quill

quill is an alternative guest book manager with an easy to use curses based user interface. Unlike the town explore command, quill allows you to easily navigate to a users guest book and write in it.

Features

Display the most recently updated guest books
View any guest book
Search for a user
Write a guest book entry
Edit an entire guest book

Installation

quill is not installed system wide so you will need to set a shell alias to run the application from its home directory. Fortunately this process is very straight forward.

Run these commands:

alias quill='python ~wesbat/code/quill/quill.py'
echo "alias quill='python ~wesbat/code/quill/quill.py'" >> ~/.bashrc

This will create a new command alias and add it to your bashrc file so that it is persistent across sessions.

Usage

To start quill run the following command:

quill

You will then be taken to the main guest book viewing screen:

┌─Tilde.Town ─┐ ┌────────────────── Guestbook ──────────────────┐
│~dessholida █│ │  __                                          █│
│~abril [2d]  │ │ (`/\                                         █│
│~machine_ca  │ │ `=\/\ __...--~~~~~-._   _.-~~~~~--...__      █│
│~ege [3d]    │ │  `=\/\               \ /               \\    █│
│~caors [3d]  │ │   `=\/                V                 \\   █│
│~nox [5d]    │ │   //_\___--~~~~~~-._  |  _.-~~~~~~--...__\\  █│
│~orl [6d]    │ │  //  ) (..----~~~~._\ | /_.~~~~----.....__\\ █│
│~necrodopte  │ │ ===( INK )==========\\|//=================== █│
│~evie6ee [7  │ │__ejm\___/________dwb`---`___________________  │
│~ari [9d]    │ │                                               │
│~strawmelon  │ │Quill, the simple guestbook viewer.            │
│~devhonk [1  │ │                                               │
│~n30n [10d]  │ │TOWN LIST                                      │
│~wesbat [10  │ │This shows the list of townies that have       │
│~el [12d]    │ │guestbooks. The number in brackets shows the   │
│~vampirebat  │ │time their guestbook was last signed in days,  │
│~acdw [14d]  │ │weeks or years.                                │
└─────────────┘ └───────────────────────────────────────────────┘
arrows/j/k/pgup/pgdn, Sign book, Editor, sort        Quill (v1.1)
Name, sort Modified, /search, ~yours, Quit, help?,
changes!

Navigation

Use the left and right arrow keys to move between panes. The up and down arrow keys will scroll down one line at a time, regardless of which pane you're in. The page up and down keys will scroll multiple lines.

If you prefer vi style navigation you can use the "j" and "k" keys to move up and down. Keep in mind that the other vi navigation keys are not mapped.

At the bottom of the screen you can see some helpful hints about the keyboard shortcuts.

Sign a guest book

This feature will allow you to sign a persons guest book in a more automated way:

Move to the left pane.
Navigate to the user whose book you'd like to sign.
Press the "s" key.
Your default editor will open.
Write your entry at the top of the file (lines starting with a # will not be included).
Save and exit.

Edit a guest book

This option allows you to load the currently selected guest book file into your default editor. This can be handy if you wish to update a different area of a guest book or if you wish to review your own.

*Please exercise care and consideration when editing other folks' guest books. Even though it may not look quite right to you, they may have some preferences that you're not aware of. It's best just to focus on your own entries in the book*

Sorting

There are two sorting options available which will change the order of the entries in the left pane.

Pressing the "n" key will sort the users alphabetically.

Pressing the "m" key will sort the users by the time that their guest book was last modified.

Using the "Home" and "End" keys can also be useful once the sort order has changed. They will take you to the beginning or the end of the user list.

Searching

If you're looking for a specific user you can switch to search mode.

Press the "/" key and then start typing the name of the user you are looking for. As you type, your search string will appear at the top of the left pane:

┌────── search: vil ─────┐
│~vilmibm [8w]           │

The closest matching user will appear at the top of the list.

Press the "enter" or "esc" key to return to the selection mode.

Checking your guest book

Pressing the "~" key will take you directly to your own guest book. This is a handy way to check to see if anyone has written any new entries.

It can take a few moments to update the screen. If nothing appears to be happening then try pressing the "enter" key.

Where to go next?

Press the "?" key to read the online help where the more advanced features are outlined.

Pressing the "q" key will return you to the shell.

You can also visit some of the links in the next section for more information about quill and its author.

Credits

quill was written by ~wesbat in python
this wiki entry was originally written by ~innerteapot

last compiled: 2026-05-09 06:08:20.046753