56 lines
2.4 KiB
Markdown
56 lines
2.4 KiB
Markdown
# Introduction {#sec:introduction}
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This document is the user documentation for imag, the personal
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information management suite for the commandline. Besides beeing a documentation,
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it servey also as "roadmap" where this project should go. Parts which are not
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yet implemented might be documented already, therefore. A list on what is
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implemented and what is not can be found at the end of this document.
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If you have any objections, suggestions for improvements, bugs, etc, please file
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them. A way to reach out to the imag project maintainer(s) is described in the
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CONTRIBUTING file of the repository or in this document, on the appropriate
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section.
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## The Problem {#sec:intro:problem}
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The problem imag wants to solve is rather simple. When the project was
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initiated, there was no PIM-Suite available which
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* was for this domain of users ("power-users", "commandline users")
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* uses plain text as storage format
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* was scriptable
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* was modular
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* contained functionality to link content
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The latter point is the bigger one: "imag" wants to offer the ability for users
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to link content. This means not only that a contact may be linked to a
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date, but that _all things_ can be linked together. For example that a wiki
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article can be linked to a date which is linked to a todo which is linked to a
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note which is linked to a contact.
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## The Approach {#sec:intro:approach}
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The approach "imag" takes on solving this problem is to store content in a
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"store" and persisting content in a unified way.
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Meta-Information is attached to the content which can be used to store
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structured data.
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This can be used to implement a variety of "domain modules" using the store.
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While content is stored in _one_ place, imag does not duplicate content.
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imag does not copy or move icalendar files, emails, vcard files, music or
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movies to the store, but indexes them and stores the meta-information in the
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store.
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Detailed explanation on this approach follows in the chapters of this work.
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## Implementation {#sec:intro:implementation}
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The program is written in the Rust programming language.
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The program consists of libraries which can be re-used by other projects
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to implement and adapt imag functionality. An external program may use a
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library of the imag distribution to store content in the store of imag and
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make it visible to imag this way.
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This is a technical detail a user does not necessarily need to know, but as imag
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is intended for power-users anyways, we could say it fits here.
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