[HN Gopher] Plaintext Productivity
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Plaintext Productivity
Author : FelipeRM
Score : 95 points
Date : 2022-03-20 19:01 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (plaintext-productivity.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (plaintext-productivity.net)
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Why name folders with starting @ seeing there's nothing else in
| the directory they reside?
| ajuc wrote:
| Not exactly TODO but I do something similar.
|
| I have a directory with text files and images named like:
| 2022_03_20_1_short_description.txt or
| 2022_03_20_2_config_screenshot.png
|
| The names are mostly to group images with related text files when
| I grep later.
|
| I create the file at the start of each work day, write a few
| lines of TODO for the task I'm working on, and whenever I copy-
| paste something that seems relevant - I paste it there and leave
| it with a few empty lines as separator.
|
| If image is better I screenshot only the relevant part and
| possibly add some notes with paint and save it in that directory.
|
| When I investigate some error I paste stacktrace there. And when
| I find solution - I paste the link or the git commit or JIRA task
| or description.
|
| If I do several unrelated things in the same day I sometimes
| create several files, but it doesn't matter that much.
|
| It saved me A LOT of time. A quick grep and I have all the
| context of some error that last happened 8 months ago.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I don't think I can be productive with \r\n line endings.
| UberFly wrote:
| I like the todo.txt concept and have given it a go for a while,
| most recently using the really nice frontend UI "Sleek". I ended
| up moving away due to the limited functionality of todo.txt as a
| whole. I needed to be able to add simple notes to my todos at
| times and it's just not possible or easy to accomplish this basic
| need with todo.txt.
| wim wrote:
| Interesting, I also keep coming back to text files for
| productivity, because of the speed and simplicity. Some of the
| points the author mentions though like due dates, a
| journal/schedule and version history still aren't really solved
| very well I think. Not to mention collaborating in a team that
| way (not a requirement for the author I think, but something I
| could use myself).
|
| I actually tried simply using VSCode for a while with just a
| plain text "todo.txt", "schedule.txt" and "projects.txt", but
| that didn't scale very well (also didn't really get things like
| autocomplete to work properly).
|
| If anyone's interested, we decided to see if we can actually
| solve this ourselves and are building an editor/IDE from scratch
| now, but specifically for "todo.txt" (https://thymer.com).
| bleachedsleet wrote:
| Cool looking project...have a beta I could try yet?
| wim wrote:
| Thanks! Not yet, still working on getting a beta out asap
| mch82 wrote:
| How come we don't have plaintext symbols for the formatting
| basics: bold, italic, color?
|
| Maybe we could expand Unicode based on lessons learned from
| Markdown/typesetting & the formatting characters could be added
| as non-printing characters. Visibility could be toggled with
| other whitespace characters.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| You can use the standard ANSI escapes, if no other markup is
| defined. Adding new formatting codes via Unicode just wouldn't
| change much.
| lambda_dn wrote:
| Org mode does all this but 100x better.
| danuker wrote:
| And also with a 100x learning curve.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Not sure if you're referring to Emacs or org mode.
|
| Org mode has an extremely shallow learning curve. I literally
| watched Carsten Dominik's Google Tech Talk and was
| immediately productive. Every time I wanted to do more, the
| information was easy to find.
|
| Getting used to Emacs - well sure ;-)
| kkfx wrote:
| Hum, meh, personally I've jumped the ship from Unix to Emacs
| few years ago: in a month Emacs became mine most used
| application, in another or two my windows manager (EXWM) and
| if few more months I decide to devastate my decades-old
| hyper-curated home taxonomy to put all my files in a cache-
| like tree handled via org-attach, accessing them mostly via
| search&narrow before with linkmarks + manual org-mode, after
| with org-roam. I have almost anything in Emacs form emails to
| personal finance, files, agenda, ... everything integrated in
| ways no other tool I know of can give...
