gronk/readme.md
2024-01-02 18:22:15 +00:00

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# notes2web
View your notes as a static html site. Browse a live sample of it [here](https://notes.alv.cx).
![](./screenshot.png)
Tested with [pandoc v2.19.2](https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/tag/2.19.2).
## Why?
I want to be able to view my notes in a more convenient way.
I was already writing them in Pandoc markdown and could view them as PDFs but that wasn't quite
doing it for me:
- It was inconvenient to flick through multiple files of notes to find the right PDF
- It was annoying to sync to my phone
- PDFs do not scale so they were hard to read on smaller screens
- Probably more reasons I can't think of right now
- Fun
## Install
0. Install [Pandoc](https://pandoc.org/index.html) and [Pip](https://github.com/pypa/pip), python3-dev, and a C compiler
1. Run `make install` as root
## Other Things to Know
- notes2web indexes [ATX-style headings](https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#atx-style-headings) for
searching
- notes2web attempts to display file history through the `git log` command
- notes2web looks for the plaintext file `LICENSE` in the root directory of your notes
## Custom Directory Index
To add custom content to a directory index, put it in a file called `index.md` under the directory.
You can set the following frontmatter variables to customise the directory index of a directory:
| variable | default value | description |
|------------------------|-------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `tags` | `[]` | list of tags, used by search and inherited by any notes and subdirectories |
| `uuid` | none | unique id to reference directory, used for permalinking |
| `content_after_search` | `false` | show custom content in `index.md` after search bar and directory index |
| `automatic_index` | `true` | show the automatically generated directory index. required for search bar to function. |
| `search_bar` | `true` | show search bar to search directory items. requires `automatic_index` (enabled by default) |
## Notes Metadata
notes2web reads the following YAML [frontmatter](https://jekyllrb.com/docs/front-matter/) variables for metadata:
| variable | description |
|------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `author` | The person(s) who wrote the article |
| `tags` | A YAML list of tags which the article relates to - this is used for browsing and also |
| `title` | The title of the article |
| `uuid` | A unique identifier used for permalinks. |
| `lecture_slides` | a list of paths pointing to lecture slides used while taking notes |
| `lecture_notes` | a list of paths pointing to other notes used while taking notes |
## Permalinks
Permalinks are currently rather basic and requires JavaScript to be enabled on the local computer.
In order to identify documents between file changes, a unique identifier is used to identify a file.
This unique identifier can be generated using the `uuidgen` command in the `uuid-runtime` package or
`str(uuid.uuid())` in the `uuid` python package.
The included `n2w_add_uuid.py` will add a UUID to a markdown file which does not have a UUID in it
already.
Combine it with `find` to UUIDify all your markdown files (but make a backup first).
## Custom Styling
To completely replace the existing styling, set the environment variable `CSS_DIR` to another directory with
a file called `styles.css`.
To add additional styling, the default styling will attempt to import `styles.css` from the root of the notes
directory.
## CLI Usage
```
$ notes2web.py notes_directory
```
Output of `notes2web.py --help`:
TODO add cli output
The command will generate a website in the `output-dir` directory (`./web` by default).
It will then generate a list of all note files and put it in `index.html`.
Then you just have to point a webserver at `output-dir`.
## Uninstall
```
# make uninstall
```
## Acknowledgements
Default synatx highlighting is based off [Pygments](https://pygments.org/)' default theme and
made using Pandoc v2.7.2.
I found the theme [here](https://github.com/tajmone/pandoc-goodies/blob/master/skylighting/css/built-in-styles/pygments.css).
Pretty sure the link colours are taken from [thebestmotherfucking.website](https://thebestmotherfucking.website/).