title: title-meta: Dirnotes README

note: run this with pandoc -T "Dirnotes README" -s README.md -t html > README.html

Dirnotes

SYNOPSIS

The dirnotes family of apps allows you to add a descriptive comment to a file. The descriptions are stored in two places:

in the xattr properties of the file
in a database located in the user's home directory

[The MacOS stores its comments in a similar way.]

The dirnotes app is a GUI app, using the Qt5 framework. At startup, it displays the contents of the current directory, and the comments associated with any of the files or directories. Simple mouse clicks allow you to tunnel down into directories, or rise up the file system. You can create/edit comments and choose whether the xattr or database version of the comments take priority,

The dirnotes-tui is a very similar app, but uses the curses framework to display its activity in a terminal window. This can be handy if you have to work across a network, or if terminal apps are you preference.

The dirnotes-cli is a command line tool, which may be handy for scripting.

USAGE

The dirnotes program displays usage and keystoke info when you press F1. The dirnotes-tui program display onscreen usage when you press the 'h' key, or F1. The dirnotes-cli program has a man page.

In short, you navigate dirnotes and dirnotes-tui by using the up/down arrow keys, to enter into a directory. The -tui version accepts e for edit, s for sort, M to change between xattr/database priority.

The dirnotes-cli has options for -l list and -c create a comment.

Direct Access

Instead of an API, here is how you can get directly at the underlying comment data. If you intend to use the dirnotes apps, try to keep the two versions of the comments in sync.

xattr

Use the commands

    xattr -l [filename]

to display the comments/author/date on a file. For example:

    $ xattr -l /etc/fstab
    user.xdg.comment: controls the default mount bindings
    user.xdg.comment.author: patb
    user.xdg.comment.date: 2022-09-29 08:07:42

The other options on the xattr command line tool allow you to write (xattr -w) or delete (xattr -d) the comments.

database

The comments are stored in an Sqlite3 database, usually located at "~/.dirnotes.db". The database itself is contained within that file, and its schema is this:

    CREATE TABLE dirnotes (name TEXT, date DATETIME, size INTEGER, comment TEXT, comment_date DATETIME, author TEXT)

field	usage	example
name	the long filename, using python's os.path.abspath()	/home/patb/projects/dirnotes/README.md
date	the file's modified date	2020-01-13 09:25:40
size	the byte count of the file	145
comment	a utf-8 string	the readme for the GIT page
comment_date	the date of the comment itself	2020-10-03 22:30:19
author	the system name of the user who created the comment	patb

The 'date' and 'size' fields reflect the file's modification date and size at the time of the last edit of the file comment, which is also 'comment_date'.

MacOS {#macos}

The MacOS inherently supports file comments. The Finder app manages most of the user activity. It handles file comments in a similar manner to Dirnotes. Comments are stored in two places:

in the xattr properties of the file
** using a different xattr-tag
in a database located in each directory
** in the .DS-Store file

The user can examine the file comments by opening the GetInfo dialog, and scrolling down to "Comment"

If the Finder is used to copy/move files, the comments are moved properly to both destinations. If you use the os to copy/move the files, you can ask that the xattr properties get moved, but the .DS-Store file will not be updated. That means the Finder will not see file comments on the destination file.

MacOS has AppleScript, by which you can ask the Finder to perform the file copy/move. In this case, the comments are moved properly.

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