (bug and
1003 fix from Nils Ackermann `nils@nieback.de').
1005 Install bug involving ordering of scripts and byte-compilation fixed
1006 (bug and fix from Mark Allman `mallman@grc.nasa.gov').
1008 Fix obscure bug in configure, reported by Klaus Zeitler
1009 `kzeitler@lucent.com'.
1011 Fix for notes-summarize-subject when no subject is specified (bug
1012 and fix from Geoff Kuenning).
1014 Changed (14-Jan-06): version 1.24:
1016 install-info bug documented with the Debian install-info (bug
1017 reported by Aaron Falk `falk@isi.edu').
1019 Automatic date completion in new days is now done in the current
1020 locale, so it should now work for non-English languages. Bug reported
1021 by Torsten Bronger `bronger@physik.rwth-aachen.de'.
1023 Fixed a bug in mkindexcache, triggered by subjects with percent signs
1024 in them. Bug reported by Philip Austin `paustin@eos.ubc.ca'.
1026 We're a bit more robust about subjects, I hope. Warnings should
1027 appear about embedded number signs, and leading spaces should be
1028 filtered. Bug reported by Philip Austin `paustin@eos.ubc.ca'.
1030 Notes-mode now dervies from indented-text-mode rather than
1031 paragraph-indent-text mode. Unfortunatley this is not customizable
1032 because of limitations of define-derived-mode. Change suggested by
1033 Aaron Falk `falk@isi.edu'.
1035 Provide better hints about how to get started after installation or
1036 running notes-mode in emacs for the first time.
1038 In notes init, the default path for dir was the full path, not the
1039 tilde version of the path. Now it defaults to using tidle for home
1040 directory. Bug reported by Mark Allman `allman@icir.org'.
1042 Changed (26-May-06): version 1.25:
1044 fixed a bug in the release tar.gz file that had a additional copies
1047 Changed (30-Jun-08): version 1.26:
1049 Force unicode I/O in `mkindexcache' to fix highlighting mis-alignment
1050 when using emacs-21 with unicode subject lines.
1052 Changed mkprevnext and mkrawindex to optionally take the list of
1053 notes files to index from stdin rather than from the command line.
1054 Yes, I finally have 4093 notes files, overflowing the Unix command line
1057 Changes notes-mode.el to put path in quotes, allowing spaces to
1058 appear in home directory names (bug fix from Ulrich Herbst).
1060 Added a suggested features section.
1062 Changed ( 8-Aug-08): version 1.27:
1064 Change I/O in `mkindexcache' to use locale (the sadly correct thing)
1065 rather than forcing utf-8 (the Righteous Path). Bug report from Geoff
1066 Kuenning, a man with an older Unix environment than I.
1068 Changed (20-Jun-10): version 1.28:
1070 Changed a regular expression in `notes-index-mode.el' that was
1071 causing emacs-v23 (a pre-release version) to regular expression
1074 Changed (2012-04-04): version 1.29
1076 (2011-08-23) Changed `run-hooks' to `run-mode-hooks'. Bug report
1077 from Geoff Kuenning.
1079 Changed some handling of PGP encryption to account for some apparent
1082 (2012-04-04) Fixed encyrption to handle encrypting empty notes at
1083 the end of buffers without going into an infinite loop. Clearly wrong
1084 code, but you have to ask this guy for why he tried: Bug report from
1088 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Suggested features, Prev: Changes, Up: History
1090 4.4 Suggested features
1091 ======================
1093 Features suggested by users but not yet implemented:
1095 21-Feb-08: (from Xavier Maillard): should support "disconnected"
1096 notes that are indexed but not date-based.
1098 21-Feb-08: (from John Heidemann): should switch all notes files to
1099 have an extension (maybe `.notes').
1102 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Installation, Next: Keystroke index, Prev: History, Up: Top
1107 To install notes-mode,
1109 1. Unpack and extract the distribution (gunzip notes-mode-xxx.tar.gz;
1110 tar xvf notes-mode-xxx.tar; cd notes-mode-xxx).
1112 2. Run configure (./configure).
1114 3. Type "make install".
1116 (To control what's installed where, use -prefix=/where, or
1117 -with-lisp-dir=/where, -datadir=/where (for scripts), and
1123 If you have problems with paths being incorrect, please be aware that
1124 you _cannot_ run notes directly out of where you untar it. The
1125 installation process customizes the programs for where things are on
1126 your system. Make sure you move out of the directory where you
1127 untarred it before running it.
1129 The most recent distribution of notes-mode is always available via
1130 `http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/SOFTWARE/NOTES_MODE/'.
1133 File: notes-mode.info, Node: Keystroke index, Next: Concept index, Prev: Installation, Up: Top
1138 This index lists notes-mode keystrokes.