init

README.md

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+# serial
+
+> a book serializer
+
+this is the worst thingie i can imagine that sends you an email at a scheduled
+interval containing a snippet of a book, length of your choosing.
+
+## requirements
+
+- recutils
+- awk
+- postfix: configuring postfix (or some other mail transfer agent) is up to you!
+  i successfully did it after a lot of trial and error. see: `/doc/postfix.txt`
+- jq
+- fzf (optional)
+- just (optional)
+
+## usage
+
+1.  update the recepient's email address in `justfile`
+
+2.  put plain text ebooks in `/src`.
+    (check out https://www.gutenberg.org/)
+
+3.  create a new entry for each new book in `config.rec`
+    (see `config.rec` for details)
+
+4.  either run `just process` every day, or set up a cron job to run it
+    (https://crontab.guru/#12_*_*_*_*)
+
+## details
+
+All variables and values mentioned below exist in each record of `config.rec`
+
+1.  Iterate over the records in config.rec. If today is not present in `delivery`, continue.
+
+2.  Iterate over paragraphs (sep = '\n\n') starting with paragraph number
+    `progress` and ending when the running word count exceeds `WPM * minutes`.
+
+3.  Pipe those paragraphs to postfix mail
+
+4.  Increment `iter` and update `progress` to be the final paragraph number (plus one)

config.rec

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+%rec: doc
+%doc: a document
+%key: id
+%type: id,iter,progress,minutes int
+%type: title,author,file,delivery line
+%type: created,updated date
+%auto: id created updated
+
+## FURTHER DETAILS 
+## id               : just an id
+## title, author    : you know what to do
+## file             : the path and filename
+## iter (iteration) : how many times the file has been processed; how many emails have been sent. default = 1
+## progress         : the "current index" or paragraph number; where to start the next serial. default = 0
+## delivery         : must be a json array of days of the week, capitalized (so it matched `date +'%A'`)
+## minutes          : how many minutes you want each serial to be (multiplied by
+##                    240 which I read on the internet is roughly how many words
+##                    per minute a person reads)
+## created, updated : timestamps
+
+id: 1
+title: Bleak House
+author: Charles Dickens
+file: src/bleak.txt
+iter: 2
+progress: 10
+delivery: [ "Monday", "Wednesdsay", "Thursday" ]
+minutes: 5
+created: 2025-05-14
+updated: 2025-05-19
+
+id: 2
+title: Moby Dick
+author: Herman Melville
+file: src/mobydick.txt
+iter: 1
+progress: 0
+delivery: [ "Friday" ]
+minutes: 15
+created: 2025-05-16
+updated: 2025-05-16

doc/postfix.txt

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+whew this thing is hard to understand and configure
+
+- https://www.postfix.org/documentation.html
+- https://blog.konoson.com/set-up-macos-to-use-postfix-for-sending-automated-emails-from-cron
+- https://knazarov.com/posts/setting_up_postfix_on_os_x/
+- https://altoplace.com/macos/create-a-send-only-smtp-server-on-macos/

justfile

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+set quiet
+
+conf:="config.rec"
+email:="pooper@bigpoop.com"
+
+# list all recipes
+default:
+  just --list --unsorted
+
+# add new book
+new:
+  #!/usr/bin/env sh
+  read -p "Title: " title
+  read -p "Author: " author
+  read -p "File: " file
+  read -p "Minutes of reading per email: " minutes
+  delivery=$(echo "Monday\nTuesday\nWednesday\nThursday\nFriday\nSaturday\nSunday" | fzf --no-preview --multi | jq --raw-input --slurp 'split("\n")[:-1]' | tr -d '\n')
+  recins {{conf}} -t doc \
+    -f title -v "$title" \
+    -f author -v "$author" \
+    -f file -v "$file" \
+    -f iter -v 1 \
+    -f progress -v 0 \
+    -f minutes -v "$minutes" \
+    -f delivery -v "$delivery"
+alias n:= new
+
+# process books
+process:
+  #!/usr/bin/env sh
+  WPM=240
+  recs=$(recsel {{conf}} -c)
+  for rec in $(seq 0 $(($recs - 1)))
+  do
+    deliver=$(recsel {{conf}} -P delivery -n "$rec" | jq --arg today $(gdate +'%A') 'any(. == $today))
+    if ! $deliver; then continue; fi
+    idx=$(recsel {{conf}} -P progress -n "$rec")
+    minutes=$(recsel {{conf}} -P minutes -n "$rec")
+    words=$((minutes * WPM))
+    file=$(recsel {{conf}} -P file -n "$rec")
+    title=$(recsel {{conf}} -P title -n "$rec")
+    author=$(recsel {{conf}} -P author -n "$rec")
+    iter=$(recsel {{conf}} -P iter -n "$rec")
+    awk -v start="$idx" -v rec="$rec" -v title="$title" -v author="$author" -v iter="$iter" 'BEGIN {
+      RS="\n\n"; ORS="\n\n"; Limit=1200
+    }
+    NR >= start && total < Limit {
+      out = out "\n\n" $0;
+      total = total + NF; par = NR; 
+    }
+    END {
+      cmd = "recset {{conf}} -n " rec " -f progress -s " par + 1;
+      cmd | getline
+      print out
+    }' "$file" \
+    | mail -s "$title, by $author Part $iter" {{email}}
+    recset {{conf}} -n "$rec" -f iter -s $((iter + 1))
+    recset {{conf}} -n "$rec" -f updated -s $(gdate -I)
+  done