So how would you use your text editor to make a daily notes?
For vim I end up using simple approach:
-
have a
~/docs/journal/directory where I keep yearly journals in asciidoc format (one can use markdown of course). -
have a mapping to quickly open a journal ready to enter you thoughts, notes or a todos for a day.
Define a mapping
" edit global journal file
nnoremap <silent> <leader>ej :call journal#new()<CR>Create ~/.vim/autoload/journal.vim
" Personal jounaling using vim and asciidoctor
" Example mapping: nnoremap <silent> <leader>ej :call journal#new()<CR>
"
" * Opens ~/docs/journal/YEAR.adoc file, where YEAR is a current year, like 2020
"
" * Position cursor 2 lines after current date heading
" == 2020-08-14 Heading
"
" CURSOR IS HERE
"
" * If there is no current date heading, create it and position cursor 2 lines after
" == 2020-08-14
"
" CURSOR IS HERE
func! journal#new() abort
let jfilename = strftime("%Y") . '.adoc'
let jfullname = printf('~/docs/journal/%s', jfilename)
call s:new_entry(jfullname)
endfunc
func! s:new_entry(jfilename) abort
if bufexists(a:jfilename)
exe "b " . a:jfilename
else
exe "e " . a:jfilename
endif
normal! gg
let journal_heading = '= ' . strftime("%Y")
if getline(1) !~ '^' . journal_heading
call append(0, [journal_heading, ""])
endif
let heading_date = '== ' . strftime("%Y-%m-%d")
if search('^'.heading_date, 'cw')
normal! 2j
return
endif
if search('^==\s*\S\+', 'cw')
call append(line('.')-1, heading_date)
normal! 4O
normal! 2k
else
call append(line('$'), heading_date)
normal! G
normal! 2o
endif
endfunc