pensieve.love/README.md

In progress. Manage a directory tree containing plain-text notes (with [some
line drawings](http://akkartik.name/lines.html)). Notes/files connect to each
other using [symmetric cross-links](https://merveilles.town/@akkartik/108766067153506592)
which are saved outside the plain-text in a corresponding .json file.

Some features:
- Multiple views into an independent repo of plain text notes (with [some line
  drawings](http://akkartik.name/lines.html)).
- Notes can have arbitrary named relationships (links) to each other,
  resulting in a graph.
- The primary visual metaphor is an infinite 2D surface of fixed-width,
  non-overlapping, notes that can be operated on with an extensible set of
  commands.
- Commands usually (but not always) create new columns of notes. Each column
  is an independent visualization of a subset of notes.
- App sources can be seamlessly edited from within the app (though packaging
  up modifications to share with others currently has some seams; see below)
- Notes can contain hyperlinks in [[wikiwords]] to other notes. Hyperlinks
  can't contain spaces. Clicking on a hyperlink opens the target in a new
  column.
- A few other things. Explore the command menu and palette along the top.

Some videos to help visualize these bullets (albeit with outdated UI):
  * https://archive.org/details/akkartik-pensieve-2022-07-27 (4.5 minutes)
  * https://merveilles.town/@akkartik/108766067153506592 (30 seconds)

pensieve.love is a compatible fork of [lines.love](http://akkartik.name/lines.html),
an editor for plain text where you can also seamlessly insert line drawings.
Designed above all to be easy to modify and give you early warning if your
modifications break something.

## Getting started

Install [LÖVE](https://love2d.org). It's just a 5MB download, open-source and
extremely well-behaved. I'll assume below that you can invoke it using the
`love` command, but that might vary depending on your OS.

To try out pensieve.love with some sample data, run the following command from
this repo's top-level directory:

```
love . sample
```

This will read the notes from the `data.sample/` directory in this repo to
give you a flavor for what the app is like.

While the sample gives you stuff to browse, don't use it to write any real
notes. LÖVE limits what directories apps can list files from (which is great
for privacy), but has some confusing rules around them. Each app can only
write to files under a single directory, the app's _save directory_
([love.filesystem.getSaveDirectory()](https://love2d.org/wiki/love.filesystem.getSaveDirectory)).
In addition, reads will also fall back to read from the repo directory,
enabling the sample experience. However, edits you make will not modify the
`data.sample/` directory in this repo. Your notes will fragment between two
directories, which can get confusing.

To create your own directory of notes, run without an argument:

```
love .
```

pensieve.love will then create a `data/` directory in the app's save directory
as above. Confusing location, but everything will be in one place.

## Modifying the app

Hit `ctrl+w` from within the app to modify its code. The infrastructure works,
but it isn't advertised within the app because this particular app is
currently too large to comfortably modify from within itself. I use more
specialized editors while I improve the editing infrastructure further.

## Known issues

* No support yet for Unicode graphemes spanning multiple codepoints.

* No support yet for right-to-left languages.

* Editing a note grows sluggish if it grows larger than 1.5KB or so. Either
  use smaller notes (I haven't seen any slowdowns with lots of notes on the
  surface) or maximize large notes when editing them.

* Clicking on a note while editing it sometimes moves the cursor off screen
  above the viewport, disabling further edits. Workarounds:
  - Press `ctrl+e` twice to leave and reenter edit mode on the same note. This
    will reposition the cursor within the viewport.
  - Pan the surface with the mouse to bring the top of the note is in view.

* Editing a note larger than 50KB grows sluggish (particularly during
  undo/redo) even when maximized.

* If you kill the process, say by force-quitting because things things get
  sluggish, you can lose data.

* Searching is slow. There's no index yet. Searching happens in the same
  thread as UI updates, so UI may go unresponsive with really large notes. I
  haven't observed this in practice.

* Pressing keys while editing will try to always keep the text cursor on
  screen. This can have some strange implications:

    * A long series of drawings will get silently skipped when you hit
      page-down, until a line of text can be showed on screen.
    * If there's no line of text at the top of the file, you may not be able
      to scroll back up to the top with page-up.

  So far this app isn't really designed for drawing-heavy files. For now I'm
  targeting mostly-text files with a few drawings mixed in.

* No clipping yet for drawings. In particular, circles/squares/rectangles and
  point labels can overflow a drawing.

* Touchpads can drag the mouse pointer using a light touch or a heavy click.
  On Linux, drags using the light touch get interrupted when a key is pressed.
  You'll have to press down to drag.

* Can't scroll while selecting text with mouse.

* No scrollbars yet. That stuff is hard.

* Hyperlinks have some limitations. They can't contain spaces, and they aren't
  currently clickable if they wrap across lines.

## Mirrors and Forks

This repo is a fork of [lines.love](http://akkartik.name/lines.html), an
editor for plain text where you can also seamlessly insert line drawings.
Updates to it can be downloaded from:

* https://git.sr.ht/~akkartik/pensieve.love

Further forks are encouraged. If you show me your fork, I'll link to it here.

## Associated tools

* https://git.sr.ht/~akkartik/capture.love provides a blank-slate UI into the
  same notes directory as pensieve.love.
* https://codeberg.org/akkartik/lines2md exports lines.love files to Markdown
  and (non-editable) SVG.
* https://git.sr.ht/~akkartik/lines2html.love exports lines.love files to html
  and inline SVG.

## Feedback

[Most appreciated.](http://akkartik.name/contact)

In particular, pensieve.love has been exclusively tested so far with a US
keyboard layout. If you use a different layout, please let me know if things
worked, or if you found anything amiss.