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https://github.com/rphii/c-nexus

Proof of Concept Terminal Note Browsing Application
https://github.com/rphii/c-nexus

c c99 knowledge-base knowledge-management local nexus note-management notes-app notes-application personal-knowledge-base personal-wiki proof-of-concept self-hosted small-footprint terminal terminal-app terminal-based vim-style

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Proof of Concept Terminal Note Browsing Application

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README 

        
# c-nexus



| normal                     | search                       | icon                     |

| ---                        | ---                          | ---                      |

| ![normal](images/start.png) | ![search](images/search.png) | ![icon](images/icon.png) |



Small code footprint.



Create notes and link them, however you can think of. Once created you can browse the nodes.



It's possible to link a note to one that may or may not get created in the future.



## Installation



```sh

git clone https://github.com/rphii/c-nexus

cd c-nexus

make

```



or alternatively *without* `make` (you can choose your compiler of choice; gcc, clang, tcc, ...)



```sh

git clone https://github.com/rphii/c-nexus

cd c-nexus

gcc src/*.c -o a

```



In both cases it creates an executable `a`; adjust it if desired.



### Compile Flags



- `-DCOLORPRINT_DISABLE` disable all colored/bold/italic (formatted) output

- `-DPROC_COUNT=` number of threads

- `-DNODE_SHOW_COUNT_IN_OUT=1` show in and outgoing number of notes, instead of the sum

- `-DVECTOR_SORT_DATES_FIRST=1` show dates first, then icons



### Clean



- run `make clean`

- on Cygwin trick it into thinking we're on linux so it can use rm etc. by running `OS= make clean`

- on Windows I don't know if this cleaning stuff works (or anything in general... if something

  doesn't quite work on windows, well, I'll fix it maybe, if I know about the issue and feel like

  fixing it)



## Views



These controls (and maybe even more) are also found in the nexus itself, since I keep that more

updated than this readme... Gotta use your program, y'know :)



### Normal View

- ``h`` : go back in history (can be: viewed notes, searches)

- ``j`` : down

- ``k`` : up

- ``l`` : follow the arrow

- ``q`` : quit

- ``Q`` : rebuild (certainly works on linux)

- ``[space]`` : fold/unfold descriptions

- ``f`` : enter search view

- ``t`` : enter icon view



### Search View

- ``[type something]`` : search for something, case insensitive

- ``[enter]`` : switch from editing search string to selecting found nodes; in this mode ..

    - .. `hjkl` : behaves as it would in normal view

    - .. `f`, `[enter]` : puts you back to editing the search string

    - .. `F` : clears the editing string and puts you back to editing it

    - .. `[escape]` : goes back to node you've watched before searching; as if nothing was

      selected (it goes back in the history)

    - .. ``t`` : enter icon view

    - .. ``q`` : quit

    - .. ``Q`` : rebuild (certainly works on linux)



### Icon View

- `hjkl` : behaves as it would in normal view

- ``t``, `[escape]` : abort icon view and go back

- ``f`` : enter search view

- ``q`` : quit

- ``Q`` : rebuild (certainly works on linux)



## Command Line Arguments



- Print version and exit : `--version`

- Change default view : `--view`

- Change entry note : `--entry`

- Print help (about these and more arguments) and exit : `--help`



## How to add notes?



Edit the [source file](src/content.c).



There's a handy macro called `NEXUS_INSERT`. See the example(s) provided.



### Upsides?

- at startup, all notes are stored in RAM (fast lookup)

- compile checked code/notes! _isn't that cool?_

- you can just disable the notes you don't want to be seen via. code!

- advanced formatting is [quite easily doable](src/colorprint.h); bold, italicize, underline and even colorize your texts!

- every note can have a icon + description (unlike in a file/folder structure, where folders typically don't)



### Downsides?

- at startup, all notes are stored in RAM (amount limited through RAM)

- no editing of notes while browsing them _(at least not yet)_

- terminal interface doesn't yet handle the displaying of very long notes



### Tradeoffs



One could argue that this approach is bad; well, it certainly

_isn't bad_ - I could've used (and probably will in the future) a file/folder structure with

HTML/Markdown files and just parse them instead. Since that also costs time to do, I for the time being,

focus on just getting the app working. Once that's all done and good and the project is at a point

where I'm satisfied with all the other, more important tasks that are screaming to get fixed, I'll

probably look into that a bit more.



During development of this project I came across several tradeoffs that I'm quite willingly going to

accept, for better or worse - but mainly for simplicity's sake in note organization.



- only one note with the same title is possible - and that is case insensitive at that

- each note can "only" have one command attached

- each note can only have one icon



## Notes on Searching

- if you have many notes, you might benefit from parallelized searching. you can activate it via

  specifing the number of threads with the preprocessor token `PROC_COUNT` (e.g. if you want to

  search with 8 threads, in the Makefile add `-DPROC_COUNT=8` to the `CFLAGS`)

- if multithreaded searching is enabled, I at the moment do not bother to sort the found results, so

  that's that (equal searches of something might spit them out in randomized order)

- even if you're not searching with multithreading, the results can seem unordered, because we're

  searching through the items in a hash table, after all. and I do not bother to sort them as well

- Q: why not sort the results?

    - A: 1) I don't know what to sort for, except maybe how likely a string is present...

    - A: 2) ...which I don't quite know how to do. I'd have to rework the searching algorithm...

    - A: 3) ...so when it bothers me too much, I'll rework it, eventually, maybe