minchin.jrnl v7.1 “Phoenix” released

Today, the lastest update of minchin.jrnl was released! This release add custom exporters and importers!

Upgrading

You can upgrade it today:

pip install minchin.jrnl --upgrade

Custom Plugins (Importers and Exporters)

Under the hood, custom plugins rely to Python’s namespaces. Python code (in the right format and with the right attributes) placed in the minchin.jrnl.contrib.importer namespace (for importers) and the minchin.jrnl.contrib.exporter namespace (for exporters) will automatically be loaded by minchin.jrnl.

You can read more about how to write plugins in the documentation. I also wrote a custom exporter to Obsidian flavoured Markdown (for my immediate use!). You can review the code on GitHub if you want to see a working example.

Custom plugins can override the built-in functionality. Do see what plugins you have active, you can run jrnl --diagnostic, and you will get output similiar to:

minchin.jrnl: 7.1.0 "Phoenix"
Python: 3.11.6 (tags/v3.11.6:8b6ee5b, Oct  2 2023, 14:57:12) [MSC v.1935 64 bit (AMD64)]
OS: Windows 10

Active Plugins:
    Importers:
        jrnl     : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.importer.jrnl
    Exporters:
        boxed    : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.fancy
        dates    : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.dates
        default  : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.pretty
        fancy    : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.fancy
        json     : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.json
        markdown : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.markdown
        md       : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.markdown
        pelican  : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.pelican
        pretty   : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.pretty
        short    : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.short
        tags     : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.tag
        text     : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.text
        txt      : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.text
        xml      : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.xml
        yaml     : 7.1.0 from minchin.jrnl.plugins.exporter.yaml

Short Term Update Plans

When I first released v7, I had three major short term objectives: get the project live, lift the Python version cap, and get the plugin system working. With today’s release, all of those three have been accomplished!

Several of my medium term goals have also been accomplished (easy to push releases, drop poetry, replace the Code of Conduct) or are underway (documentation in Sphinx, posted on my site).

However, I realize that my notetaking now mostly happens through Obsidian, and so I’m not sure how much I’ll be using minchin.jrnl going forward. That said, I’m about to start a new job, and so may end up using it again to take daily notes; time will tell.

Changelog

Version 7.1.0 “Phoenix” was released October 4th, 2023.

• feature: merge external plugin support, as per legacy Pull Request #1216. Also merges relevant parts of legacy Pull Request #1115; c.f. legacy Pull Request #1281.
• feature: allow top-level __version__ without use of an __init__.py file. c.f. legacy Pull Request #1296. This had (previously?) been required for namespace plugins to load.
• bug: allow exporting files to nested directories.
• bug: Work with updated (v4 or later) tzlocal API. (DayOne classic journal particular issue.) c.f. legacy Pull Request #1528.

Other Links

• all release posts for minchin.jrnl
• code, on GitHub at https://github.com/MinchinWeb/minchin.jrnl
• full changelog