nvpy 0.5

A cross-platform simplenote-syncing note-taking app inspired by Notational Velocity.

nvpy is a simplenote-syncing note-taking tool inspired by Notational Velocity (and a little bit by nvALT too) on OSX and ResophNotes on Windows. It is significantly uglier, but it is cross-platform. Yes, you heard right, you can run this on Linux (tested), Windows (tested) and OS X (in theory).

It was written by Charl Botha, who needed a simplenote client on Linux and doesn’t mind ugliness (that much). nvpy lives happily at https://github.com/cpbotha/nvpy

DISCLAIMER

If nvpy blows up your computer, loses your job or just deletes all your notes, I am NOT liable for anything. Also see the liability clause at the end of the new BSD licence text in the COPYRIGHT file.

That being said, I use nvpy daily on my own precious notes database and it hasn’t disappointed me (yet).

Screenshots and screencasts

• Automatic hyperlinking on Linux:

• This is what nvpy looked like on Windows on May 23, 2012. Search bar at the top showing a regular expression, notes are sorted last modified first, continuously updated markdown preview in chrome behind the nvpy window: nvpy_screenshot_20120523.jpg.

• Screencast of nvpy’s inter-note linking: http://youtu.be/NXuVMZr31SI

Installation

To install the latest development version from github, do:

pip install git+https://github.com/cpbotha/nvpy.git#egg=nvpy

OR, to install the version currently on pypi, do:

pip install nvpy

OR, you can of course use easy_install instead:

easy_install nvpy

github always has the latest development version, whereas I upload tagged snapshots (v0.3 for example) to pypi.

How to run for the first time

Create a file called .nvpy.cfg in your home directory that looks like the following:

[default]
sn_username = your_simplenote_username
sn_password = your_simplenote_password

If you installed this via pip install, you should now be able to start the application by typing “nvpy”. The first time you run it, it will take a while as it downloads all of your simplenote notes. Subsequest runs are much faster as it uses the database it stores in your home directory.

The example nvpy.cfg shows how you can configure the font family and size.

Keyboard handling

nvPY was designed for lightning-speed note-taking and management with the keyboard. Here’s a summary of the different shortcut keys:

Key combo	Action
Ctrl-D	Move note to trash. This can be easily recovered using the simplenote webapp.
Ctrl-F	Start real-time incremental regular expression search. As you type, notes list is filtered. Up / down cursor keys go to previous / next note.
Ctrl-M	Render Markdown note to HTML and open browser window.
Ctrl-N	Create new note.
Ctrl-Q	Exit nvPY.
Ctrl-R	Render reStructuredText (reST) note to HTML and open browser window.
Ctrl-S	Force sync of current note with simplenote server. Saving to disc and syncing to server also happen continuously in the background.
Ctrl-Y	Redo note edits.
Ctrl-Z	Undo note edits.
ESC	Go from edit mode to notes list.
ENTER	Start editing currently selected note. If there’s a search string but no notes in the list, ENTER creates a new note with that search string as its title.

Features

• Syncs with simplenote.

• Partial syncs (whilst notes are being edited) are done by a background thread so you can keep on working at light speed.

• Can be used offline, also without simplenote account.

• Search box does realtime regular expression searching in all your notes.

• Markdown rendering to browser.

• Continuous rendering mode: If you activate this before starting the markdown rendering, nvpy will render new html of the currently open note every few seconds. Due to the refresh tag in the generated HTML, the browser will refresh every few seconds. MAGIC UPDATES!

• reStructuredText (reST) rendering to browser. Yes, you can use nvPY as your reST previewer.

• Automatic hyperlink highlighting in text widget.

• KickAss(tm) inter-note linking with [[note name]]. If note name is not found in current list of notes, assumes it’s a regular expression and sets it in the search bar. See the screencast.

Planned features

• Search string highlighting in text note.

• Full(ish) screen mode.

• Full syncs also in background thread. At the moment does a full sync at startup, which can take a while. nvpy already does background thread saving and syncing while you work, so everything you type is backed up within a few seconds of you typing it.

• Tag support.

Bugs and feedback

• Report bugs with the github issue tracker.

• It’s an even better idea to clone, fix and then send me a pull request.

• If you have questions, or would like to discuss nvpy-related matters, please do so via the nvpy google discussion group / mailing list.

• If you really like nvpy, you could make me and you even happier by tipping me with paypal!

Credits

• nvpy uses the fantastic simplenote.py library by mrtazz.

• The brilliant application icon, a blue mini car (not as fast as the notational velocity rocket, get it?), is by Cemagraphics.