ToDo

ToDo is a lightweight terminal note-taking utility written in Bash with support for both Bash and Zsh. It is designed to quickly create, edit, view, back up, and restore a plain text note file directly from the terminal.

The script automatically creates a backup before appending new notes, supports graceful cancellation during input, and provides simple recovery from the most recent backup if required.

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Table of Contents

• Features
• Installation
• Usage
  • Appending Notes
  • Editing Notes
  • Viewing Notes
  • Restoring From Backup
• Notes
• Return Codes

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Features

• Interactive note entry from the terminal.
• Automatic backup before modifying the note file.
• Edit notes using the first available supported editor (nano, nvim, vim, vi, emacs).
• Display the full note file or only the most recent entries.
• Restore the note file from the latest backup.
• Compatible with both Bash and Zsh.

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Installation

git clone https://github.com/FMallon/ToDo && cd ToDo && chmod +x todo.sh && sudo ln -sf "$(pwd)/todo.sh" /usr/local/bin/todo

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Usage

todo <option>

Option	Description
-a	Append a new note to TODO.txt.
-e	Open TODO.txt in your preferred text editor.
-d	Display the contents of TODO.txt.
-t	Display the last ten lines of TODO.txt.
-rf	Restore TODO.txt from the backup file.
-h, --help	Display the help menu.

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Appending Notes

todo -a

Type as many lines as required.

• Press Enter after each line.
• Press Ctrl+D to finish and append the text.
• Press Ctrl+C at any time to cancel the operation.

A backup of the current note file is automatically created before the append operation begins.

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Editing Notes

todo -e

The script automatically selects the first supported editor available on your system.

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Viewing Notes

Display the complete note file:

todo -d

Display only the most recent entries:

todo -t

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Restoring From Backup

todo -rf

You will be prompted for confirmation before the current note file is overwritten.

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Notes

• Notes are stored as plain text in TODO.txt.
• A backup file (TODO.txt.bk) is maintained automatically before appending.
• The script is intentionally lightweight and dependency-free.
• Compatible with both Bash and Zsh.

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Return Codes

Code	Description
1	Unsupported shell environment
2	Required file does not exist
3	Failed to create TODO.txt
4	No supported text editor found
5	Failed to launch text editor
6	Failed to create TODO.txt backup
7	Failed to append content to TODO.txt
8	Failed to read the tail of TODO.txt
9	Input failure during restore confirmation
10	Failed to restore TODO.txt from backup
11	Restore process cancelled by user
12	Append process cancelled by user
13	Invalid command argument
14	Invalid number of arguments

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