This is a shortcut to change into my journal directory, create a new article, and then immediately start editing it.

.zshrc

read () {
  open "http://blitherocher.com"
}

article () {

# change in to the directory where I keep my journal project
cd /projects/personal_projects/personal_site

echo "Creating article '$@'"

# Run the command to generate the article with the tool I use
output=$(rake post title="$@")

# The output of that command:
#
#  Creating new post: ./_posts/2015-09-29-new-post.html

#
# We want the last line, and then we want the filepath.
# I found it hard to retrieve the filepath because of some ANSI color that Thor
# uses in the output so I use awk to grap the fourth term.
#

# echo $(echo $output |& tail -1 | awk '{print $4;}')

new_article=$(echo $output |& tail -1 | awk '{print $4;}')

# echo "vim $new_article"

vim $new_article
}

Rakefile

# This Rakefile has been modified from https://github.com/plusjade/jekyll-bootstrap/blob/master/Rakefile
require 'rake'
require 'time'

SOURCE = "."
CONFIG = {
  'posts' => File.join(SOURCE, "_posts"),
  'post_ext' => "html",
}

# Usage: rake post title="A Title" [date="2012-02-09"] [tags=[tag1,tag2]] [category="category"]
desc "Begin a new post in #{CONFIG['posts']}"
task :post do
  abort("rake aborted: '#{CONFIG['posts']}' directory not found.") unless FileTest.directory?(CONFIG['posts'])
  title = ENV["title"] || "new-post"
  slug = title.downcase.strip.gsub(' ', '-').gsub(/[^\w-]/, '')
  begin
    date = (ENV['date'] ? Time.parse(ENV['date']) : Time.now).strftime('%Y-%m-%d')
  rescue => e
    puts "Error - date format must be YYYY-MM-DD, please check you typed it correctly!"
    exit -1
  end
  filename = File.join(CONFIG['posts'], "#{date}-#{slug}.#{CONFIG['post_ext']}")
  if File.exist?(filename)
    abort("rake aborted!") if ask("#{filename} already exists. Do you want to overwrite?", ['y', 'n']) == 'n'
  end
  
  puts "Creating new post: #{filename}"
  open(filename, 'w') do |post|
    post.puts "---"
    post.puts "layout: post"
    post.puts "title: \"#{title.gsub(/-/,' ')}\""
    post.puts "---"

  end
end # task :post

def ask(message, valid_options)
  if valid_options
    answer = get_stdin("#{message} #{valid_options.to_s.gsub(/"/, '').gsub(/, /,'/')} ") while !valid_options.include?(answer)
  else
    answer = get_stdin(message)
  end
  answer
end

def get_stdin(message)
  print message
  STDIN.gets.chomp
end