vworkbench

"Every woodworker needs a good, solid, reliable workbench, somewhere to hold work pieces at a convenient height while they're being shaped. The workbench becomes the centre of the woodshop, the maker returning to it time and time again as the piece takes shape.

For a programmer manipulating files of text, that workbench is the command shell."

The Pragmatic Programmer (2020) - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt

Current Development Status

Not ready to be used.

What Is This

My development environment setup with heavily custom settings.
I'm testing this on Ubuntu 23.01 and on my W11 box running Ubuntu under WSL2.
I also test it under the latest Lubuntu LTS. I haven't tested it on OSX for ages, and can pretty much guarantee it won't run on that without a lot of work.

Demo Video

VIM

How to Decode the vim-airline Buffer Status line

Full docs: https://github.com/vim-airline/vim-airline

The problems in the file show in the far right. If there are no issues there will be no red or orange expanded sections.

Orange - Warnings
Red - Errors

It will show you the number of warnings or errors there are, and the line number of the first one. You should be able to skip between warnings/errors with the <Left> and <Right> keys.
When you are searching through the file with / then it shows you: your term, the number of matches there are of your term, and which one you're on.
Other info displayed includes File Format, file type detected, current line of code / total lines of code, current column number / total columns, and so on.
When it shows 'SPELL' is on, it will highlight text spellings and any code related errors. To toggle this, use :set nospell or :set spell. It highlights spelling errors in comments.

How to Decode the Nerdtree file status symbols

They correspond to the git status of the file in the repo.

'Modified' :✹
'Staged' :✚
'Untracked' :✭
'Renamed' :➜
'Unmerged' :═
'Deleted' :✖
'Dirty' :✗
'Ignored' :☒
'Clean' :✔︎
'Unknown' :?

ZSH

ZSH uses oh-my-zsh in Powerlevel10k mode, which provides fast and responsive auto-complete options. Use <TAB> to autocomplete. It will also show the status of the current Git repo.

https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k

Installation / Updating

The same scripts either install from nothing OR update the current version. When you install my .dotfiles every time you log into a console, it will fetch down the latest master from this repo. If there are any changes, you should rerun the scripts in 'Install Steps' below to keep your copy up-to-date.

Installation Requirements for .dotfiles

You have to use a ‘Nerd font’ - this is a specially patched font with extra symbol characters for use in vim. This is not a prerequisite, it will show you how to install it at the end of the dotfile deployment.
You have to have a directory created in ~/.dotfiles/SECRETS with the credentials /keys/APIkeys required to use the environment. This is not done for you.
If you are using Ubuntu for Windows under WSL2, which is my personal favourite configuration then I recommend installing the Alacritty terminal emulator before installing.

What It Will Install

It will install my VIM9 development environment and anything else I use in my work. It includes:

Install my heavily customised version of VIM9 with plugins
Install the latest version of Oh-my-ZSH and set your default shell to ZSH
Install Joplin the command-line open source Evernote replacement, and secure it with encryption, and download all my notes (presuming you are me).
Ask if you want to install my usual apps - https://Morgen.so : a paid multiplatform calendar app that I use with Google Calendar. This is updated via the snap installation process.
Ask if you want to install the superb Golang JIRA CLI client which makes navigating JIRA boards less painful.
Setup a development environment for Elixir.
Setup 'fortune' with random Neil Gaiman quotes displayed on login.

You may well have to customise, mix and match, and edit these individual settings because you won't have the authentication required for this whole process to work. If you are serious about reusing what I've done, you should run this setup in a docker container or virtual machine.

Install Steps

I am still in the process of separating my personal configuration from a generic configuration which will be useful to everyone.

However, if you are keen to try this out as it is:

git clone [email protected]:/wordswords/dotfiles ~/.dotfiles
cd ~/.dotfiles/
Prepare all config you need to prepare in ~/.dotfiles/SECRETS. There are templates of what is required in ~/.dotfiles/SECRETS_TEMPLATES
./deploy.sh
It will also attempt by default to log in to my Joplin account, which will not succeed without my credentials. You probably want to change that.

