cumulus

Brainstorm in the terminal: ideas as nodes on a 2D canvas, connected, folded and color-coded, across as many documents as you like. Vim keys first; the mouse works too. Runs on Windows and Linux.

Status: v1.1 is built: everything on DESIGN.md's v1 and v1.1 lists. What comes later is listed there too.

Build and run

You need Rust (rustup.rs). The exact version is pinned in rust-toolchain.toml, and rustup installs it by itself the first time.

cargo build --release

The program is target/release/cumulus (cumulus.exe on Windows): copy it to a folder on your PATH.

• Windows: nothing else to install. The .exe carries its own C runtime and runs on any Windows 10 or 11.
• Linux (Void, Fedora…): build the same way. You can also build a static Linux binary from Windows with cargo linux: it lands in target/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl/release/cumulus and runs on any distribution.

Starting it

cumulus                      # ./ideas.cum, or ~/ideas.cum (made the first time)
cumulus garden.cum           # that document (a new one if it isn't there yet)
cumulus notes/               # that folder's ideas.cum
cumulus new "Garden plans"   # makes ./garden-plans.cum (cumulus new: ./ideas.cum)
cumulus --paths              # where cumulus keeps its settings and data

Documents are plain text files (.cum) that live wherever you like. cumulus saves a second after each change, reloads a file another program changed (u undoes that), and keeps a copy of each document a day in its data folder. A document open in another cumulus opens read-only. Each one reopens where you left it.

A file's name follows its root's title: give the root a new title and the file is renamed (ideas.cum keeps its name), and the portals leading to it follow. Portals link documents: a portal shows its document's title, color and size, Enter goes through it, and each document knows the portals that lead to it (« 2 on its root, gu goes up to them).

Settings, keys and themes

:config lists the three config files: config.toml (the settings), keys.toml (your keys) and the theme's file. Enter opens one in your editor (the editor setting, or $VISUAL / $EDITOR, or notepad / vi); the first time, it's written with every option at its default behind a #, explained. Take a # away, save, and cumulus applies it at once. Each file only needs what it changes, and a mistake only skips its own line (the status bar says what's wrong).

• :set name=value changes a setting until cumulus quits (:set name? shows it, Tab lists them).
• :theme name switches to themes/name.toml, laid over the built-in theme: a theme can say just accent = "magenta".
• The built-in theme has named styles (<Space>s), also put on by tags: #question (yellow, dashed), #important (red, thick), #done (faded).
• clipboard = "unnamedplus" makes plain y, d and p use the system clipboard, as the vim setting of that name does.

Keys

The plan for the everyday keys (all of them are in DESIGN.md):

Keys	What they do
hjkl	move to the nearest node that way
gh gj gk gl	parent, next sibling, previous sibling, first child
o O a	new sibling below / above, new child: type its title, Enter for the next one
i or Enter	edit the title (Esc: vim keys inside it, Esc again: done)
dd x	delete the branch / just the node (kept in a register, as in vim)
yy p P	yank the branch / paste as children, or as siblings below (dd then p moves a branch)
"a "+	before y, d or p: register a; "+ is the system clipboard (nodes go there as Markdown)
.	the last change again
>> <<	under the node above / out a level
u Ctrl-r	undo / redo
za zf zi	fold, auto-fold, focus
+ -	zoom in / out
K	the body in a card beside the node (i edits it there)
v V	select: the nodes between here and where you started (V: with their branches); then d y > < M or <Space>c act on all of them
M	move the branch with hjkl (M again: just the node)
<Space>=	tidy the branch: m a mind map, c an org chart, g a grid (:tidy)
<Space>a	in visual mode: line the selection up, h l k j left, right, top, bottom, c middles (:align; : in visual mode runs a command on the selection)
C	connect: go to another node, Enter links them (d removes the line, > puts it under that node, <Space> a l c s t style it, Esc takes it all back)
/ n N	search: titles, tags and bodies, fuzzily, with the note of each match beside it / the next match / the previous one
<Space>/	search every document (open, recent, this folder, and what portals lead to); n N then go from document to document (:search text)
Ctrl-o Tab	back to where you jumped from / forward again (across documents)
ma 'a mA	mark a node / go back to it / a capital mark: from any document
gd	follow a cross-link
<Space>p	a portal to another document (:portal file, or a new document's title)
<Space>o	this branch out, into a document of its own, with a portal in its place (:branchout)
Enter or gf gu	through a portal / up to the portals that lead here
<Space>	the action menu: c color, t tags, b documents, i inbox, vo outline, vn note, vb board…
board	<Space>vb or :board: a column per node without a parent, its children as cards, a card with children wrapping them as Scratch's loop blocks do; j k cards, h l columns, M then hjkl (or a drag) moves a card
Ctrl-w v Ctrl-w s	split the pane side by side / stacked (Ctrl-w hjkl to move between them)
gt gT	the next / previous document
: ?	command line, help (search it with /, Enter runs the key or command)
:e :new :bd	open a document / make one / close it
:export md :export txt	the document (or, from visual mode, the selection) as Markdown or an outline (:export! writes over a file)
:import file	the nodes in a Markdown or text file, under this node
:marks :jumps :registers	what they hold: Enter goes there (or pastes)
:w :q ZZ	save / close the pane (the last one quits) / save and close

After the first key of a sequence (g, z, d, <Space>…), a popup lists what can follow. The right mouse button opens a menu of what you can do with a node. Ctrl+click picks nodes one by one, and Ctrl+drag on the empty canvas picks the ones in its rectangle. The wheel scrolls; with Shift or Alt held (or a wheel that tilts), it scrolls sideways.

Development

cargo test    # run the tests
cargo lint    # clippy, treating warnings as errors
cargo fmt     # format the code

To try things without touching your own documents:

cargo run --example canvas                         # cumulus on copies of two sample documents
cargo test show_canvas -- --ignored --nocapture    # print the sample at each zoom, as text

The end-to-end tests (src/app/tests.rs) type keys and click on a test terminal, with the sample documents copied to a temporary folder, and check the screen, the documents and the files.