Installing the command-line executable

Assuming you have Rust/Cargo installed, run this command in a terminal:

cargo install hrn

It will make the hrn command available in your PATH if you've allowed the PATH to be modified when installing Rust. cargo uninstall hrn uninstalls.

Back to the crate overview.

Readme

hrn

Yet another take on notes, plans (to-do lists), and even mind maps. But this one is taylored specifically to my needs, so it is obviously the correct one.

What is it?

hrn's primary use case is editing plan files:

∙ This is my plan for the week
  ∙ some TODO
  … task in progress
    ✓ this is done
    ∙ another subtask
  𐄂 gave up on this

NOTE: hrn requires plan files to have a single top-level item.

hrn provides a terminal user interface that makes editing such files extremely convenient. But it also adds some twists:

such lists are trees, and so are directories of files - hrn lets you open a directory to edit multiple plan files in a single tree
sometimes, you need more than a few words to keep track of something - every item can be linked to a notes file, which can be conveniently shown or edited with your favorite pager or editor
focus is key - the view can be reduced to a subtree, to not get distracted by other tasks, or simply reclaim screen estate for what matters right now
finding the right tasks to do can be half the work - the view mode can be switched to a h-m-m-inspired "mind map style" to help organize your thoughts

What it isn't

a zettelkasten - hrn's focus is on the plan files, and links are only from plan items to notes, not vice versa, not between notes, and not between items
a search engine - hrn never "reads" the notes files, so it also doesn't search them

Getting started

Basic usage along with the key bindings are described in the man page (source). The bindings are currently not configurable.

There is also a cheat sheet (source) for the key bindings.

To get started, best start editing a single file:

hrn todo.plan

Contact

Feel free to send questions, patches, or other feedback to my public inbox.