Using the Dotfiles Environment

Shell shortcuts

<CTRL>-<R> for an intelligent search through previous commands using McFly.
Type z and a directory name accessible from your current directory to cd to that directory, no need to type cd.
Type l for a long-style ls.
delta <file1> <file2> for a nice 2 way diff style interface where you can analyse and copy changes between files.
Use <tab> to activate oh-my-zsh's autocomplete plugins. For example git <tab>
Run repos.sh to check the branch name of all git repositories under the current directory. Useful when you have a lot of different projects that interact with each other and you want to see which repos branches you have checked out.
vi instead of vim to load a separate minimal vim config, useful if there are problems with the vim config.
Type notes to launch Joplin, my note-taking app.
please after realising that you needed sudo with the last command, to repeat the last command with sudo
ports to list the open ports on the system in a readable way.
tree for a handy diagram of the full directory tree under the current directory.
ref <jira issue number, no prefix>` to open Firefox with the details of that issue.
lookup <jira issue number, no prefix> to print the jira-cli ticket summary of that issue on the command line.
bat <file> for a syntax-highlighting quick cat.
hn to get the top 10 Hacker News Network headlines for the hour.
hn100 to get the top 100 Hacker News Network headlines for the hour.
gg <search query> from the terminal to open a Firefox browser with the query in the Google.co.uk search engine.
so <search query> from the terminal to open a Firefox browser, and search stackoverflow using <search query>
pstree for a nice graph showing all processes and subprocesses running.
<CTRL-X> <CTRL-E> to open up a text editor while in a shell. When you save the text content, it will copy it back to the shell to execute. You can use this method to use GitHub Copilot and OpenAI Codex in VIM to generate shell commands and then have them execute in the shell.
cht <language> <command> to consult the chtsht.sh repository of high quality cheatsheets on a lot of subjects.
ai <query> to ask ChatGPT for some wisdom. Whatever it returns will be copied to the clipboard.

VIM9 shortcuts

The most important VIM shortcut is <leader> h which is currently mapped to , h. This will open up this document, which is usually up-to-date.

<TAB> to activate autocomplete plug ins.
, is set to be the <leader> key in VIM9, use it to trigger shortcuts.
<LEFT> to toggle the file browser/NERDTree buffer.
<RIGHT> to toggle Vista, which allows you to quickly jump through files.
<DOWN> to open the Quickfix list of errors.
<UP> to open the Location list of errors.
>> and << to adjust indentation.
set mouse=a is on, if you have any problems with copying and pasting just :set mouse= beforehand.
K to bring up documentation on the current term and use the mouse wheel to scroll the info.
gd to go to the definition of function or class.
:G <git command> to run a git command via vim-fugative, for example git diff, git add.
Use / and start typing to quickly jump to a certain term across all open buffers.
Use u to go up a root directory on nerdtree.
Use <F12> to toggle distraction-free writing mode.
Use :Format to format a buffer by the coc language server's prettifier, where it exists.
Type :Wordy<space><tab> to use the Wordy proofreading tool to check for poor words while writing.
Type :LanguageToolCheck to use the command-line grammar and spelling checker (requires Java 8).
To search all instances of git clone and replace them with git submodule add on a visual block, use :<','>s/git clone/git submodule add/.
To feed a visual block through an external command, for example, the NIX external sort command, :'<,'>!sort - this will sort the visual block lines alphabetically.
To execute a command on all lines in a visual block, use the norm command, for example: :'<,'> norm i## after selecting in visual mode to comment all lines out with a ##. For the reverse, to uncomment and delete the first character, use :'<,'> norm x after selecting in visual mode.
To generate a ctags index for all functions/methods in all languages, run this command at the root of the source control repo !ctags -R *. Then you can use gd to jump to the original definition of the function in any file.
If in some modes the backtick character does not insert, try typing it twice that should insert it properly.
To open the URL under the cursor in the default browser use gx <- handy!
To remove all trailing white space from a file, use :%s/\s\+$//e <- handy!
To run Prettier on language servers that support this VS Code prettier, use :Prettier
:%norm vipJ to unwrap all the text in the document (opposite to word-wrap)
% when positioned over a code bracket to skip to the next code bracket
>i{ when positioned over a code bracket to ident the code up to the next code bracket
:map to show the keymappings made by your plugins and .vimrc. Note this is somewhat difficult to follow.
* and # will search forward and backward through the file with the exact same word that is under the cursor in normal mode.