|
| The learning curve exists of course, but it's not that hard
| if you have a bit of IT background and in any case it pay
| back so much that's absolutely worth the initial "capex"...
| czernobog wrote:
| org mode is alright but learning emacs has been a real deal
| for me.
| Oreb wrote:
| I'm the opposite. I love emacs and have been using it since
| the previous millennium, but no matter how often I try, I
| just can't get comfortable with org-mode. I spend far more
| time looking up how to do stuff than I do writing, and I
| never seem to be able to remember anything.
| Groxx wrote:
| And also a single un-specified implementation.
|
| (though I am thrilled that it is in progress!
| https://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html )
| julianeon wrote:
| I bet I can explain it in 10 lines. This is literally the
| only orgmode functionality I use, and have used, for years.
|
| 1. You specify subheadings, or "outline format," with
| asterisks at the start of a line, with 1 asterisk (*) per
| level.
|
| 2. Use no asterisk for ultimate high level. If you have no
| asterisks at all at the beginning of a line in your text
| file, it's literally a plain text file, not really org mode
| at all.
|
| 3. One asterisk (*) at the start of a line for top level
| beneath that.
|
| 4. Two asterisks (**) at the start of a line for the level
| beneath that - call it sub top level.
|
| 5. Three asterisks(***) at the start of a line for the level
| beneath sub top level...
|
| 6. You get it: add asterisks at the start of a line, one more
| than is present in the asterisk level above yours, to go
| "deeper" into subsections. If you want to "reset" and start
| at top level again, use 1 asterisk or *. To reset to sub top
| level, use two asterisks or **...
|
| 7. Now, to navigate between these levels, press tab to
| expand, and tab again to close. Typically your view will only
| be of "top level" headings.
|
| 8. Press zR to expand everything, if you'd rather default to
| a view where everything is expanded and you contract stuff to
| make it more navigable.
|
| I don't use any org functionality outside this, just this,
| and it's been a godsend.
| podiki wrote:
| It can be as much or as little as you want, really. If you
| are completely new to Emacs and org-mode, you can take just a
| little time to learn a few shortcut keys and the basic
| formatting, and you are off. And, yes, then you can spend
| forever learning more and making it the way you want. But
| critically, you don't have to and can be up and running as
| quick as anything else.
| debaserab2 wrote:
| Just curious - what would you say makes it better?
| rayiner wrote:
| The editor understands the text files in a systematic way. I
| can jot down a date for a todo as I'm taking a note in my
| daily journal, and as long org-agenda can look across all my
| text files and show it in my agenda.
| xenodium wrote:
| Plain text can be super versatile (task-tracking and note-taking
| are great examples), but equally important are the guarantees
| that your content is truly yours (no lock-in).
|
| With all these plain text posts surfacing regularly, I'd love for
| the lesser-known org markup (https://orgmode.org) to gain more
| adoption. It's a real power-house. Its Emacs origin may put some
| off, but it's plain text, so your content can be
| ingested/consumed by either regular text editors or any app
| focusing on specific user-journeys.
|
| I built two org-powered apps for iOS myself:
|
| https://plainorg.com
|
| https://flathabits.com
|
| There are other great ones out there:
|
| https://beorg.app
|
| https://braintool.org
|
| https://easyorgmode.com
|
| https://logseq.com
|
| https://organice.200ok.ch
|
| https://orgro.org
|
| http://orgzly.com
|
| Thanks to Karl Voit for driving org markup awareness outside of
| Emacs via Orgdown https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown. He's
| also got a great post showcasing org strengths at https://karl-
| voit.at/2017/09/23/orgmode-as-markup-only
| Torwald wrote:
| > the guarantees that your content is truly yours (no lock-in).
|
| Maybe I am a magician of some kind, but my content is always
| mine, regardless of the file type I use.
|
| For the sake of argument, let's say I have a floppy disk with a
| Vizawrite file on it, that I typed 30 years ago. There is no
| lock-in. I still can use that file.
