Protesilaos Stavrou

🏆 I provide private lessons on Emacs, Linux, and Life in general: https://protesilaos.com/coach/. Lessons continue throughout the year.

Emacs: use custom file type with Denote

The current development version of denote provides a fully fledged mechanism to control how all file-type-aware operations are carried out. The point of entry is the denote-file-types variable. This is an advanced feature intended for experienced users who need a bespoke setup. Nothing changes for other users.

A “file-type-aware operation” is one that relates to tasks like (i) inserting front matter for new notes, (ii) formatting denote: links using the appropriate syntax, (iii) concatenating keywords in the front matter, (iv) determining the style of the date, (v) specifying the file type extension, and others. In short, we can write notes with Denote in any file type we want. By default Denote supports Org, Markdown+YAML, Markdown+TOML, and plain text files.

In this tutorial, I show how to define a shell file type. A more realistic scenario would be something like LaTeX or AsciiDoc, though I do not know enough about them.

[ Denote is a simple note-taking tool. It is based on the idea that notes should follow a predictable and descriptive file-naming scheme. The file name must offer a clear indication of what the note is about, without reference to any other metadata. Denote basically streamlines the creation of such files while providing facilities to link between them. ]

Anatomy of a file type

The denote-file-types is an alist. Each element is of the form (SYMBOL PROPERTY-LIST). The SYMBOL is one of those specified in denote-file-type or an arbitrary symbol that defines a new file type. Using the org entry as an example:

(org
 :extension ".org"
 :date-function denote-date-org-timestamp
 :front-matter denote-org-front-matter
 :title-key-regexp "^#\\+title\\s-*:"
 :title-value-function identity
 :title-value-reverse-function denote-trim-whitespace
 :keywords-key-regexp "^#\\+filetags\\s-*:"
 :keywords-value-function denote-format-keywords-for-org-front-matter
 :keywords-value-reverse-function denote-extract-keywords-from-front-matter
 :link denote-org-link-format
 :link-in-context-regexp denote-org-link-in-context-regexp)

The doc string of denote-file-types explains what each of those properties pertains to. In simple terms, we have the flexibility to make notes look exactly how we want.

The one I explain below is this:

(shell
 :extension ".sh"
 :date-function denote-date-iso-8601
 :front-matter my-denote-shell-front-matter
 :title-key-regexp "^# title\\s-*:"
 :title-value-function identity
 :title-value-reverse-function denote-trim-whitespace
 :keywords-key-regexp "^# tags\\s-*:"
 :keywords-value-function denote-format-keywords-for-text-front-matter
 :keywords-value-reverse-function denote-extract-keywords-from-front-matter
 :link my-denote-shell-link-format
 :link-in-context-regexp my-denote-shell-link-in-context-regexp)

Details of the ‘shell’ file type

When defining a new file type, we probably want to specify how the front matter should look (although we can always reuse the existing formats like denote-org-front-matter). Here I am creating a new variable, called my-denote-shell-front-matter:

;; Demo to add shell script file type.  Why shell?  For demo purposes!
(defvar my-denote-shell-front-matter
  "#!/bin/sh

# title:      %s
# date:       %s
# tags:       %s
# identifier: %s
\n"
  "Demo shell script front matter.
It is passed to `format' with arguments TITLE, DATE, KEYWORDS,
ID.  Advanced users are advised to consult Info node `(denote)
Change the front matter format'.")

Since the front matter is custom, I need to tell Denote what regexp to use to find the “title” and “keywords” lines. Check again the value of my-denote-shell-front-matter. It is a line that starts with #, has a space, and then the relevant word:

;; Focus on these two:
:title-key-regexp "^# title\\s-*:"
:keywords-key-regexp "^# tags\\s-*:"

;; The complete list
(shell
 :extension ".sh"
 :date-function denote-date-iso-8601
 :front-matter my-denote-shell-front-matter
 :title-key-regexp "^# title\\s-*:"
 :title-value-function identity
 :title-value-reverse-function denote-trim-whitespace
 :keywords-key-regexp "^# tags\\s-*:"
 :keywords-value-function denote-format-keywords-for-text-front-matter
 :keywords-value-reverse-function denote-extract-keywords-from-front-matter
 :link my-denote-shell-link-format
 :link-in-context-regexp my-denote-shell-link-in-context-regexp)

We may then want to specify how denote: links should look like. For this example, I am picking a syntax that will produce output of this sort:

<Title of note here><denote:20220614T130812>

Here is the my-denote-shell-link-format variable that declares the desired style (I just picked the style with the angled brackets on a whimsy):

(defvar my-denote-shell-link-format "<%2$s><denote:%1$s>"
  "Demo format of shell link to note.
The %N$s notation is for `format', as the supplied arguments are
IDENTIFIER and TITLE, in this order.

Also see `my-denote-shell-link-in-context-regexp'.")

Then we want to make Denote aware of how those links are rendered in their context, in order to extract the identifier from them (to create backlinks and the like):

(defvar my-denote-shell-link-in-context-regexp
  (concat "<.*?>" "<denote:"  "\\(?1:" denote-id-regexp "\\)" ">")
  "Regexp to match a Markdown link in its context.
The format of such links is `my-denote-shell-link-format'.")

