Clipprs ✂️ - CLI Personal Relations System

Why?

I built Clipprs to keep track of the little things that make up so much of the people we hold dear, and to help us all be better, less forgetful, and more compassionate friends.

Throughout our days, weeks, lives, we collect untold amounts of knowledge about the people we encounter.

Unfortunately, try as we might, we're not equipped to handle the sheer volume of information that comes our way, and so we tend to forget things about the people around us as time wears on.

Rather than try to battle my physiology, I've accepted my limitations and instead created a solution based on the technology I use daily.

While it may be a bit confronting at first to consider indexing information on the people around you, I believe that it can ultimately lead to you being a more considerate and compassionate friend to the people you care about.

With a few keystrokes, you can shield from the ravages of time your vast corpus of information on the people around you. Names, dates, places. Favourite colours, pet names, foods to avoid. All the little things that together, add up to form a key part of the people we share our lives with.

Quickstart guide

Installation

• Install Clipprs with -

  npm install -g clipprs

Setup

• This step is not necessary, but I highly recommend going through it to ensure your database file is backed up somewhere safe — especially as this project is still in its infancy.

• Run -

  clipprs setup
  
  ? What would you like to change? … 
  ❯ Database File Path
    Table Column Widths

• We are going to change the database file path from the default directory to one which is backed up.

• For this, I use the Google Drive desktop application which keeps a folder on my local machine in sync with my Google Drive. There are many other providers (Dropbox, Mega etc.) which all have similar offerings.

• After selecting "Database File Path" you will be prompted to enter a new path to store the file, with the default path displayed. Only the path is required, the filename is automatically inserted -

  ✔ What would you like to change? · Database File Path
  ? Enter a new location to save the database file (TAB to autocomplete)
  › /Users/harrisonbroadbent/Documents/projects/clipprs
  
  · /Users/harrisonbroadbent/Google Drive/life/clipprs
  Updated path to /Users/harrisonbroadbent/Google Drive/life/clipprs

• This will keep the clipprs_db.json file backed up, and will also allow you to work across different machines by pointing all your Clipprs instances at the db file.

Add

• Add a new clip to your system with -

> clipprs new

? Add a person to your Clips -  … 
First Name :  
Last Name  : …
Birthday   : …
Bio        : …

You can use ctrl + n to add fields and ctrl + r to remove fields.

Note that the four initial fields are required and cannot be removed.

View

• View all your clips with -

> clipprs view

┌────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┐
│ First Name     │ Last Name      │ Birthday       │ Bio            │
├────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┤
│ Steve          │ Austin         │ ???            │ He is stone    │
│                │                │                │ cold.          │
├────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┤
│ Harrison       │ Broadbent      │ 21-02-2002     │ Engineering    │
│                │                │                │ student, likes │
│                │                │                │ to run and     │
│                │                │                │ code, eats a   │
│                │                │                │ lot.           │
└────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┘

By default, this will only show the four required fields, like above. You can view all the fields within your database of clips by passing the -a flag -

> clipprs view -a

This will attempt to show you the value of each entry for all the fields in your database, with blanks used to show an undefined field, ie -

  ┌────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┐
  │ First Name     │ Last Name      │ Birthday       │ Bio            │ Favourite      │
  │                │                │                │                │ Colour         │
  ├────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┤
  │ Steve          │ Austin         │ ???            │ He is stone    │                │
  │                │                │                │ cold.          │                │
  ├────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┤
  │ Harrison       │ Broadbent      │ 21-02-2002     │ Engineering    │ Carolina blue  │
  │                │                │                │ student, likes │                │
  │                │                │                │ to run and     │                │
  │                │                │                │ code, eats a   │                │
  │                │                │                │ lot.           │                │
  └────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┘

If the table containing all the fields in the database is too wide for the terminal however, the table will be truncated and only show a portion of all the fields.

All the fields for a given entry can be viewed by searching for an entry and then viewing it, as discussed in the following section.

Search

• Search, Edit, View and Delete your clips -

> clipprs search

? Search and edit your Clips -  …
Harrison Broadbent
Steve Austin

Select a clip with enter, and then select from the given options using the arrow keys -

?  …
❯ View
  Edit
  Delete
  Close

• View: Shows an extended view of all fields for a given entry.
• Edit: Allows you to edit the entry, add and remove fields etc.
• Delete: Deletes an entry after confirmation.
• Close: Closes the dialogue.

Erase

• You can erase your database of clips using -

  > clipprs erase

  and then choosing (y) for both of the confirmations.

  THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE!

Help

• At any time, you can get help using -

  > clipprs help  
      
  // OR
  
  > clipprs help [command]