https://github.com/wordswords/dotfiles/blob/master/notes/VIMCHEATSHEET.md

YouCompleteMe

I have moved away from Coc.vim to use YouCompleteMe. It has completion options for all the major languages and supports language servers.

The main difference is that the errors are now in the locationlist.

So it's the quickfix list for spelling/grammatical errors, and the locationlist for coding errors.

I might combine the two sometime in the future.

The Clipboard

Under Ubuntu, there are two clipboards, for some crazy reason that I don't understand.

As part of the installation of the this environment, Gnome is patched via a hook, to synchronise these clipboards.

Under Ubuntu4Windows, the clipboard should also be synced to the Windows clipboard.

These shortcuts should therefore work for all clipboard contents, across Gnome, your web browser, Tmux, VIM9, VIM9 terminal and gVIM.

<Control-c> copies text in Gnome applications including the web browser, after being selected by the mouse. Also 'copy' using the right click will copy.
<Control-v> should paste in all Gnome applications, except for the terminal, including the web browser. Also you can use right click -> 'paste'.
While in the Gnome terminal, or in the Gnome terminal in tmux, <Control-Shift-v> will paste to the terminal.
While in tmux, <Control-a-{> will enter clipboard mode which is similar to VIM's visual mode. Scroll using VIM keybindings, page up, page down, or the mouse, and press v to start the selection copy, and y to copy it onto the clipboard.
While in VIM, <Control-v> will switch into insert mode, switch into paste mode, paste the text, and then switch out of paste mode.
While in VIM, using y will yank straight to the clipboard. Usually I use visual mode to copy things while in VIM.
While in any terminal, you can use the pbcopy or pbpaste aliases in a pipe. For example echo This will be copied to the clipboard | pbcopy and pbpaste | sort
If you want to, you can also do echo This will be copied to the clipboard | xclip.sh

Productivity Shortcuts

The more you can use the keyboard and not a pointing device, the faster you will be, and the less ergonomic problems you will have.

Tmux shortcuts:

<Control-a> <RIGHT> move to the right pane from the cursor.
<Control-a> <DOWN> move to the down pane from the cursor.
<Control-a> <UP> move to the up pane from the cursor.
<Control-a> <LEFT> move to the left pane from the cursor.
<Control-a> r reload current config file.

Tmux pane resize shortcuts:

<Control-a> <Control-RIGHT> Extend current pane to the right
<Control-a> <Control-DOWN> Extend current pane down
<Control-a> <Control-UP> Extend current pane up
<Control-a> <Control-LEFT> Extend current pane to the left
<Control-a> <SPACE> Switch through different pane arrangements. Also useful for clearing any problems with a garbled terminal.

Gnome shortcuts:

<Control-Shift-n> open a new terminal window from anywhere on the gnome desktop.
<Windows Key> toggle ArcMenu. Start typing to search for an application to run.
<Windows Key-Tab> switch to next application (better than alt-tab)
<Windows Key-Shift-Tab> switch to previous application (better than alt-shift-tab)
<Windows Key-l> lock the Gnome session so it requires a pwd to get back in
<Print Screen> take a screenshot using Gnome internal screen shot tool. Very useful.
<Control-Alt-Home> OR <Control-WEB> (on Kinesis keyboard) - open a new tab in Firefox and move the focus to it. This is a custom shortcut that I implemented from here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/831135/shortcut-to-open-new-browser
Select a valid URL in Gnome terminal and then <Control>-Left Click to open it in a web browser
<Windows Key-d> minimise all applications and show a blank desktop.

