A number of features (arguments, defaults, automatic listing of templates, viewing, hashing, my template, etc.)

[xl-sec]

First off, thank you for a great script and template -- it sped up my report writing immensely. This update contains a number of features I implemented during my study of OSWE.

Summary;

• Pass choices as arguments, so you don't have to go through the prompt each time
• Hard coded defaults, if you don't want to have to pass arguments either
• Automatically set the date on the generated report
• Option to view the generated report in the default PDF viewer after generation
• Option to generate an archive or not
• Calculating MD5 hash after archiving, to compare to file after uploading
• Work with absolute paths instead of relative paths
  • Makes it easier to create an alias to generate it from any terminal location
• Automatic listing of all templates in src/ folder
  • This required renaming of all templates for easier parsing
• Added my own OSWE template
  • Includes test cases for highlighting of languages
  • Includes recommendations for each application, don't think this is required by OS but feels weird writing a report without it
  • Bunch of smaller changes

[noraj]

Thanks for your PR, there is a lot of stuff going on here. I must take time to review it. Thanks for your patience.

[xl-sec]

Thanks for your PR, there is a lot of stuff going on here. I must take time to review it. Thanks for your patience.

No worries, take your time :)

[noraj]

Since this PR i very long I made a changelog of what I added and what not.

Legend:

• ❌ not merged / refused / wontfix
• ✅ merged / accepted / fixed
• 🟠 modified

Changes status:

• ✅ Fixed typo bc09ece4dba7f328d8f77df115895246853536ae
• 🟠 Option to view the generated report in the default PDF viewer after generation 0b051c5e9f3d33aba0036a8a0483d2beae31953e
  • I modified it to use xdg-open (Linux / Freedesktop) rather than open (MAC) since Linux is targeted (MAC users can create an alias)
  • There are cross-platform options with the xdg or the os gems but I don't want to introduce external dependencies
• ❌ Option to generate an archive or not
  • Not useful, an archive is always required for exam submission, and for people just wanting a preview, creating the archive is quicker than actually taking the time to answer yes or no
• 🟠 Calculating MD5 hash after archiving, to compare to file after uploading b8d25a6e35645706cf0160433950e01d79f3de2b
  • Compute the hash with native ruby method rather than relying on a system command
• ❌ Automatically set the date on the generated report
  • That was tempting but if it's done 100% automatically then the manual value is always overridden
  • There was the option to add a confirmation prompt but it makes one more interaction for nothing since the date is not important and the day doesn't need to be changed often, it's not an exact timestamp, some the date is better changed manually from the metadata front-matters with other information
  • It's endless to add CLI option for each metadata (date, title, author, etc.)
• ❌ Pass choices as arguments, so you don't have to go through the prompt each time
  • I would have merged it if it was an alternative of the wizard and not a replacement as many user will prefer the wizard
  • Also it's not that important since it's a script to generate a report for an exam you will do once in your life not a tool you'll use on a daily basis
  • People wanting frequent preview can simple use the pandoc command on their terminal and use shell features to replay recent commands instead of launching the full generation script
• ❌ Work with absolute paths instead of relative paths
  • I prefer no to modify this behavior this would make it counter intuitive
  • To generate the report from any terminal location a oneline wrapper is possible
• ❌ Automatic listing of all templates in src/ folder
  • I prefer to keep the actual template list (one of the reasons is to avoid junk put in the src folder to appear as a template)
• 🟠 xl-sec template 88ab450965ac377140cd7e37452390dfff53f684
  • I merge the template without the highlight testing section that I added in the FAQ instead
  • I added a reference to the line length issue in the FAQ and made a ref to that in the code blocks instead of the long base64 blob
  • Fixed a typo: underlaying -> underlying
• 🟠 Syntax highlight style listing
  • Since this is needed only once, I added the command in the documentation rather than in the script to keep it simple
• ❌ Syntax highlight style choice by id
  • A bit overcomplicated for little improvement

[noraj]

Thanks a lot @xl-sec for all the ideas.

Note: It would be easier next time if you split multiple changes in multiples PR so that they can be review and merged independently.