Libraries

Plot

The novem cli is designed to make it easy to create and view your plots from the command line. This document provides a short overview of working with your plots using the novem cli

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For this document we assume that you've already installed the novem cli and that the novem command is available in your $PATH. If you need help installing the novem cli please see the installation instructions.

Plots are selected with the -p flag. On its own, -p lists all of your plots; with a name it selects that plot for the operations described below.

# list all of your plots
novem -p

# select a single plot to operate on
novem -p my_plot

Add -C to create the plot if it doesn't already exist. The --type flag is a shorthand for writing config/type, and sets the chart type.

# create a new plot and set it to a bar chart
novem -p my_plot -C --type bar

The data lives at the plot's data path. Write to any path with -w — the value can be supplied inline, read from a file with @filename, or piped on stdin.

# from a file
novem -p my_plot -w data @data.csv

# or piped on stdin
cat data.csv | novem -p my_plot -w data

Everything under config/ is set the same way, with -w and the relative path.

novem -p my_plot -w config/title "Quarterly revenue"
novem -p my_plot -w config/caption "Source: internal finance data"

To edit a longer value interactively, -e opens the path in $EDITOR and saves on exit:

novem -p my_plot -e config/caption

Read any path back with -r. The url path returns the shareable link, and -x is a shorthand for a terminal-friendly render (identical to -r files/plot.ansi).

# print the shareable url
novem -p my_plot -r url

# preview the plot directly in your terminal
novem -p my_plot -x

Shares are managed with -s. A bare -s lists the current shares; combine it with -C to add a share and -D to remove one.

# share publicly
novem -p my_plot -C -s public

# list current shares
novem -p my_plot -s

# stop sharing publicly
novem -p my_plot -D -s public

Select a tag with -t (for example fav, like, wip, archived, a +usertag or a =categorytag); a bare -t lists the plot's current tags.

# mark a plot as a favourite
novem -p my_plot -t fav

# list the plot's tags
novem -p my_plot -t

novem -p my_plot -D

  • Config — every plot configuration path.
  • Charts — chart types and their options.