Gnome window resize shortcuts:

It behaves like Windows 10/11 window resize shortcuts. For example:

<Windows Key-RIGHT> take the current window and move it to 50% right of screen
<Windows Key-LEFT> take the current window and move it to 50% left of screen
<Windows Key-UP> take the current window and full screen it
<Windows Key-DOWN> take the current window and un-full screen it, move it into a window in the centre of the desktop

VIM Spellchecking/Grammar checking/Proofreading commands (also Joplin notes)

<LEFT> - toggle Nerdtree
<RIGHT> - toggle Vista
<DOWN> - to open the Quickfix list of errors.
<UP> - to open the Location list of errors.
zg - Mark as a good word
zw - Like zg but mark the word as a wrong (bad) word
zug - Unmark as good word
zuw - Unmark as wrong (bad) word
z= - For the word under/after the cursor suggest correctly spelled words
1z= - Use the first suggestion, without prompting
. - Redo - repeat last word replacement
:spellr - Repeat the replacement done by z= for all matches with the replaced word in the current window
<F12> - Toggle 'Goyo' distraction-free mode.

VIM9 Leader Search Functions

<leader> is currently set to 'commma' e.g. ,

First move the cursor over a word or line and then:

<leader> h to access this help file and to toggle opening and closing this file and the outline
<leader> w to look up the current single word on Wikipedia
<leader> b to look up the current line with git blame
<leader> j to look up the current issue number under cursor with jira-cli
<leader> p to save the current file as a markdown-formatted code post for Reddit in the location ~/redditpost.md
<leader> y to copy the whole current file to the clipboard
<leader> l to run the LanguageToolCheck command on the current file to check current grammar and spelling.
<leader> c to toggle Copilot enable/disable on the current file

In visual mode you can also do:

<leader> g to open a Firefox window with the google results of the lines in the visual selection
<leader> s to open a Firefox window with the Stackoverflow results of the lines in the visual selection

Git Fugitive Workflow

:Git to bring up the interactive git status message while on a changed track file.
a to stage or d to unstage a file
:Git commit will commit the staged files
:Git push will push the commit
:Git diff will open a diff
g? displays help with more commands.
:q to close the status window, you never need to write changes.

Git Fugitive Blame Window

:Git blame for line-by-line git blame on current file, select a commit and press 'o' to open the commit diff with the commit message in a new window.
Enter to open a diff of the chosen commit in current window
C A and D resize the blame window up until the commit, author and date respectively.
g? displays help with more commands.

Git Fugitive Mergetool

Whenever you have a merge conflict, use git mergetool to open this.
If you want to just use one entire side, move your cursor to that side with <Ctrl-W> h, for example. Then do :Gwrite!.
Buffers are set up so [YOUR local branch (2) | resulting mergefile (1) | THEIR merge in branch (3) ]
Use ]c and [c to navigate through the conflicts
Use the centre pane to navigate. use d2o to pull the change from YOUR local branch, use d3o to pull the change from THEIR branch.
OR go to local branch OR merge in branch, select the conflict, and use dp to choose that version.
When done, use :wq

More info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPk4nOLj8w4

VIM's inbuilt terminal

You can run arbitrary commands such as :term ls -al and see the results in an updating terminal.
It is recommended that if you want an interactive terminal, use a tmux split. This is because the paste functionality doesn't work too great while in VIM9 terminal. Also, it has problems running some terminal applications while run under VIM9 in tmux.

