Ubuntu Manpage: tomboy-ng - manage a collection of notes using a simple GUI markup

Provided by: tomboy-ng_0.39-1build2_amd64

NAME

       tomboy-ng - manage a collection of notes using a simple GUI markup

SYNOPSIS

       tomboy-ng    [-h   --help]   [--dark-theme]  [--debug-sync]   [--debug-index]  [--debug-log=LOGFILE]  [-l
       --lang=CC] [--config-dir=PATH_to_DIR] [-o  PATH_to_NOTE]  [--open-note=PATH_to_NOTE]  [PATH_to_NOTE]  [-t
       --import-txt=PATH_to_FILE] [-m --import-md=PATH_to_FILE] [-n --import-note=PATH_to_NOTE] [--title-fname]

DESCRIPTION

tomboy-ng is a rewrite of the much loved Tomboy Notes. It runs on Linux, Windows and MacOS. It is file
compatible with Tomdroid and GNote (>=v0.30). Tomboy-ng notes support Bold, Italic, Strikethrough,
Highlight and Underline in four sizes. It will sync notes with other systems using Tomboy's File Sync
model and to remote servers using sshfs. It will Sync with a Github account, either all your notes or
just ones in the SyncGithub notebook. You can edit notes, from almost any device with a browser in
markdown format.

tomboy-ng has built in systems to take snapshots of your notes for safe keeping, to import and export
notes in different formats, spell checking means to group your notes into "notebooks" for easy
management.

Many users will want to have tomboy-ng start at logon time and leave it running indefinitly. When
running, it will put an Icon in the System Tray and you can interact with it via that Icon. However, some
Gnome 3 based Linux distros have problems initially with the System Tray Icon, on such limited systems,
see the project wiki page mentioned below.

On Windows and Mac tomboy-ng uses native libraries, on Linux, tomboy-ng comes in both GTK2 and Qt5
version and many systems have almost all the necessary libraries pre installed.

While options below are familiar to Linux users, Mac and Windows users may like to look at some examples
further down to see how to use them.

COLORS and DARK THEME

The GTK2 version follows the system colour theme.

However, the Qt5 version (eg Bookworm and later) requires some instruction from the user. Using the
--dark-theme is the simplest and probably the least satisfactory approach, the note edit screen is a dark
theme, other windows vary. Qt5 (and Qt6) versions after 0.36c install qt5ct (or qt6ct) and are installed
with a environment variable applying to only tomboy-ng. So, control your tomboy-ng colours using qt5ct or
qt6ct. You may like to install qt5-style-plugins package. If you start tomboy-ng, perhaps on the command
line, it will not see the env variable so either set it yourself, eg QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct, or
supply a command line option, --platformtheme qt5ct that does a similar but not quite as complete job.

A more general solution, applying to all Qt5 apps, is to add that var to either /etc/environment
(requires root) or, simpler in a .xsessionrc file in your home dir.

cd ; echo "export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct" >> .xsessionrc

Probably need to log out and back in again.

Note that with the Qt versions, setting platformtheme to gtk2 or gtk3 can cause problems, particularly
with the SaveDialog (ie when exporting a note) due to an upstream problem.

On Windows, tomboy-ng will follow the system for Dark Theme but only for the note edit window. Using the
--dark-theme switch is not recommended.

On MacOS, tomboy-ng is believed to follow the system theme.

OPTIONS

-h --help
Print some help and exit.

-v --version
Print the tomboy-ng version and exit.

--dark-theme
Makes the note edit windows a reasonable dark theme (but not the system theme). Other part of the
app are not dark. This option may be removed in future releases.

--no-splash
Do not show the small tomboy-ng splash screen at startup. However, if an error is detected the
splash screen is always shown.

--lang=CC
Tomboy-ng normally picks up its language from the OS and does an auto switch. However, its
possible to force a language at startup using the two letter language code, ie es for spanish, nl
for dutch, fr for French and uk for Ukranian. If you would like to help translate tomboy-ng,
please, please get in touch.

-c, --config-dir=PATH_to_DIR
Create or use an alternative config. That config could, for example, specify an alternative
location to store notes and sync against a different file sync repository.

