ntropy

Finding notes

ntropy search finds a note and opens it: by a word in it, by a tag or any other field, or by its ULID. This page covers the search, the picker it opens, and reading a note in the terminal.

ntropy search                                # every note
ntropy search tag:work and not status:done   # the notes a query matches
ntropy search 01J8ZA2…                       # one note by its full ULID

search has the alias list. A single match opens in your editor, and several open the picker. Queries combine tags, fields and words with and, or and not; the Query language has the whole grammar.

The picker

The picker is a fuzzy finder over the matches. The input line sits at the bottom, and the results stack upward with the best match closest to the cursor. Type to filter the list as you go. Matched characters show in yellow and the current row in cyan, both taken from your terminal's palette, so the picker follows your theme. The dimmed line under the prompt counts the matches and shows the selected note's ULID. When the terminal is wide enough, its right end names extra keys such as ^Y path.

Key Action
type Filter the list
Down / Ctrl-N Move toward the best match
Up / Ctrl-P Move toward worse matches
Ctrl-D / Ctrl-U Move half a page toward the best / worse matches
PageDown / PageUp Move a full page toward the best / worse matches
Ctrl-W Delete the last word
Enter Open the selected note
Ctrl-Y Print the selected note's path instead, as if you had passed -p
Esc / Ctrl-C Abort

Tip

The picker draws on your terminal even while the output goes into a pipe. ntropy search -p | pbcopy opens the picker and pipes only the chosen note's path to pbcopy.

Closing the editor reconciles the note you opened, the way ntropy reconcile does for the whole vault: it fixes the note's file name to match its current title and refreshes the links that point at it.

Note

A control character or bidi override in a title shows escaped, such as \u{1b}, and you match against that escaped form. Nothing in a title can move the cursor or redraw the screen. Ctrl-Y prints no path that holds such a character. ntropy reconcile gives the note its canonical name, which holds none.

Read a note in the terminal

ntropy show tag:work

ntropy show prints a note in the terminal instead of opening the editor. It takes the same selector as search. The frontmatter comes first, then the styled text, at the terminal's width; --width sets another. A note longer than the screen opens in your $PAGER, or in less -R when $PAGER is unset. Set NO_COLOR to keep the styles and lose the colours.

In a script, -n turns off the picker and the editor, -p prints a path, and -P prints a note's text, so nothing waits on a terminal. Scripting and the shell has the details.