VIM modelines and folds

Several of my dot files, including the main deploy scripts, use modelines to set up some fold markers. This allows for much easier organisation and navigation.

Modelines are enabled by default with the security patch.

To expand a fold, press 'l' when on the fold.
The mouse can also be used to open and close folds by clicking in the fold column: Click on a '+' to open the closed fold at this row. Click on any other non-blank character to close the open fold at this row.
To close a fold zc when the cursor is on it
To close ALL folds zm
To open ALL folds zn

VIM Regex

Turn on "Very magic mode" for VIM when you have to enter a regex that includes a lot of special characters. :s/$cat $ hunting $mice$/\2 hunting \1 then becomes :s/\v(cat) hunting (mice)/\2 hunting \1. Trigger 'very magic mode' by prefixing the regex with \v.
Find a full table of VIM regex syntax with :help ordinary-atom
Use group marks \1 \2 etc to identify characters captured by a capture group, e.g. surrounded by ( and ). For example, :s/v(cat) hunting (mice)/\2 hunting \1 replaces 'cat' hunting 'mice' with 'mice' hunting 'cat.
Vim has a weird non-greedy regex match .\{-} which means .+?. So to strip a document of all its html tags use this: :%s/<.\{-}>/\r/g.

Wildcards for searching and editing files and directories

You can search across a bunch of files with the following syntax: :vimgrep /cat/ **/*.py will search for all instances of 'cat' in all the python files down from the current path.
You can open a file without knowing the directory it is in, as long as it is below the current directory, by :e **/bla.py. This will search for a file bla.py recursively from the current directory. If there is more than one file found, it will error.
:help file-search for more wildcard options
If you want to edit a number of files called bla.py, use :arg **/bla.py. This will open all the files one by one, use :next to edit the next file in the list. Use :prev to reopen a file previously edited. :last and :first also work, and :args displays the whole list.

Processing lots of files with `:argdo`

You can process a number of files using arglist in VIM.

:arg defines the arglist
:argdo allows you to execute a command on all the files in the arglist
:args describes the list of files in the arglist

For example if we wanted to replace all instances of 'animal' in every Python file recursively from the current path, we would do the following:

:arg **/*.py :argdo **/\<animal\>/creature/qa | update **/*.py selects all python files down from the current directory recursively :argo executes a command on all files from current directory recursively. %s/\<animal\>/creature/qa replaces every occurrence of 'animal' with 'creature' in every file - a, without raising errors if the matches are not found - q update saves the file only if it has been modified

GitHub Copilot

The GitHub copilot VIM plugin is installed. It assumes you have a subscription.

<leader> c to toggle copilot on and off for the current buffer.
<TAB> to accept current autocomplete.

Vista Plugin

Vista is used for language server specific function lists for quickly jumping around large projects.

:Vista to load up the right sidebar
:Vista vim_lsp to use vim's LSP support to provide the tags list
:Vista ctagsto use ctags to provide the tags list
:help vista-commands and :help vista-options for help

Additional Notes

Tmux

Config file is at ~/.tmux.conf
For a great tutorial https://pragmaticpineapple.com/gentle-guide-to-get-started-with-tmux/
For a vertical split <CTRL>-a SHIFT |
For a horizontal split <CTRL>-a SHIFT -
For standard keybindings,cht tmux
To rotate panes in the current layout <CTRL>-a <SPACE>
To start my standard development tmux session tmuxinator development

