uPIM is a collection of libraries and applications to form the building blocks for a personal information management system.
uPIM is currently early-stage software. I am already using the note format for all my documents (knowledge base, recipes, contacts, etc.) but there is a lot of work still to do before most people will find much use from it.
The official repository for uPIM is on SourceHut at https://git.sr.ht/~rjframe/upim, with a mirror at Github on https://github.com/rjframe/upim. Patches/pull requests from both are accepted; all other activity takes place at sr.ht.
- Issues: https://todo.sr.ht/~rjframe/upim
- Discussions: https://lists.sr.ht/~rjframe/upim-discuss
- Wiki: https://man.sr.ht/~rjframe/upim/
Other attempts to create a fully-flexible PIM have tried to build monolithic systems that could organize and interpret every conceivable kind of information, and often discovered the project to be too ambitious, failing as the project's scope increased faster than they could implement their designs.
uPIM is organized differently: software is the tool, not the solution. By building a library and tool suite around a few simple ideas, we create not a one-size-fits all solution but the tools that you can use to create your own PIM solution and information management process.
This allows us to support an incredible degree of flexibility and interoperability -- uPIM does not have to understand your data, and instead of replacing your current tools, you can extend them.
- Text is universal.
- You control your information -- not uPIM.
- A collection of tools that perform a single task and interoperate via shared conventions will be more flexible and reliable than a monolithic system or central data store.
All source code is licensed under the terms of the MPL 2.0 license.
Rust nightly is currently required.
Application sources are in the applications directory. Run
cargo build --release to build them. Default configuration files are provided
in the config directory; to install them:
- Unixy: Place the configuration files in
$HOME/.config/upim/ - Windows: Place the configuration files in
%APPDATA%\uPIM\.
Edit the configuration files -- at minimum, set the template_folder variable
in upim.conf and create your collections. There are default configuration files
in the config directory and default/example templates in the templates directory
hat provide a good starting place.
See the upim-conf(5) manual in the docs
directory for more information about supported locations and the configurable
options.
Use cargo doc to build the library documentation locally. You can list the
full suite or specific subcrates as dependencies.
I've not yet made a release or registered uPIM on crates.io, so clone the repository and add upim to your Cargo.toml as a local dependency:
[dependencies]
upim = { path = "../upim" }
# Or individual crates:
upim-core = { path = "../upim/upim-core" }Most libraries and applications utilize "Notes" -- text documents containing a header comprised of arbitrary tags and key-value attributes, followed by the document itself.
Tags begin with '@', then contain any non-space text. Attributes are surrounded by '[' and ']', with the key separated by a colon. The header ends with a blank line:
@tag1 @tag2
[Key: Value]
@tag3
This is the document. Multiple tags can be on a line, but only one attribute,
and attributes cannot span multiple lines.
Recipe example as a markdown document:
@low-fat @low-carb
[Name: My Favorite Food]
[Author: Some Person]
[Prep time: 5 minutes, maybe a few days]
# My Favorite Food
This is a great meal to serve for guests.
## Ingredients
* Water
* Salt
## Instructions
Mix the water and salt together. Let dry.Storing contact information with recursive notes:
@family @last-update:2000-01-01
[Name: Favorite Person]
[Spouse: Other Person]
[Children: A Person, B Person, C Person]
[Address: 123 Somewhere]
[Phone: 123-456]
@Employer
[Name: Some Company]
[Website: www.example.com]
And there's plenty of room for whatever prose you wish to record.
Using notes for something like contact management provides more flexibility than vCard, while being easily converted to and from vCard via standard (user-configurable) attributes.
The uPIM applications are designed to:
- provide a simple textual interface for most basic or daily needs (editing, searching, etc.)
- provide a scriptable interface for process automation and customization
Applications listed below in italics have not yet been created.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| upim-edit | Wraps your text editor to edit notes, manages note headers |
| upim-find | Searches uPIM collections |
| upim-contact | Contact manager |
| upim-cal | Calendar integration |
The uPIM core libraries provide the basic and common functions for uPIM applications to interoperate. If you wish to extend uPIM, you'll probably want to use these.
Libraries listed below in italics have not yet been created.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| upim-core | Shared configuration, containers, error types, algorithms, etc. |
| upim-note | Read, write, and parse notes |
| upim-conv | Conversions between Notes and other standard file formats |
- Some string parsing assumes single-byte characters. No such functions are data-corrupting.
- Applications:
- Documentation is unixy-centric.
- upim-edit: Some invalid arguments may have incorrect error messages, especially if the file to edit was not provided.
- Libraries:
- APIs are not stable yet. Once stabilized, we'll create bindings for C (and maybe other languages from that) so applications can be written in other languages.
Patches and pull requests are welcome. For major features or breaking changes, please open a ticket or start a discussion first so we can discuss what you would like to do.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for pointers on getting set up. If you'd like guidance on anything feel free to ask in a discussion or ticket, or submit a draft PR.
Some specific areas of concern I could use help with are:
- Ensuring upim-edit supports a variety of text editors
- Decisions around document/configuration file management on macOS
- Testing on Windows, macOS
- Maintainer for the Windows platform, maybe macOS
- Email: code@ryanjframe.com
- Website: www.ryanjframe.com
- diaspora*: rjframe@diasp.org
- imag: command-line PIM suite