LaTeX Lab Notebook Template

This is a set of templates and scripts I personally use to keep an electronic lab notebook. The nuts and bolts is mostly in the bin/ directory, where the scripts to generate a today's entry (pulling data from the most recently dated prior entry) live, along with all the others.

##The Scripts## ####bin/today.sh#### This one builds today's entry. If it already exists, it merely loads it in VIM. If it does not exist, it creates it. The template has:

• A header with today's date auto-inserted, and a field for a title for the entry (may be left blank)
• A marked area for the body of the entry
• A list of tasks set for today by the most recently dated entry. Literally looks at all extant entries and finds the one that comes lexically before today's.
• An empty list of tasks for "tomorrow"

####bin/date.sh#### As for bin/today.sh, but acts for a specific date. invoked as bin/date.sh YYYYMMDD for the date desired. Can be used either to pull up old entries or to create them.

####bin/build.sh#### Assembles all entries together into a single file (build/fullLabNB.tex) to be run through a LaTeX engine. Basically copies all files in the src/ directories in order, sandwiched by the appropriate entries from src/template

##Makefiles## For systems with make, makefiles are also present. The base makefile has only two working targets:

• make today simply runs bin/today.sh
• make or make fullLabNB.pdf runs the full build process for a pdf. This basically consists of concatenating all src files together with appropriate headers, and running pdflatex on the result twice.

##LaTex Header## Find it in src/template/fullHeader.tex

####Packages used####

• ulem for the \sout{} command to strikethrough text
• wrapfig for figures that text can flow around
• booktabs for nicely formatted tables
• enumitem to customize space around lists
• imakeidx for a custom index for git commits
• amssymb for access to a bunch of symbols
• listings for source code listing
• xcolor for using color
• tikz-timing for timing diagrams for electronics
• suffix for defining custom commands
• hyperref for all the usual hyperlinking niceities

####Custom Commands####

• \startDay{<date>}{<title>} starts a <date>'s, with optional <title> also displayed. Automatically adds a label as "date:<date>" for use with \ref{}
• \commitR{<repository>}{<hash>} add a formatted commit to the text. Commits show in colored boxes in the format <repository>:<hash>, and an entry is added to the Git index for this commit.
• \commitR{<repository>}{<hash>}* as above, but the repository name isn't added to the text. The index entry is still made as normal.
• \commit{<hash>} add a formatted commit, without referencing any repository. Still added to the index.
• \startDone{<date>} starts a subsection labelled "Today's Tasks <date>:". Subsection will not be listed in TOC.
• \startTodo{<date>} starts a subsection labelled "Tomorrow's Plan <date>:" Subsection will not be listed in TOC.
• \todo{<title>}{<description>} Makes an todo-list item with an unchecked box. Format is a bold-faced <title> followed by a paragraph <description>.
• \tdcheck{<title>}{<description>} As above, but with a green crossed out checkbox.
• \tdfail{<title>}{<description>} As above, but with a red checkbox with a red dash in it

####Title Page#### It also insert a title page, with \title set as "Lab Notebook", \author "Zach Smith", and \date{\today}.

##Possible Changes##

• Use LaTeX's \input{} instead of doing cat in the shell to combine entries
• Make the author and title load from an external, untracked file for portability