Hi,
I'm a solicitor <ducks>, and would like to organise my work at the linux commandline, rather than using MS Office. I like cli apps; I like python; I like bash; I like concise; I like the unix philosophy; I like vim; I like Mutt.
However, I don't get chance to use the software that I love at work. Instead, I'm expected to use Word, Outlook and some horrible case management software to manage my documents, and create them from templates. All day long I write letters and other documents on each of my legal cases. I would be exceedingly happy if I could replace this functionality with some nice scripts, so that I could spend my days in front of a nice bash shell.
To do that I'd need a script that:
1. Stores data about a case: I need to be able to store some data (could be a simple key/value store for each case).
2. Store documents for each case: I'd like to store each document I produce along with some information on that document (such as how long it took to prepare). If I use a wordprocessor (such as openoffice) is it possible to quickly extract some 'properties' via a script? Would a better solution be to keep the documents in a text format, such as latex code...?
2. Enable templating: I could have a template document (e.g. a letter) and some of the information could be pulled out from the case data to populate it. I would then amend it for the particular circumstances of my case to then print, save etc.
3. Produce reports: I'd like to be able to scan all my cases to produce reports, such as: which case hasn't received any attention for the longest time, or how much work have I done on all my active cases this week etc.
I recognise that these are probably separate problems that should be solved separately. However, I'd be grateful for any suggestions on how I might solve some of these parts. Thank you for any thoughts.
Thanks in advance, Richard