-o, --open-note=PATH_to_NOTE
Open a note in single note mode. In this mode, a separate process runs, it does not have access to
the normal notes location, nor sync but can read, display and write back to a stand alone note.
If the note name does not exist, a new note is created. If the note name specifies a plain text
file or a rtf file, the contents of that file will be imported into a new note and that note will
be named as specified on the command line but with an extension of ".note". In this mode, the
note remains in its existing location, it is not moved to the tomboy-ng notes location, it
is not synced, nor searched by tomboy-ng in its normal mode. Note that the switch (-o or
--open-note) is optional, "tomboy-ng some.note" will works as well.

-t --import-txt=PATH_to_FILE
Import the indicated plain text file into the Note Repository, converting it to note format. The
first line of the file will be used as the title unless --title-fname is also specified in which
case the file name will become the title. If another instance of tomboy-ng is running, its
notified of the import and the note will appear as the newest.

-m --import-md=PATH_to_FILE
Import the indicated markdown file into the Note Repository, converting it to note format. The
first line of the file will be used as the title unless --title-fname is also specified in which
case the file name will become the title. The conversion assumes a CommonMark version of markdown
and not all aspects of even that are supported. If another instance of tomboy-ng is running, its
notified of the import and the note will appear as the newest.

-n --import-note=PATH_to_NOTE
Import the indicated Tomboy Note format file into the Note Repository, the note itself is not
changed, its just copied in and, if necessary, a GUID style file name is assigned. The last change
date of the note is retained. If another instance of tomboy-ng is running, its notified of the
import.

--title-fname
Applies only when importing a text or markdown file, determines that the filename will be used as
the note title instead of the default first line of the file.

--debug-sync --debug-index --debug-spell
Generate a lot of logging information on the console during a sync, index or spell process, each
one relating to a particular field. You can combine or even use all three. Intended for debugging.
The debug information is written to the console in Linux and can be captured to a file on all
platforms, see below.

--debug-log=LOGFILE
Direct debug info to a file, this is necessary to see that output on Windows and Mac and sometimes
useful on Linux. LOGFILE is a filename and a (writable) path to that filename. See section below
on debugging.

--useappind=yes|no
Only for Linux using gtk2 version. Will override tomboy-ng decision about how to try to display
the System Tray Icon, its here to help with difficult systems that cannot seem to display that
icon using the normal approach.

--platformtheme qt5ct
Use with Qt versions ONLY, will instruct the app to display the colors defined in qt5ct. The qt5ct
app has a nice GUI where you can select the colors that suite you. Some other Qt specific options
may also work using a similar syntax. Note there is not an '=' sigh between the switch and its
parameter.

FURTHER HELP

       tomboy-ng  comes  bundled with several read only notes that provide help on topics such as keyboard short
       cuts, setting up a sync system, using the built in calculator and keeping your notes safe.

       The       project's       wiki       also       has        extensive        information        available.
       https://github.com/tomboy-notes/tomboy-ng/wiki

DEBUGGING

tomboy-ng generally does not write debug output unless something has gone wrong but it does accepts a
couple of debug switches as noted above. They will cause detailed progress reports relating to their
section of the application to be written to the console. However, Windows and Mac do not, for this
purpose, have a console. But can be told to capture this log info to a file using another command line
switch or by setting an env variable that specifies a file name. Please ensure you have permission to
write to the location specified.

tomboy-ng --debug-log=%userprofile%\debug.txt --debug-sync

set tomboy-ng_debuglog=c:\%userprofile%\debug.txt

Mac users can do something similar :

open /Applications/tomboy-ng.app --args "--debug-log=$HOME/tomboy-ng.log" "--debug-sync"

Linux users who need a debug logfile can also :

tomboy-ng --debug-sync --debug-log=$HOME/tomboy-ng.log

Windows users should do something like this -

Rightclick the startbutton and select "run". In the field, enter this command line exactly as show
(including the inverted commas) -

"C:\Program Files\tomboy-ng\tomboy-ng.exe" --debug-index --debug-log=%userprofile%\Desktop\tomboy-log.txt

Press enter, tomboy-ng should start up normally. Close it. A file called tomboy-log.txt will have been
created on your desktop.

If you intend to post such a log file to (eg) the Tomboy help system, do please check through it first to
ensure there is nothing there you don't want the world to see.

FILES

       On Linux, notes are stored (by default) in $HOME/.local/share/tomboy-ng On Linux, config  is  stored  (by
       default) in $HOME/.config/tomboy-ng

BUGS

       Please send bug reports to the tomboy-ng Github Issues system, see above.

                                                                                                     tomboy-ng()