Git information I keep forgetting

git status - will tell you what branch you're on and what files have changed. Use this all the time.
git commit --amend and git rebase -i HEAD~2 - roll the current commit into the previous one and edit the previous commit message. Use the rebase to squash the commit.
git branch - show the current branches on your local copy
git stash push - push to the stash, puts all non-committed files on the stash
git stash pop - pop whatever is on to stash to the local copy.
git checkout -b <new branch name> - create a new branch and switch to it
git rebase -i HEAD~3 - perform an interactive rebase on the last 2 commits.. e.g: you always want to +1 to the number. Be careful with this.
git pull origin master or git pull origin main - pull and merge master/main into your current local branch
Use 'main' instead of 'master' for all future repos - everyone is doing it.
git difftool - use wherever you would use git diff - it's much more useful.
git mergetool - use whenever you have merges to make, see above.
blameline - shell script for line-by-line blame with commit summary.
When all goes horribly wrong, backup your changed files by manually mv-ing them out of the repo directory, delete your entire local copy, checkout again from master, and rebuild your commit by copying the backed up files in.
Use GitHub PR's 'changed files' tab for exactly what has changed, but don't forget the commits tab, there should only usually be one commit per PR. And remember the revert button on Github PRs.
git logline for my custom one line per commit log alias which includes useful extra information, see: https://ma.ttias.be/pretty-git-log-in-one-line/
git checkout -- <filepath> - this will overwrite your local changes to the file at and restore the version in the latest commit on your branch.
git checkout <hash> <filepath> - this will checkout a previous version of the file from the commit. A useful technique for restoring a change from a previous commit is to cp <filepath> <filepath.bak>, use git logline to find the right hash and then, git checkout <hash> <filepath>, then use vimdiff <filepath> <filepath.bak> to copy a change over from the previous commit to <filepath.bak>, and then rm <filepath> and then mv <filepath.bak> <filepath>.

Git Book: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2

Check out my simpleton Git workflow here: https://github.com/wordswords/dotfiles/blob/master/notes/GITWORKFLOW.md

GNU diff/patching information I forget

Creating a simple patch to apply later

To generate the patch, run the following command in the same directory as the file you want to patch diff -u <file1> <file2> > patch.diff
Edit the patch file and make sure both filenames mentioned are the same filename that you want patched.

Applying the simple patch

Copy the patch.diff into the directory of the file needing to be patched
Run patch -p1 < patch.diff

Python 3 information I forget

Use ipython for interactive REPL Python 3 information.
Add import ipdb;ipdb.set_trace() anywhere in your code to open up an interactive debugger using ipython when the code hits that line.
Add import IPython; IPython.embed() to open up IPython when the execution hits this point.

Using Strace

You can use strace to find out what a Linux binary is exactly doing. It will list all the system calls made by that binary.

For example:

strace python follow.py

Different flags you can use include: -f - follow child processes as they are created by the original program, and there is a flag that will strace a particular PID, so it will attach itself to an already running program.

Regular Expressions

Lots of languages support regular expressions, but if you want to do complex things on the command line with regex, then just reach for Perl. Even the latest modern sed doesn't support all of the Regex spec that Perl does.

Find, exec and regex is a common thing I end up doing. This is how to do it in Perl: find . -name '*.html' -exec perl -i -pe "s/jpg\?/jpg/g" {} \;
Test 1 - BEFORE you do the above, always use an online regex checker such as: (https://regexr.com/)[https://regexr.com/] which is very good for perl.
Test 2 - It is also worth echoing/catting data to the perl pipe with a regex so that you can test things a second time before running a potentially dangerous regex query. echo 'bla.jpg?asdfasdf=asdfasdf' | perl -pe 's/(?<=[?&;]).*//g', just take the -i off the line for a dry run, and to pick up input from the pipe instead of editing a file.
Remember to back up the files before running 1 too. cp -r ./dir ./.bak.dir can save hours.

