a simple interactive bash script to assist with recording information about major changes made to your system for easier reinstalls and searching of repeat issues and their solutions.
To use this script to log a new change, type logchange into your terminal to activate the script.
Once activated, the script will interactively ask you a series of simple questions:
| Question | Expected Input | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Is this a [s]ystem change or a [U]ser change? | s, u or enter to accept the default of U (case insensitive) |
This records whether this change is user-level (i.e. home-folder configs) or system level (i.1. /etc/ configs, sudo apt install, etc.) |
| What piece of software does this change affect? (i.e. Firefox) | Free Response, defaults to the empty string | Provides a place to record whether this affects a particular piece of software |
| What/Where/Why? | Free Response, defaults to the empty string | provides a place to explain the problem being solved and include potential keywords for later searching |
| Is there a link to go with this change? | Free Response, defaults to the empty string | Provides a place to include a link to stackoverflow or any site to record where you found the solution to the problem in case its needed later |
Your answers to the above questions will be appended to the changelog file in one of the following formats:
System: [D System] M <L>
User: [D User] { A }: M <L>
where the capital letters serve as placeholders for:
- D - the datetime at which this entry was made
- A - the name of the affected application as entered
- M - the message explaining the issue as entered
- L - the link provided (if any)
logchange.sh [[-h|--help]|[--oops|--undo]|[ --show|--list]|--open] -- a simple interactive bash script to assist with recording information about major changes made to your system.
where:
-h|--help show this help text
--oops|--undo removes the last line added to the changelog after a confirmation prompt
--show|--list output the contents of the changelog file using the cat utility
--open open the changelog file in the kate text editor
To set up this script, place the logchange.sh script somewhere on your system where the path is not likely to change. Then, in your favorite startup location of choice (maybe .profile is a safe default? not sure which one is best for what), paste the following lines and edit as appropriate (none have trailing slashes):
export CHANGELOG_DIR="path/to/where/you/want/the/changelog/file"
alias logchange=/path/to/logchange.sh
alias changelog='logchange --show'