Mneme

Mneme is a new and elegant note-taking format with a web editor/viewer. The web app edits and views a new type of notes format called a mneme file.

A mneme file is a combination file format. The file format's basic structure comprises of a JSON object. Each key in the key/value pair refers to a topic name, and the value is either a new set of key/value pairs (indicating a subnode), or a string that's formatted in markdown syntax.

The viewer creates a tree of topics from the mneme file, and the bottom-most nodes are always strings in markdown format containing more detailed information about the topic/subtopic. The editor/viewer makes it easy to edit and view the mneme file.

Mneme is named after Mneme, the Muse of Memory. The tree-like structure of the file format makes it easy to divide up concepts into subconcepts as small as is necessary. The markdown format of the text makes it easy to quickly add formatting like bold, italics, code, or lists. The powerful combination of a JSON tree with markdown text makes it easy to maintain, organize and manipulate all of your notes!

View on PyPI: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/mneme/

Here is an animated demo of how the web app looks:

Instructions

** Note: ** Using the Heroku/MongoDB/Flask web stack is optional for using the mneme file format. The file format is just a representation structure that can be used by anything that can handle JSON and markdown formats.

1. Install Mneme.
   pip install --user mneme

2. Test your installation.
   Start the server by typing mneme runserver and go to localhost:5000 in your browser. It should return a 404 error because you haven't registered a mongodb database yet.

3. Create a MongoHQ account.
   Go to http://www.mongohq.com/, click Sign Up and follow the steps to register.

4. Add a new MongoHQ database for mneme.

   1. Create a new MongoHQ database using the free 512MB sandbox version (or paid if you want/need it).
   2. Create a new user to access the database.
      Go to Databases->(your new mneme database)->Admin->Users at the MongoHQ website dashboard, and click the Add User button to add a new user.
   3. Test your MongoHQ database.
      1. Go to Databases->(your new mneme database)->Admin->Overview at the MongoHQ website dashboard and grab the line of code that says Mongo Console.
      2. Replace <user> and <password> with the username and password you created for your database earlier, and run it in the command line. You should now be connected to your new database!

5. Register your MongoHQ database with mneme.

6. Locate the Mongo URI in Databases->(your new mneme database)->Admin->Overview and identify the host, port and database.
   Ex: mongodb://<user>:<password>@oceanic.mongohq.com:10052/mneme, oceanic.mongohq.com is the hostname, 10052 is the port, mneme is the database.

7. Run the mneme register command.
   Fill in the options with the database username/password you created earlier at MongoHQ, and the parameters you identified from the Mongo URI.
   Ex: mneme register --db mneme --username myusername --password mypassword --host oceanic.mongohq.com --port 10052

8. Add or modify an authorized user.
   Run something like mneme authorize --user hello --password world, which in this case would authorize user hello with the password world to use the mneme web app.

9. Test out Mneme!
   Run mneme runserver again and go to localhost:5000. Then log in with your authorized user credentials and start playing around with mneme.
   The interface is self-explanatory. You can use CTRL-S when viewing/editing a particular mneme file to quickly save client-side. The file isn't saved on the server-side until you click Save Mneme, which will redirect you to the main page with all of the mnemes listed.

Shortcuts

• Tab in the editing window will indent the selected text by 4 spaces (for multi-line code).
• Shift-tab in the editing window will un-indent the selected text by 4 spaces (for multi-line code).
• Ctrl-Alt-PgUp when viewing a particular mneme file will go into View mode.
• Ctrl-Alt-PgDown when viewing a particular mneme file will go into Edit mode.

Exporting

After you've written a bunch of notes using mneme, you might want to keep the files locally in their native JSON file format for reference or as a backup. MongoDB preserves the mneme files in their native JSON format automatically. Here's how to do a simple export using the same credentials you used in the steps to get it set up:

mongoexport --host (hostname:port) -u <user> -p<pass> --db <db> --collection <collection> --out <json output file>

Example:
mongoexport --host oceanic.mongohq.com:10052 -u mnememaster -ppasswd --db mnemedb --collection mneme --out mnemes.json

Heroku

You probably want to be able to use mneme as a web app so you can edit notes on your mobile phone or tablet wherever you are. It also opens the door to modify the web app in the ways you want it to work. Here are the steps to get mneme up and running with Heroku.

1. Create a Heroku account.

2. Login to Heroku.
   Run heroku login in the terminal and type in your account credentials.

3. Clone the Mneme source code. Run git clone https://github.com/Risto-Stevcev/flask-mneme.git in the terminal and the directory you want it to install into.

4. Create a virtualenv environment.
   In the clone directory, you should see several python files such as manage.py, and folders like templates and logs. Create a virtualenv environment in this directory and name it venv. Type:
   virtualenv venv

5. Start the virtualenv environment and install the python dependencies.

6. Start the environment with this command: source venv/bin/activate
   You should see (venv) next to your shell prompt indicating that it's active.

7. Install all of the missing dependencies listed in the dependencies.txt file in the cloned mneme folder.
   Ex: pip install Flask gunicorn as a bare minimum. You'll also need the rest, such as mongodb's dependencies.

8. Test that the Procfile works.
   Run foreman start in the directory that Procfile lives in. You might need to install foreman if you haven't already for this step.

9. Deploy the application to Heroku.

10. Create a new Heroku app by running the command:
    heroku create
    The command should have added a remote repository called heroku. Check by typing git remote -v.

11. Upload your public key to Heroku if you haven't already:
    heroku keys:add ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
    If you don't have a public key (ls ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub returns nothing), Heroku will prompt you to add one automatically. You can use:
    heroku keys:add

12. Push the files upstream to Heroku:
    git push heroku master

13. Test your Heroku app by going to the link generated by Heroku for your app. See Heroku's getting started with python for reference and further reading.

That's it! I hope this was easy to set up, and I hope you enjoy using Mneme! If you have any feature requests, please submit an issue on the project GitHub page with the label enhancement, or bug if you happen to find bugs. Or submit a pull request if you're interested in contributing.