Docker/Docker Compose information I forget

docker system prune -a - remove all unused Docker container images. This is essential to do occasionally to reclaim disk space.
docker-compose --rm <service> - execute providing there is a docker-compose.yml file in the current directory describing <service>.
docker ps - status information on all running docker containers.
docker-compose ps - status information on all running docker-compose services.
docker-compose run <service> <bash_command> - run a quick bash command. <service> must be a valid docker-compose service. For example docker-compose run wordpress cat /etc/issue.
docker logs <service> - output the logs for a service. This is the <service> name from docker-compose ps.
docker build . - builds the container described in the Dockerfile from the local directory.
docker-compose network ls and docker-compose network inspect <network id> will get info on the networks defined in docker compose.
For more examples on docker-compose networks and files, check out my server setup here: https://github.com/wordswords/dotfiles/blob/master/hqconfig/
docker-compose up -d will spin up the docker container(s) using docker-compose and run it as a daeamon, e.g. in the background.
docker-compose up will spin up the docker container(s) using docker-compose and run it in the foreground, and output all the logs to the terminal. Useful for troubleshooting.
docker-compose logs -f <container id> will attach to the container ID and tail -f the logs.
docker-compose pull will update all the containers in the docker-compose file with the latest versions of the container tags.

Also, check out the notes I took from the Docker Deep Dive book here: https://github.com/wordswords/dotfiles/blob/master/notes/DOCKERNOTES.md

Troubleshooting Disk I/O performance Notes

Iostat

Fio

DD

Use inbuilt dd command for simple sequential I/O performance measurements

Bonnie++

For random tests
Attention: bonnie++ creates an enourmous read and write queue thus the load average will increase to 15+
https://www.jamescoyle.net/how-to/599-benchmark-disk-io-with-dd-and-bonnie

Troubleshooting CPU utilisation Notes

Use htop which will already be installed

Troubleshooting Network utilisation Notes

Can use speedtest which is already installed

Ubuntu Package information

sudo apt install <package> - install package
sudo apt remove <package> - remove package
sudo apt-cache search <package> - search for package description
dpkg -i <deb package> - install deb file
dpkg -L | grep <package> - list all installed packages, search for <package>
dpkg-query -L <package> - show what files are installed by package
sudo update-alternatives --config php - change binary used for PHP

Profiling VIM to find plugin speed problems

https://thoughtbot.com/blog/profiling-vim

Do all of:

:profile start vim-profile.log - starts profiling with log file name
:profile file * - mask for which vim-script files to profile, in this case all of them
:profile func * - mask for which vim-script functions to profile, in this case all of them
:e problemfile.php - edit the problem file to start the profiling process
:qa - when done quit vim and look at the log file
Open up vim-profile.log and search for 'Total time' to see the biggest culprits

Joplin commandline

Use the alias notes to open Joplin.
Navigate the panes using <TAB> key
Press enter on an existing note to open it in an editor
Type tc without : to toggle the maximisation levels of the console.
Type :help for basic help.
Type :help keymap for hotkeys.
Type /<search term> to search.
Type mn to create a new note.
Type tm to toggle metadata - user created time and lots of other metadata.
Write all notes using Markdown so they display optimally across all clients.
Press <DEL> to delete a selected note.

JIRA Go Client

First you must setup the JIRA Go client with the API key as specified in the documentation - https://github.com/ankitpokhrel/jira-cli
issues to show open issues allocated to you.
board to show the current JIRA board.

Printing (on Ubuntu)

I have set up my laserjet to print from the command line via CUPS. This is useful when printing out shopping lists etc, quickly.

lp <file> to print the file.
echo bla | lp -- to print the pipe.

fzf

fzf is installed. There are many things you can do with it. Here is a good source:

https://andrew-quinn.me/fzf/

Remote Connection

To remotely SSH via preshared key SSH to my home server, assuming you have authentication use the alias hq

24 bit colour

THIS is the best guide to enabling 24 bit colour on all terminal emulators and tmux, that I've found:

https://gist.github.com/andersevenrud/015e61af2fd264371032763d4ed965b6

To test whether you have got a proper 24 bit colour setup, use this:

~/.dotfiles/bin/24-bit-color.sh

You should see colour fades with NO stepping, just a complete blend.

This script is run for you when you run the second deploy script.

