instruct

README.md

instruct

A shell script to give step-by-step instructions. Pipe text into it. It'll be processed as follows:

• Each line is echoed back to you one at a time.
• Hit the Enter key to see the next instruction.
• Lines surrounded by triple backticks are copied to the system clipboard, and the next line of text has the icon ↪ next to it.
• Blank lines are ignored.
• To insert a blank line, use a triple dash (---).

OS X only, due to pbcopy, but easily adapted to other Unix systems.

example.txt

Lines are shown one at a time. Press Enter to see the next line.

Blank lines are ignored.

---

Use --- to show a blank line.

```
Some text
```

Something is now on the clipboard.

instruct.sh

#!/bin/bash

pause() {
  {
    stty -echo
    read
    stty echo
  } < /dev/tty
}

isCode() {
  echo "$1" | grep -q '```'
  test "$?" -eq "0"
}

isBreak() {
  echo "$1" | grep -q '^\-\-\-$'
  test "$?" -eq "0"
}

isNonBlank() {
  echo "$1" | grep -qv '^$'
  test "$?" -eq "0"
}

hasPaste=0

while read line; do
  isCode "$line" && {
    while read line; do
      isCode "$line" && break
      echo "$line"
    done | pbcopy
    hasPaste=1
    continue
  }

  isBreak "$line" && {
    echo ""
    continue
  }

  isNonBlank "$line" && {
    if [ $hasPaste -eq 1 ]; then
      echo "↪  $line"
    else
      echo "   $line"
    fi
    hasPaste=0
    pause
    continue
  }
done