CCOWMU Minutes

Stores all the cclub minutes in markdown for easy viewing.

Goals

• Simplicity
• Automation
• Minimal user interaction

Requirements

• Python 2.7.6 or greater
• sendmail
• Cron jobs:

30 23 * * * cd /path/to/local/repo && git pull -q origin master
40 23 * * * cd /path/to/local/repo && ./mailer.py
50 23 * * * cp -n /path/to/local/repo/*.md /var/www/website/minutes/path/

Instructions

Browser

• Click the create new file icon to the right of the repo name on this page
• Name as a markdown file with todays date in format YYYYMMDD.md
• Record meeting minutes with markdown syntax and click save
  • Refer to the markdown syntax cheat sheet below for formatting help
  • I also highly suggest running the minutes through the online syntax checker below if you are unfamiliar with markdown
  • Use the preview pane if you use the github web interface (if writing minutes via that)

Vim

With some configuration, Vim can check for spelling and grammar mistakes, and make viewing the rendered markdown simpler.

Edit your ~/.vimrc file, and add the following lines:

" Markdown
syntax on
au BufRead,BufNewFile *.md setl filetype=markdown spell
au FileType markdown noremap <buffer> <Leader>r :!grip -b "%"<cr>

The first two lines will ensure syntax highlighting and spell checking is enabled for .md files.

The third line relies on a program called grip to render the markdown and display it in your browser. To install grip (assuming you have python already) run:

pip install grip

Now, while editing the markdown file, simply use the normal-mode command \r. A browser tab should open with the rendered markdown. When you are finished previewing, close the tab, return to vim, and close grip by pressing ctrl-c and enter.

Explanation

The cron jobs will pull the human readable minutes from this repo, email the human readable markdown language to users, and upload the minutes to the website where the markdown is translated and displayed as html.

gmail

When a new computer tries to send the minutes out, google complains and end sends you a security message because it doesn't recognize the activity. To get around this, do the following.

• attempt to send minutes by running the mailer.py.
• next, open a browser and get into the club gmail.
• When you get in the club gmail for the first time you may get a security prompt.
• click on the message and find the link called review acctivity.
• now find the button which says this is me.
• then try to send the minutes again and it should work.

Reference

• Markdown Syntax Cheatsheet
• Online Markdown Syntax Checker
• Github flavored markdown
• cclub minutes repo wiki
• grip markdown previewer