For this demo, I am using the denote-date-iso-8601 for the :date-function. Other similar functions already implemented in denote.el are denote-date-org-timestamp, denote-date-rfc3339. Use those or inspect them and then write your own variant.

The rest of this new shell entry is similar to the one for text.

Register the new ‘shell’ file type

Below is the denote-file-types with the new entry prepended to the default value. I am writing it this way for didactic purposes, though one can always rely on add-to-list:

(setq denote-file-types
      '((shell
         :extension ".sh"
         :date-function denote-date-iso-8601
         :front-matter my-denote-shell-front-matter
         :title-key-regexp "^# title\\s-*:"
         :title-value-function identity
         :title-value-reverse-function denote-trim-whitespace
         :keywords-key-regexp "^# tags\\s-*:"
         :keywords-value-function denote-format-keywords-for-text-front-matter
         :keywords-value-reverse-function denote-extract-keywords-from-front-matter
         :link my-denote-shell-link-format
         :link-in-context-regexp my-denote-shell-link-in-context-regexp)
        (org
         :extension ".org"
         :date-function denote-date-org-timestamp
         :front-matter denote-org-front-matter
         :title-key-regexp "^#\\+title\\s-*:"
         :title-value-function identity
         :title-value-reverse-function denote-trim-whitespace
         :keywords-key-regexp "^#\\+filetags\\s-*:"
         :keywords-value-function denote-format-keywords-for-org-front-matter
         :keywords-value-reverse-function denote-extract-keywords-from-front-matter
         :link denote-org-link-format
         :link-in-context-regexp denote-org-link-in-context-regexp)
        (markdown-yaml
         :extension ".md"
         :date-function denote-date-rfc3339
         :front-matter denote-yaml-front-matter
         :title-key-regexp "^title\\s-*:"
         :title-value-function denote-surround-with-quotes
         :title-value-reverse-function denote-trim-whitespace-then-quotes
         :keywords-key-regexp "^tags\\s-*:"
         :keywords-value-function denote-format-keywords-for-md-front-matter
         :keywords-value-reverse-function denote-extract-keywords-from-front-matter
         :link denote-md-link-format
         :link-in-context-regexp denote-md-link-in-context-regexp)
        (markdown-toml
         :extension ".md"
         :date-function denote-date-rfc3339
         :front-matter denote-toml-front-matter
         :title-key-regexp "^title\\s-*="
         :title-value-function denote-surround-with-quotes
         :title-value-reverse-function denote-trim-whitespace-then-quotes
         :keywords-key-regexp "^tags\\s-*="
         :keywords-value-function denote-format-keywords-for-md-front-matter
         :keywords-value-reverse-function denote-extract-keywords-from-front-matter
         :link denote-md-link-format
         :link-in-context-regexp denote-md-link-in-context-regexp)
        (text
         :extension ".txt"
         :date-function denote-date-iso-8601
         :front-matter denote-text-front-matter
         :title-key-regexp "^title\\s-*:"
         :title-value-function identity
         :title-value-reverse-function denote-trim-whitespace
         :keywords-key-regexp "^tags\\s-*:"
         :keywords-value-function denote-format-keywords-for-text-front-matter
         :keywords-value-reverse-function denote-extract-keywords-from-front-matter
         :link denote-org-link-format
         :link-in-context-regexp denote-org-link-in-context-regexp)))

With this in place, we are ready to use the new file type. If the denote-file-type user option has a nil value, then shell becomes the default when we invoke the denote command. This is because Denote uses the first file type in the denote-file-types. We can always have something like this, if we want another default:

(setq denote-file-type 'org)

Or simply re-arrange the denote-file-types. 🙃

The command denote-type prompts for a file type and then creates the note, using the familiar minibuffer prompts (or check the user option denote-prompts).

Test the new file type

I invoke denote-type, which now includes shell in the list of candidates for available file types. I pick that one, supply a title at the relevant prompt and a couple of keywords in the next prompt. Et voilĂ ! These are the contents of the new file I get:

#!/bin/sh

# title:      Testing the new file type
# date:       2022-10-30
# tags:       denote  tutorial
# identifier: 20221030T115549

The file name is also what I expect:

20221030T115549--testing-the-new-file-type__denote_tutorial.sh

Beautiful! 💕

All commands related to links between notes, acting on the front matter, or renaming a note recognise this file as a “note”. Denote does not care that this is a shell script: it just works!

Coming in Denote version 1.2.0

The denote-file-types is not a user option. It is a variable that only advanced users should configure, assuming they have a need for it. I repeat, nothing changes for other users: Denote will behave exactly how it did before.

This feature will be widely available in the next stable release, which I expect to deliver at the end of November 2022 (tentative).

I announced this earlier on the mailing list, in case you wish to participate there: https://lists.sr.ht/~protesilaos/denote/%3C87a65deryt.fsf%40protesilaos.com%3E.

Sources

Watch the video demo that was produced before version 0.1.0 of the package. It is still relevant, though the implementation details have changed.

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