| eBombzor wrote:
| What are the advantages orgmode has over markdown
| NeutralForest wrote:
| You can run pretty much any programming language from within
| org-mode and have literate lab/reports/configurations. Since
| org is tightly integrated with Emacs, there's also much more
| interaction with code in general (Emacs Lisp) which lets you
| do pretty crazy things. Like run and output SQL queries to
| your document or have interaction a la Jupyter Notebook.
| xenodium wrote:
| Karl Voit does it a lot more justice than I would
| https://karl-voit.at/2017/09/23/orgmode-as-markup-only
|
| Also there's a super comprehensive guide if you want to go
| all in on Emacs side of things. It's written in org itself
| http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.org and exported to html
| http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html.
| flenserboy wrote:
| (If you know, of course:) How well does org-mode play with
| Pandoc? Much of my workflow goes from Markdown > LaTeX, and
| Pandoc works pretty well for that. Thanks!
| NeutralForest wrote:
| There's pandoc-mode in Emacs and that lets you fully
| integrate pandoc with org if needed. But you can also convert
| org files to LaTeX and PDF directly. That's how I take all my
| notes.
| smusamashah wrote:
| I have been using OneNote after going through a bunch of
| plaintext tools and I have never been at more ease with dumping
| info from my head for later retrieval. OneNote makes it as fluent
| as possible with as little resistance that no other tool offers.
|
| New version of OneNote (metro style) has been bitten by designers
| though like all good things in recent times. Also, it does not
| have customizable shortcut keys making formatting code snippets a
| non-trivial process.
|
| Every page is a white board which no other tool does and that's
| where it's power is. Plaintext can't beat that.
| yardshop wrote:
| I love OneNote, it's my primary note taking tool, although I'm
| eagerly looking for a more open alternative.
|
| I love pasting in screen clips and shots, and being able to
| extract text from them when I need to.
|
| I also love arbitrary indentation and use that for structuring
| my notes. This is something that Markdown can't do, and I have
| yet to find any kind of markup-supporting text format that
| doesn't treat indented text as pre-formatted.
|
| I dislike that newer versions force syncing with Office 365 and
| have reduced the file format flexibility of older versions,
| like saving the notebook on a network share, or exporting to an
| MHT file if one wants.
|
| I still use the Office 2016 version and am hesitant to try
| newer versions again. I have numerous notebooks on many
| different PCs and want to coalesce them at some point, but am
| not comfortable putting them all on Office 365.
|
| But for day to day note taking, it's the lowest friction tool
| I've found that comes closest to my preferences.
| codazoda wrote:
| This is very detailed and well documented and is similar to how I
| work in my web based app, Nolific. Specifically, I keep notes in
| plain-text and write drafts in markdown. I don't keep my todo in
| the system, but it would be relatively easy to do so. Once I'm
| happy with a draft, I copy/paste it into an MD file on my blog.
| All my notes are easily searchable.
|
| I built a browser based solution because I spend most of my day
| in the browser anyway, so I just keep Nolific pinned in a tab.
|
| It's free and open source if you wanna check it out.
|
| https://www.nolific.com
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| The rather-name-just-search approach seems less hassle but lack
| of version control may be an issue. Perhaps automatic
| checkpoints could be made on large changes or when leaving the
| page.
| podiki wrote:
| When I see this all I can think of is Emacs and org-mode, harness
| all that power and that existing ecosystem. At a quick glance
| seems to be a lot of what this does.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| The entire system is very elementary compared to org-mode. This
| is good for some (people that wanna try this approach since
| it's simpler and mostly works fine), bad for others (people
| accustomed to all features org provides).
| crispyalmond wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. Org-mode just works and has so much
| functionality that I haven't even discovered yet. I am
| currently using it for notes and TODOs.
| hughrr wrote:
| Plain text sucks. It's so hard to represent context, time,
| location and state.
