Offline Microblog

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Script

Script File

(SH, 10.0 KB)

Current version: 0.5.1

Function and Features

This script creates and manages a Markdown-formatted timeline file. The user calls the script with the path to the timeline file as its only argument. From there the user can compose new posts, read previously-written posts, and perform other functions.

Features:

• Automatic post numbering
• Date, time and timezone on all posts
• Post length limit support (soft limit)
• Post deletion
• Attachment support
• Draft saving and loading
• Attachments can be saved and loaded with drafts
• Reply support, including forward replies
• Atomic post read-back

Attachments are stored in a directory called "attachments" in the same location as the timeline file. A directory called "_working" is also created, which is used for internal files as well as storing drafts.

The actual code is a bit of a mess. If you have any suggestions or improvements, feel free to reach out to me!

Requirements, Quirks and Caveats

• bash 5.0+ is required.
• GNU sed is required.
• nano is required by default, but it should be trivial to edit the script to call any editor you prefer.
• After deleting a post, reindexing can be very slow if it has many (1000+) posts to process. This will be fixed in a later version.

Background

When I used Twitter (before 280 characters became standard), I had a private secondary account that I used as a "rant" account. If I wanted to vent, spam, ramble, or simply write something inappropriate, I would post it there. No-one followed the account, and the account didn't follow anyone. I got used to writing my thoughts as a stream of conscience, necessitated by the fact that each snippet had to be 140 characters or less. I closed that account in early 2017.

The germ of this script formed in mid-2019. I had recently installed the note-taking app Markor on my smartphone and had just finished converting my personal notes to Markdown. Markor has a button in its toolbar that automatically inserts the current date and time into a note. I began to use this feature to write free-form journal entries, but as time passed, I discovered that I missed the specific micro journaling format I had grown accustomed to on Twitter. I decided to write a script to mimic the timeline properties of Twitter, a script I've been developing ever since.

License

For purely legal purposes, this script is distributed under the terms of the simplified (2-clause) BSD license.

License Text

(TXT, 1.23 KB)

Changelog

Because I had originally written this script for my own use, I didn't keep very many old versions, so this changelog is only partial.

2021-11-19: 0.5.1

• Fix incorrect readback search pattern

2021-11-10: 0.5

• Change grep header search pattern
• More robust index updates when a post is deleted
• Find post to delete based on line number instead of sed pattern
• Anchor forward reply position based on next header
• Bump version number

2021-11-09: 0.4.4

• Add post deletion function
• Read-back: show latest post if any errors are encountered
• Remove _body if post is empty
• Add two newlines between nonempty post body and first attachment
• Fix broken forward replies

2021-11-03: 0.4.3

• Change post header count and config load methods
• Store _body and drafts as POSIX-compliant text files
• Add timezones to all dates
• Add BSD license

2021-10-25: 0.4.2

• Check if _working directory exists on each run and create if needed

2021-10-19: 0.4.1

• Complete rewrite
• Major refactoring: reduce ~800 SLOC to ~200
• Remove state function completely
• Remove quick-post option
• Remove broken post header repair function
• Remove usage and version functions
• Remove .dat directory
• Store attachments and _working directories at top level
• Remove conf file; get config options from timeline directly
• Remove index file; get post count from timeline directly
• Insert newlines between attachments instead of HTML <br> tags
• Change attachment naming scheme

2021-09-21: 0.3.9.6

• Rename "helpme" function to "usage"
• Move .conf file to .dat/conf
• Touch _body before composing
• Fix attachment count reverting to 0 when loading drafts with attachments
• Standardize printf statement formats

2020-11-26: 0.3.9.1

• Base version for changelog

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[Last updated: 2021-11-19]