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+# paste manager
+
+A simple script to create a menu driven database for storing little bits of
+information. The database is a double colon delimited plain text file
+queried with standard unix tools.
+
+This is *NOT* for passwords. Do *NOT* use it for them. See my own
+[`dpw`](https://git.riedstra.dev/mitch/dpw/about/) or
+[pass](https://www.passwordstore.org/) for a solution there.
+
+Date formatting is a bit of a pain, so there's a `strftime` command line utility
+that's bundled, yes `gawk` provides `strftime` but that's not on every system.
+
+Works best with `dmenu` fuzzy finder patch. Utilizes list mode by default.
+
+Menu format can easily be customized by editing the script near the
+top of the `pm` shell script.
+
+Database format is fairly simple:
+
+```
+ID::Created::Updated::Name::Content
+```
+
+It's a menu driven application with no CLI options, users are encouraged to
+write programs that directly talk to the database, or extend it to suit their
+needs.
+
+
+## Installation
+
+```
+# make install
+```
+
+You'll need `dmenu` installed. You may also wish to bind a hotkey to run the new
+`pm` command
+
+
+## Configuration
+
+Environment variables:
+
+`PASTE_MANAGER_FILE` can override the file location
+`PASTE_MANAGER_LINES` overrides the number of lines displayed by `dmenu`
+`PASTE_MANAGER_X_SELECTION` sets the clipboard selection, you probably want to
+leave it set to clipboard, the default.
+
+
+Edit the source code for further tweaks. The one people may have the most
+interest in is the format sent to `dmenu`, that's controlled via the `awk` script
+in the `awkPrettyPrint` variable near the top.
+
+## Bugs
+
+Probably. This was written in just a few hours. Email me if you find any, I'll
+fix them.
+
+## Not-bugs
+
+Multi line snippets are entirely unsupported.