creative-writer-cli 0.1.1

A minimalistic CLI tool for creative writing project management.

Creative Writer CLI Project Manager

A minimalistic command-line interface (CLI) tool designed to help writers organize their creative projects, capture ideas, and track progress.

Features

• Main Menu: Navigate easily through options to create, view, or delete projects.
• Idea Capture: Quickly jot down ideas, structured by project type (Novel, Poem, Scientific Article, Scientific Book, Other).
• Project Management: Organize your ideas and content within dedicated project structures.
• Templates: Guided input based on predefined templates for different writing types.
• Progress Overview: See what sections are complete, what's still missing, and the count of items (e.g., characters, plot points) at a glance. Includes a total word count for the project.
• Export Project: Export your entire project content to Markdown, JSON, or TXT formats. (Note: BibTeX, RIS, and Zotero RDF export are currently under development and may not function as expected.)

Enhanced Novel Project Sections

For 'Novel' projects, the following sections offer structured input, summary tables, and detailed views:

• Characters: Add, edit, and delete characters with fields like Name, Race, Class, Gender, Background, Skills, Equipment, Positive Traits, and Negative Traits.
• Plot: Manage plot points with fields for Name, Details, Timeline/Order, Characters Involved, Location, and Status.
• Worldbuilding: Organize world elements by Name, Type (Location, Culture, Technology, Magic System, Other), Description, History/Lore, and Connections.
• Themes: Define themes with fields for Theme Name, Description, Motifs/Symbols, and Related Elements.
• Notes/Ideas: Capture general notes and ideas with a Title, Content, and Tags for easy categorization.

Scientific Article Project Enhancements

• Dynamic Section Menus: Menus adapt to the specific needs of scientific article sections.
• Content Snippets in Overview: For sections like Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion, the project overview displays a snippet of the content.
• References Management: A structured section for managing references with fields for Author(s), Year, Title, Journal/Conference, and DOI/URL. Now includes the ability to import reference data directly from a DOI URL using the CrossRef API.

Development Status

Please Note: The 'Scientific Book' project type is currently under active development. While basic functionality is available, some sections may still be generic or lack the full structured input and detailed views present in the 'Novel' project type.

Known Errors

No errors currently known.

Tech Stack

• Language: Python
• CLI Libraries: rich (for rich text and tables), questionary (for interactive prompts)
• Data Storage: Local JSON files

Installation and Usage

The creative_writer_cli can be installed and run in several ways:

1. One-Liner Execution from GitHub (Quick Start)

This method allows you to run the CLI directly from the GitHub repository without cloning it first. It will set up a temporary environment, run the application, and clean up afterward.

bash <(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wieserd/creative_writer_cli_project_manager/main/run_from_github.sh)

2. Using pipx (Recommended for CLI Applications)

pipx installs Python applications into isolated environments to prevent dependency conflicts, making it ideal for CLI tools.

# First, install pipx if you don't have it
pip install pipx
pipx ensurepath # Ensures pipx-installed apps are on your PATH

# Install the creative-writer-cli
pipx install creative-writer-cli

# Run the application
creative-writer

3. Using pip (Standard Python Package Installation)

You can install the package directly using pip within a virtual environment.

# Create and activate a virtual environment
python3 -m venv my_writer_env
source my_writer_env/bin/activate

# Install the package
pip install creative-writer-cli

# Run the application
creative-writer

4. Running from Source (for Development or Quick Start)

If you want to run the application directly from the cloned repository, you can use the provided run.sh script. This script will set up a virtual environment, install dependencies, and start the CLI.

# Clone the repository (if you haven't already)
git clone https://github.com/wieserd/creative_writer_cli_project_manager.git
cd creative_writer_cli_project_manager

# Run the setup script
./run.sh

(If ./run.sh does not work, you might need to give it execute permissions first: chmod +x ./run.sh)

5. Installing from Git Repository (for specific branches or pre-release versions)

You can also install directly from the GitHub repository using pip.

# Create and activate a virtual environment
python3 -m venv my_writer_env
source my_writer_env/bin/activate

# Install directly from GitHub
pip install git+https://github.com/wieserd/creative_writer_cli_project_manager.git

# Run the CLI tool
creative-writer

Project Data Storage

The creative_writer_cli stores your project data in JSON files. The location of these project files is determined as follows:

1. Custom Location (Environment Variable): If you set the CREATIVE_WRITER_PROJECTS_DIR environment variable, the application will use that path to store your projects. This is useful if you want to keep your projects in a specific directory (e.g., a cloud-synced folder like Dropbox or Google Drive).

   Example (for Bash/Zsh):

   export CREATIVE_WRITER_PROJECTS_DIR="/path/to/your/custom/projects"
   creative-writer
   

2. Default Location: If the CREATIVE_WRITER_PROJECTS_DIR environment variable is not set, the application will default to storing projects in a hidden directory within your user's home folder:

   ~/.creative_writer_cli/projects/
   

   This directory will be automatically created if it doesn't exist.

Portability

This project is designed to be fully portable. The run.sh script dynamically determines the project's location, meaning you can place the creative_writer_cli_project_manager folder anywhere on your system, and the application will run correctly without needing to modify any internal paths.

