Sometimes I want to select a markdown note from the shell
for further work. Maybe I want to launch an LLM with the note
or I want to edit the note from within a terminal to fix some bug.
Since I've discovered fzf and its preview
feature I find more and more uses for it. The following shell script shows all
notes that contain a given label and offers them for selection:
Having not only a selection but also a custom preview makes things convenient.
Perl was useful for properly escaping the filenames. fzf has the --read0
option, but it still passes the item to the shell without escapes. Using
double quotes around the {} does not work.
My Note taking tool is part journal, part shopping list, part blog posts, part programs. Most notes get written once. Some get revised, some get posted or implemented.
The tool is fully self-hosted and written by me, so I get to decide on its (lack of) features.
For simplicity I avoided keeping a full note history. But then I realized that maybe some kind of history
is actually nice, for the case when a wonky network failure erases or corrupts some note.
My solution for this feature is to simply snapshot the directory where I keep my notes every hour into a git repository. This
gives me some change history, but it does not record every keystroke. The cron job is the following shell script:
SOURCE=/home/corion/bin/App-notes-htmx/notes_corion
TARGET=/home/corion/backup/notes_corion_history
if git --git-dir=$TARGET --work-tree $SOURCE diff --quiet; then
git --git-dir=$TARGET --work-tree $SOURCE add --all
git --git-dir=$TARGET --work-tree $SOURCE commit -m "Hourly"
fi
I've "implemented" the tool as a shell script, but if I add more features, I will likely move it to Perl and use Git::Raw
to do the adding/filtering/pruning myself. But then I would lose the convenience of .gitignore for example.
I still have on my list some kind of git history-prune, that coalesces adjacent git commits if they are too close, just
to eliminate changes that don't matter anymore. Maybe
after a month, compress all commits older than one month and less than 24 hours apart into a single commit.
I think having all changes of a single day in one commit is a sensible granularity for my use case.
On May 4th, the new Valve Steam Controller became available.
Ordering was a bit harder than I thought, but it seems Valve was overwhelmed by the demand. In fact, it seems to have sold out the first batch within two hours.
The problems showed themselves to me as being unable to conclude the purchase, as the credit card verification never popped up.
After that initial hiccup, everything else went smoothly. The controller arrived two weeks later at my doorstep.
What's in the box?
The box looks very good. I think Valve aims straight for a premium experience.
The cardboard box feels very sturdy and nice to open.
The box contains the controller, the puck and an USB-A to USB-C cable for
connecting the puck or the controller to a PC.
The puck is a magnetic loading adapter for the controller. I've grown quite
fond of such loading adapters even if they are again proprietary connectors
that might get lost.
When connecting the controller via the puck to a PC, both get immediately a
firmware upgrade via Steam. The process is
convenient enough and I also don't have the fear that Valve might lock me out
of features by upgrading the firmware.
Look and Feel
The controller feels very good in my hands. It is matte black, although time
will tell how much the coating degenerates when handled with sweaty hands.
Compatibility
When Steam is not present on a device, the controller presents itself as a
trackpad with scroll wheel. The right trackpad controls the mouse pointer while
the left trackpad acts as scroll wheel. The right triggers act as left/right
mouse button. The D-pad acts as cursor keys. This makes the controller not too
bad when operating a device that does not have immediate gamepad support.
The controller can connect via USB directly, via the puck (which, again,
connects via USB), or via Bluetooth. You can switch between the connection
modes when switching the controller on by holding R1-A (for puck mode)
or R1-B for Bluetooth mode.
Pixel 9 / GrapheneOS
The Steam Controller connects easily via Bluetooth and shows up as a mouse
(touchpad) + gamepad. The right touchpad controls the Android mouse pointer
in a good way. The haptic feedback the trackpads give when moving the mouse
pointer is not annoying.
Linux PC / Steam
The Steam Controller connects via the puck, which connects via the USB cable.
It is immediately recognized by Steam and just works. The middle button
("Steam button") launches Steam in Big Picture mode, turning the experience
into a console-like experience.
Linux PC / Tablet
The tablet has no Steam client installed, but the controller "works" there
through the puck without needing any fiddling or installing. It is only
recognized as a mouse. The KDE settings menu does not recognize the game
controller. Installing the steam-devices Debian package immediately
lets the controller get recognized, but no inputs are working. Most likely
some udev rules need to be added to properly read the controller inputs,
but I'll be patient and wait until the Debian maintainers address this.
Windows PC / Steam
The Steam Controller connects via the puck, which connects via the USB cable.
It is immediately recognized by Steam and just works. The middle button
("Steam button")
launches Steam in Big Picture mode, turning the experience into a
console-like experience.
Connecting via Bluetooth also works without problems.
Steamdeck
The Steam Controller connects via the puck, which connects via the USB cable.
It is immediately recognized by Steam and just works, but weirdly enough, it
wanted to do another firmware upgrade, twice. Otherwise, the components are
quite similar to the components used on the Steamdeck. Using the controller
in desktop mode as mouse replacement
also feels better than using the sameish trackpads on the Steamdeck itself. The
L5 button acts there as opener for the start menu, which
is a nice shortcut.
Games
While I'm leaning more towards keyboard+mouse , some games lend themselves towards
being played with a gamepad.
GTA Vice City
In my quick test, I played GTA Vice City, and using the right trackpad as mouse
worked passably. I think for a good experience, I will have to sift through the
Steam controller profiles to find one that replicates the keyboard+mouse setup
well enough.
Silksong
Playing Silksong with the controller also feels good. The controller feels
better than the Steamdeck, as the bottom finger buttons R/L 4 and R/L 5
lie closer to where my fingers expect them, and obviously the controller is
lighter than the Steamdeck. Playing with the Steamdeck detached
makes me realize that maybe having a dock for the Steamdeck would be interesting.
