markdowny

A set of command-line utilities for working with Markdown + YAML files, specifically for novels and short stories.

Setup and usage

Install markdowny using npm as a utility:

npm install --global markdowny

Basic usage is:

markdown verb *.markdown
markdowny-wc *.markdown

Verbs

version

Retrieves the version of the command-line utility and prints it out to the console.

markdowny version

content

Extract the content from one or more files.

markdowny content *.markdown

count

Counts the number of words excluding the YAML header and displays it.

markdowny count *.markdown [options]

Options:

• -t, --total: Add a total line to the bottom that combines.
• -s, --separator: Comma-separates the numbers in the total.

extract

Extract the metadata (front matter) from one or more files.

markdowny extract *.markdown [options]

Options:

• --no-list: Don't write out the extract data as a list/sequence of items (default).
• -y, --yaml: Extract the data as YAML instead of JSON (default).
• --content PROPERTY: Extract the content as a property of the given name instead of just removing it. Defaults to not extracting the content.

list

Displays each file as a Markdown ordered list.

markdowny list *.markdown

Options:

• -o, --output: Direct the output to a file or (default) standard out with -.
• -s, --trim-whitespace: If included, then newlines between the fields will be collapsed down to a single space and the resulting string trimmed at both ends.
• -t, --template: The Handlebars template using the YAML metadata for each file in addition to a _number which is the one-based number of the file. The default value is {{_number}}. {{{title}}}: {{{summary}}}.
  • Some additional conditional operations are allowed such as ge, le, gt, ge, eq, and ne. They can be used like {{#if (lt _number 10)}}0{{/if}}.

sections

Displays each file as a heading 1 section with the title and contents provided.

Assuming that a file has a title and summary (which can be multiple lines) inside it, display a section for each file with the title as heading 1 and the contents of the summary value as the text for that section.

markdowny sections *.markdown -t title -f summary

Options:

• -t, --title: The name of the property to put in for the section. May be nested such as author.name.first. Defaults to title.
• -f, --field: The name of the property used for the contents of the section. Defaults to summary.

table

Displays a table of one or more fields inside the summary.

To list every file, it's title, the number of words inside it, and the list of secondary characters inside a nested value. The :rs makes the "Words" column right-aligned (r) and comma-separated (s).

markdowny table *.markdown -f _basename title _words characters.secondary -t File Title Words:rs "Secondary Characters"

Options:

• -f, --fields: A parameter-separated list of YAML fields to list in the table, in the order they should be shown. Defaults to _basename title. These may also have a format specifier, starting with : (see below). This may be a nested value, such as characters.secondary.
• -t, --titles: A parameter-separated list of titles for the columns. If there are more fields than titles, the field names will be used for the headers. These may have format specifiers.
• --table-start: The characters to insert at the beginning of the row. Defaults to | .
• --table-end: The characters to insert at the end of each row. Defaults to |.
• --table-delimiter: The characters to insert between each field. Defaults to |.
• --no-table-rule: Do not put a dashed line between the header and the various files.
• --no-table-header: Do not display the header titles. The format of the headers is still parsed and used.
• --list-delimiter: The characters to put between list items when inserted into a field. Defaults to , .
• --prefix: The filename prefix that is trimmed from the _filename propery.

There are a number of special properties that are included in all files.

• _filename: The full path of the filename, with the --prefix removed.
• _basename: The name of the file without a directory.
• _words: The number of words in the file, excluding the YAML header.