Example Usage

Once the application starts, you will be presented with a main menu:

What do you want to do? 
❯ Create New Project
  View Existing Projects
  Delete Project
  Exit

Follow the prompts to create a new project, select its type, and start organizing your writing. For 'Novel' projects, explore the structured sections for Characters, Plot, Worldbuilding, Themes, and Notes/Ideas. For 'Scientific Article' projects, you can begin adding content to its specific sections and manage references.

Project Structure

creative_writer_cli_project_manager/
├── .git/                               # Git version control directory
├── src/                                # Source code directory
│   ├── creative_writer_cli/            # Core application logic
│   │   ├── core/                       # Core logic/models
│   │   ├── data/                       # Data handling modules
│   │   │   └── repositories/           # Data repositories
│   │   │       ├── __init__.py
│   │   │       ├── json_store.py       # Handles low-level JSON file operations
│   │   │       └── project_repository.py # Manages project data (CRUD)
│   │   ├── ui/                         # User Interface modules
│   │   │   ├── cli_app.py              # Main CLI application logic and menus
│   │   │   ├── display/                # Modules for displaying data (tables, views)
│   │   │   │   ├── tables.py
│   │   │   │   └── views.py
│   │   │   ├── wizards/                # Modules for interactive user input (wizards)
│   │   │   │   ├── generic_wizards.py
│   │   │   │   ├── novel_wizards.py
│   │   │   │   └── scientific_wizards.py
│   │   │   ├── ascii_art.py
│   │   │   ├── display.py
│   │   │   └── wizards.py
│   │   └── utils/                      # Utility modules
│   │       ├── export_formatter.py
│   │       ├── path_helpers.py         # Utility for constructing file paths
│   │       ├── reference_export_formatter.py
│   │       └── word_counter.py         # Logic for calculating word counts
│   ├── cli.py                                # Application entry point
│   └── projects/                       # Directory for storing user projects (initially empty)
├── .gitattributes                      # Git attributes configuration
├── .gitignore                          # Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore
├── LICENSE                             # Project license file
├── README.md                           # Project documentation

├── run.sh                              # Script to set up environment and run the application
└── venv/                               # Python virtual environment (created by run.sh)

Portability

This project is designed to be fully portable. The run.sh script dynamically determines the project's location, meaning you can place the creative_writer_cli_project_manager folder anywhere on your system, and the application will run correctly without needing to modify any internal paths.

Example Usage

Once the application starts, you will be presented with a main menu:

What do you want to do? 
❯ Create New Project
  View Existing Projects
  Delete Project
  Exit

Follow the prompts to create a new project, select its type, and start organizing your writing. For 'Novel' projects, explore the structured sections for Characters, Plot, Worldbuilding, Themes, and Notes/Ideas. For 'Scientific Article' projects, you can begin adding content to its specific sections and manage references.

Project Structure

creative_writer_cli_project_manager/
├── .git/                               # Git version control directory
├── src/                                # Source code directory
│   ├── creative_writer_cli/            # Core application logic
│   │   ├── core/                       # Core logic/models
│   │   ├── data/                       # Data handling modules
│   │   │   └── repositories/           # Data repositories
│   │   │       ├── __init__.py
│   │   │       ├── json_store.py       # Handles low-level JSON file operations
│   │   │       └── project_repository.py # Manages project data (CRUD)
│   │   ├── ui/                         # User Interface modules
│   │   │   ├── cli_app.py              # Main CLI application logic and menus
│   │   │   ├── display/                # Modules for displaying data (tables, views)
│   │   │   │   ├── tables.py
│   │   │   │   └── views.py
│   │   │   ├── services/               # Service classes for UI logic
│   │   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   │   ├── project_interaction_service.py
│   │   │   │   └── section_editor.py   # Placeholder for future refactoring
│   │   │   ├── section_handlers/       # Handlers for specific section types
│   │   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   │   ├── base_section_handler.py
│   │   │   │   ├── character_handler.py
│   │   │   │   ├── plot_handler.py
│   │   │   │   ├── worldbuilding_handler.py
│   │   │   │   ├── theme_handler.py
│   │   │   │   ├── notes_handler.py
│   │   │   │   ├── reference_handler.py
│   │   │   │   ├── scientific_text_handler.py
│   │   │   │   ├── chapter_handler.py
│   │   │   │   └── generic_handler.py
│   │   │   ├── wizards/                # Modules for interactive user input (wizards)
│   │   │   │   ├── generic_wizards.py
│   │   │   │   ├── novel_wizards.py
│   │   │   │   └── scientific_wizards.py
│   │   │   ├── ascii_art.py
│   │   │   ├── display.py
│   │   │   └── wizards.py
│   │   └── utils/                      # Utility modules
│   │       ├── export_formatter.py
│   │       ├── path_helpers.py         # Utility for constructing file paths
│   │       ├── reference_export_formatter.py
│   │       └── word_counter.py         # Logic for calculating word counts
│   ├── cli.py                                # Application entry point
│   └── projects/                       # Directory for storing user projects (initially empty)
├── .gitattributes                      # Git attributes configuration
├── .gitignore                          # Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore
├── LICENSE                             # Project license file
├── README.md                           # Project documentation

├── run.sh                              # Script to set up environment and run the application
└── venv/                               # Python virtual environment (created by run.sh)