External Scripts

I have written a few helper scripts in ~/.dotfiles/bin

`gg.sh`,`so.sh`, `ai.sh`, `re.sh`, `gg`, `so`, `ai`, `re`

You can pipe multiple lines of text to these scripts. They will look up the result in:

gg <google search> - Google so <stack overflow search> - Stack Overflow re <reddit search> - Reddit ai <chatgpt search> - ChatGPT (providing you have an API key)

The first three will open a new tab or web browser in Firefox (only works in Ubuntu) with your query on those sites.

The last will output the result of the query to STDOUT, and also save the result on your clipboard.

You can also use the three commands WITHOUT the extension to allow for easy <cmd> <query> use while in an interactive console, for example

$ ai <why are cornflakes crunchy> - this will output on the terminal the answer to your q and copy the result to the clipboard $ re <why are cornflakes crunchy> - this will open a web browser with the query and search reddit $ so <stackoverlow search> - this will open a web browser with the query and search $ gg <why are cornflakes crunchy> - this will open a web browser with the query and search google

`search-ebooks.sh <search terms>`

This searches my ThinkSation server for EPUB books according to a wildcard. It then displays the results as a sorted list, so they can be opened by epy which is a command-line EPUB reader.

`clean-git-checkout.sh <path>`

This will find and delete all '.git' dirs under the , which effectively strips completely git from the checkout.

`install-node.sh <major version>`

Installs nodejs via the Debian 'nodesource' repo, with a supplied (for example, 20). This is the recommended way to install node.

`make-and-install-vim.sh <version>`

Downloads and compiles a version matching <version> of VIM from: https://www.mirrorservice.org/pub/vim/unix/

It makes sure it compiles it with Python3 support.

`update-joplin-cli.sh`

Fetches and installs the latest verison of the Joplin CLI notetaking app.

`fix-whitespace-problems.sh <path>`

When given a <path> it does the following to all files under that path:

Removes all newlines from the start of a file, and end of a file.
Removes all trailing whitespace from all lines of each file.

`mlnx_tune`

Displays some diagnosic information about the ancient Mellonex SFP fibreoptic network card in my server.

`get-weather.sh`

Displays on the commandline a visual representation of the current weather in Manchester, UK.

`secure-home-dir-perms.sh`

Sets the permissions of all the files in the current user's home directory to secure defaults.

`hq-read-epub.sh <search terms>`

This remotely connects to my Linux server and searches my library of epub books stored there with search terms, allows you to select one to open, and then opens it in the command-line epy epub reader.

`delete-all-docker-content.sh`

This will clean the local install of all docker containers, networks and images. This is non-destructive as it doesn't actually uninstall docker, and you can just docker pull them all again.

`ai-files-purpose.zsh`

This will ask OpenAI to have a guess at the contents of each file in the current directory based on their naming and some AI magic, and tell its guess for each file. Often it is accurate but not always. Run it again for another guess.

`ai-dir-purpose.zsh`

This will ask OpenAI to have a guess at the purpose of the current directory based on the naming of the files in it, and some AI magic. Often it is accurate but not always. Run it again for another guess.

`osx.zsh`

Running this should get a virtualised OSX setup up and running, providing you have about 50GB free, and a CPU that supports KVM virtualisation.

`repos.sh`

This is like the 'tree' command, it will descend downwards into the current directory and show which branches the Git repositories under the current directory are on.

It is useful for getting a general overview of a complex codebase and its current checkout state.

`blameline`

This shows a line-by-line git blame on a particular file, e.g. blameline README.md showing the origin commit and a snippet of the commit message. Very useful for finding how the contents of a file was created.

`git logline`

A compact summary of commits to a directory or file, e.g. git logline ~/.dotfiles

Modifying

If you want, you can fork this repo, and base your config on this. If you have any problems using these dotfiles please let me know and I can help you.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 21 Commits
assets		assets
bin		bin
config		config
notes		notes
README.md		README.md

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