GJOTS2(1)

okay so bestie, you just pulled up gjots2(1) from the General Commands Manual and honestly? iconic choice. section 1, general commands, we love her. sit down, grab a strawberry something, and let's get you fluent 💖

---

✨ NAME ✨

gjots2 — a gnome-2/X11 jotter. that's it, that's the whole vibe. a little place to put your little thoughts 🎀

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

gjots2 [options] gjotsfile

---

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so gjots2 is a fairly simple jotter application for your desktop, no cap. it shows you all your data organised in a tree, and every leaf of that tree is your text. main character data structure fr fr 🌳

getting your stuff into gjots2 is genuinely easy, bestie:

• you can just type it in ✍️
• you can cut and paste text 📋
• or you can use an editor to convert other text files into the simple gjots2 format (peep the FILE FORMAT section below for the tea)

you can also take an existing DOCBOOK file and convert it into gjots2 format with docbook2gjots(1). slay.

and when you're done? gjots2 files convert super cleanly into HTML with gjots2html(1), or into DOCBOOK with gjots2docbook(1). your notes, but make them ✨everywhere✨

🔐 the encryption part (yes, sensitive data)

sensitive data can be encrypted by ccrypt(1), openssl(1) or gpg(1) — and the way you do it is simply by saving with an appropriate file suffix and providing a password. that's it. that's the trick:

• ccrypt → .cpt
• openssl → .ssl
• gpg → .gpg

🚨 don't forget your passwords. obviously, the appropriate encryption utility must have been installed. (and yeah — forget the password and that data is gone-gone. 💀)

🖋️ formatting

simple text formatting is provided with the usual cut & paste operations, plus paragraph formatting (line wrapping) according to the line length you set in Settings->Preferences. lines get formatted when you press the Wrap button or hit ^L.

this needs the fmt(1) command, which lives in the coreutils package in fedora and in the sys-apps/textutils directory on Gentoo. iykyk 🫶

🧚 external editor

an external editor (configured in Settings->Preferences) can be invoked by pressing the Ext.Ed button. gjots2 gets suspended while the editing is carried on — she's polite like that. 💅

🔒 file locking

file locking is implemented by a lockfile (.#filename) in the same directory as the file being edited. multiple users can open the file readonly, but only one user can open the file for writing. and because the locking is done with a lockfile, even NFS-mounted files can be protected. no gatecrashing the group chat 🚪

---

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• --help — prints help. we love a helper 🥰
• -g, --geometry WIDTHxHEIGHT[+X+Y] — initial window geometry for gjots2. heads up though: the X and Y components are presently ignored, so don't come for her about that.
• -p, --purge-password — when opening an encrypted file, gjots now remembers the password for subsequent writes. to restore the old behaviour where gjots purged the password, use this option. retro vibes 🌈
• -r, --readonly — opens the gjotsfile in readonly mode, which means no locking and no ability to write. look, don't touch 👀
• -d, --debug — debug to stdout 🐛
• -t, --trace — trace lines as they execute 🔍
• -V, --version — print the version and quit. short, sweet, periodt.

---

✨ FILES ✨

• $HOME/.gjotsfile — the default data file 🏠
• `dirname filename`/.#`basename filename` — the lock file for the file called filename 🔐

---

✨ FILE FORMAT ✨

gjots2 uses a simple text file format, with the addition of a hierarchy of items introduced by keywords. the keywords need to be at the start of line to be recognised — no sneaking them in mid-sentence.

only 3 keywords are presently used:

• \NewEntry — starts a new entry
• \NewFolder — promotes the current item to a folder
• \EndFolder — ends a folder

the first line in every entry is used as the 'title' for the tree. so make it a good one bestie ✨

in a future release the \Option keyword may be added. 👀 noted.

---

✨ EXAMPLE ✨

\NewEntry
title1
this is the stuff that goes into title1

\NewFolder
\NewEntry
title3
title 3's stuff

\EndFolder

---

✨ AUTHOR ✨

written by Bob Hepple <bhepple@freeshell.org> 🫶

http://bhepple.freeshell.org/gjots

---

✨ COPYRIGHT ✨

Copyright (c) 2002-2011 Robert Hepple

this is free software; see the source for copying conditions. there is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. (translation: she's free, she's yours, but she comes with zero promises 💀)

---

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• gjots2html(1)
• gjots2docbook(1)
• docbook2gjots(1)

also, see the gjots2(1) README, probably as something like:

gjots /usr/share/doc/gjots-0.8/gjots2.gjots

or

netscape /usr/share/doc/gjots-0.8/gjots2.html

---

and that's the whole page, bestie 🎀💖 this was GJOTS2(1), hanging out in the General Commands Manual, from the gjots source — go forth and jot, you absolute icon 👑✨