ual

ual is a tool to write and manage custom notes that can be viewed just like man pages in your terminal, using the command ual. Your pages can be called anything you like and can contain anything you like. This is useful for writing down quick notes for complicated command invocations or other reference material.

As an example, see some of my own notes here.

Prerequisites

• pandoc

Installation

macOS

brew install --HEAD gpanders/tap/ual

Other Platforms

curl -sLO https://git.sr.ht/~gpanders/ual/tree/master/ual
chmod +x ual
mv ual /usr/local/bin/

Usage

To view a note called foo, simply use

ual foo

To create or modify the foo note, use

ual edit foo

This will open the foo note in the editor set in the $EDITOR environment variable, or simply vi if $EDITOR is unset.

You can list all notes with

ual ls

You can delete the foo note using

ual rm foo

Finally, if your notes directory is a git repository, you can synchronize your notes with

ual sync

ual will look for notes in $UAL_PATH or $XDG_DATA_HOME/ual if $UAL_PATH is unset. $XDG_DATA_HOME resolves to $HOME/.local/share unless specifically set otherwise.

Writing Notes

Notes should be written in Markdown format. Example:

# NAME

foo - A description of foo

# HEADING 1

Some notes about foo that I want to remember.

## SUBHEADING

This is **bold** text, this is _italic_ text, and this is `preformatted` text.

You can use definition lists to enumerate flags and options:

-f
: Force foo to do something

-r
: Make foo use the -r flag

Tables are also supported:

| Day       | Task  |
| ---       | ----  |
| Monday    | Clean |
| Wednesday | Sweep |


```
Use triple backticks to escape all formatting.
For example, **this text** will not be bold, and _this text_ will not be underlined.
This is useful for blocks of code or other preformatted text.
```