Save and edit your clipboard content as a note file
Tp-Note is a note-taking-tool and a template system - freely available for Windows, MacOS and Linux - that consistently synchronizes the note’s meta-data with its filename. Tp-Note’s main design goal is to convert some input text - usually provided by the system’s clipboard - into a Markdown note file with a descriptive YAML header and a meaningful filename. Tp-Note collects various information about its environment and the clipboard and stores them in variables. New notes are created by filling these variables in predefined and customizable Tera-templates. TP-Note’s default templates are written in Markdown and can be easily adapted to any other markup language if needed. After creating a new note, TP-Note launches the system’s text editor and connects the default web browser to Tp- Note’s internal Markdown/RestructuredText renderer and web server. The viewer detects note file changes and updates the rendition accordingly.
On Tue, 2023-12-19 at 12:58 +1100, Dev Rain wrote:
Found Tp-Note awhile back and it has become part of my daily workflow, and indeed part of my daily note-taking life. I wanted to extend my thanks; so thank you. dev.rain
Read more in Tp-Note’s user manual, Download Tp-Note or visit the project page: Tp-Note - Minimalistic note-taking.
User documentation:
Introductory video
Project page:
Tp-Note’s project page, which you are reading right now, lists where you can download Tp-Note and gives an overview of Tp-Note’s resources and documentation.
User manual:
The user manual showcases how to best use use Tp-Note and how to integrate it with your file manager.
Unix man-page:
The Unix man-page is Tp-Note’s technical reference. Here you learn how to customize Tp-Note’s templates and how to change its default settings.
Developer documentation:
API documentation
Tp-Note’s program code documentation targets mainly software developers. The code is split into a library tpnote-lib and the command line application tpnote. The advanced user may consult the Tp-Note’s config module documentation which explains the default templates and setting. Many of them can be customized through Tp-Note’s configuration file.
Repository:
Installer package for Windows:
As this early version of the Windows installer is not signed yet, Windows will show the error message “Windows protected your PC”. As a work-around, when you click on the link “More info”, a ”Run anyway” button will appear allowing you to continue the installation process. In general, regardless of where a program comes from, I recommend checking every installable file with VirusTotal.
Package compiled for Debian/Ubuntu:
Binaries for Ubuntu-Linux 18.04, Windows, MacOS:
Open the latest release.
Open assets.
Download the packed executable for your operating system.
Installation: see below.
Executable for Windows:
Linux binary (compiled with Debian):
The following “musl” version also works on a headless system.
Binaries for Raspberry Pi (32 bit):
Binaries for Raspberry Pi (64 bit):
An official package is available on NetBSD and other “pkgsrc” supported platforms.
To install Tp-Note on NetBSD, simply use the native package manager:
pkgin install tpnoteAn official package is available on NixOS:
environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.tpnote ]; First install the Nix package manager available for Linux, MacOS and Windows (WSL2). Alternatively, for Linux there are also prebuilt Deb/Pacman/Rpm Nix installers available.
Once you have the Nix package manager installed on your system, try out Tp-Note with:
nix-shell -p tpnoteor follow installation instructions here: NixOS packages - tpnote
Copy the Unix man-page to
/usr/local/share/man/man1:
Copy Tp-Note’s icon to /usr/local/share/icons/:
Depending on the availability of installer packages for your operating system, the installation process is more or less automated. For Windows users the fully automated installation package tpnote-latest-x86_64.msi is available. For more information, please consult the Distribution section above and the Installation section in Tp-Note’s manual.
While upgrading Tp-Note, new features may cause a change in Tp-Notes’s configuration file structure, e.g.:
*** ERROR:
Can not load or parse the (merged) configuration file(s):
---
invalid length 3, expected fewer elements in array in `viewer.served_mime_types`
Note: this error may occur after upgrading Tp-Note due to some incompatible
configuration file changes.
Tp-Note renames and thus disables the last sourced configuration file.
Additional technical details:
* Command line parameters:
tpnote -b
* Sourced configuration files:
/home/joe/.config/tpnote/tpnote.tomlMote, the configuration file backup is stored in the same directory
as the last sourced configuration file,
e.g. /home/joe/.config/tpnote/. If Tp-Note sources more
than one configuration file, consider the possibility of syntax errors
in any of these files (cf. Customization
section of Tp-Note’s man-page).
If the above precompiled binaries do not suite you, you can compile Tp-Note yourself.
Download, compile and install Tp-Note:
Building on Linux
cargo install tpnote
sudo cp ~/.cargo/bin/tpnote /usr/local/bin
# Download icon
cd /usr/local/share/icons
sudo wget https://blog.getreu.net/projects/tp-note/assets/tpnote.svgOn Linux, Tp-Note displays errors and debug messages as notifications. This requires a Linux/BSD based desktop environment that follows the XDG specification, e.g. KDE, Gnome, XFCE, LXDC, Mate (and most others).1
Recommended Linux console and server version
The full-featured version of Tp-Note depends on GUI libraries like Xlib which might not be available on a headless system. Either download the Musl version x86_64-unknown-linux-musl/release/tpnote or compile Tp-Note yourself without default features:
cargo install --no-default-features \
--features lang-detection,renderer tpnote
sudo cp ~/.cargo/bin/tpnote /usr/local/binIf Tp-Note’s binary size if of concern, omit the
lang-detection feature in the cargo invocation
above. The lang-detection feature causes 95% of the final
binary size because of its extensive language models.
Building on Windows and macOS
Build the full-featured version2 with:
cargo install tpnoteDebian makes it easy to cross-compile for foreign architectures. Here are some examples:
Target Musl:
rustup target add x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
sudo apt install musl-tools
cargo build --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl --releaseTarget Raspberry Pi (32 bit):
rustup target add armv7-unknown-linux-gnueabihf
sudo apt install crossbuild-essential-armhf
CARGO_TARGET_ARMV7_UNKNOWN_LINUX_GNUEABIHF_LINKER=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc \
cargo build --target armv7-unknown-linux-gnueabihf --releaseTarget Raspberry Pi (arm64, 64 bit):
rustup target add aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu
sudo apt install crossbuild-essential-arm64
CARGO_TARGET_AARCH64_UNKNOWN_LINUX_GNU_LINKER=/usr/bin/aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc \
cargo build --target aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu --releaseTarget Windows:
rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
sudo apt install binutils-mingw-w64 mingw-w64
cargo build --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu --release This project follows Semantic Versioning.
Author:
Copyright:
In case an XDG desktop environment is not available, you
can opt out notifications and message boxes by omitting the
message-box feature by adding
--no-default-features --features lang-detection,read-clipboard,renderer,viewer
to cargo install tpnote. Now, all error messages are dumped
on the console from where you started Tp-Note into
stderr.↩︎
When building for Windows or macOS, it does not make
sense to exclude the message-box feature, because - under
Windows and macOS - it does not rely on the notification library.
Instead, it uses direct OS-API calls for popping up alert boxes. As
these calls have no footprint in binary size or speed, always keep the
message-box feature compiled in.↩︎