|
| I have got to the point I just use the reminders app in apple
| ecosystem. Notes go in the notes app. Things get deleted when
| done or disinterest kicks in. Shortcuts fills up regular tasks
| for me.
| syngrog66 wrote:
| I quickly craft tiny ad hoc DSLs as needed. staying in text
| lets me control my own data, minimize spending, always work
| offline, have easy version control and backups, maximum
| multiplatform support, and maximum futureproofing. not perfect
| but I usually gain more than I win
| hughrr wrote:
| My gains are sync across all my devices instantly including
| the one strapped to my wrist, voice control, location
| awareness, context awareness, prompting, scripted automation,
| attachments and full tagging and categorisation system and I
| can share tasks with people including colleagues and family
| and check status.
|
| I'll take that set of features over your self-imposed
| compromises.
|
| I closed over 23,000 tasks so far with it while managing a
| full time job and a family.
| syngrog66 wrote:
| I totally respect that. if that works better for you, keep
| on doing it
|
| I've probably closed a mega-zillion (1) tasks from 1980ish
| onward using my hyper-minimalist approach, so, I think both
| styles can work
|
| (1: guestimated, in approx 50ms. lol)
| Madeindjs wrote:
| With plaintext you can do what you need. For example, with
| todo.txt context are just prefixed by `@`. You can also add
| special tag with `key:value`. So for example you can add
| `location:paris` and retrieve it with whatever search tool.
| hughrr wrote:
| But I can't speak to my arm and add something to the list.
| Nor will a text file remind me to do something at a specific
| time.
| kkfx wrote:
| Plain-text means just something that can be manipulated easily,
| witch is damn good. But tools to properly and comfortably
| manipulate text are needed. For me the solution is Emacs that let
| me combine almost anything, access almost anything in a snap.
| It's a bit buggy sometimes, not really crafted for such usage,
| but even with such issues is still far above all other tools I
| know (and being a sysadmin I have see many software) to a point
| that I've developed the idea that after Xerox and LispM we humans
| completely lost the way of IT development just to lock users out
| of the real potential IT gives...
| syngrog66 wrote:
| I've been a hardcore text-and-CLI-first-maybe-only guy for
| decades, as a workflow optimization rule. I coined my own private
| little name for it too: CLIFMO. I have my own development process
| and architecture strategy all associated with that name/abbrev.
| (Which I might write down and share one day, haha.)
|
| one thing I love about having a plaintext bias when working is
| that many opportunities arise to design ad hoc DSLs, as I need
| them. when they begin to feel like a net win
|
| its also fairly easy to start blurring the lines between text
| notes and working code, esp with shell scripts and langs like
| Python
| hanlec wrote:
| Whatever system I have (tried to) used over time, I've run into
| the following challenges:
|
| 1. how to deal with old tasks (are they relevant anymore? should
| they be removed?). 2. connecting tasks to their related source
| and needed information to act
|
| For the former, the accumulation of old stuff has consistently
| led to less and less usage of the system and as a result to a
| continuously decreasing trust in that system. Adopting a new
| solution has given the feeling of a better system with better
| chances to success; but it has mainly been about having a
| (temporarily) new clean inbox.
| slk500 wrote:
| in emacs org-mode you can archive some tasks, text - it will
| move it to another text file ex. archive.txt with the timestamp
| or archiving it. Beside this keep your file in git. so you
| delete text & make explicit commit message that something was
| removed.
| raju wrote:
| @luxpir mentioned Obsidian in another comment [1] and it might
| be what you are looking for, in particular with a community
| plugin called Obsidian Dataview [2]. Dataview uses JavaScript
| as a query language and can query the Obsidian "vault" and
| create different views.
|
| Another tool to look at is Logseq [3], which is essentially an
| outliner (supports both MarkDown and Org syntax), but supports
| a rather simplistic TODO management system. The benefit here is
| exactly what you describe--as you work in Logseq, you can
| create Todos, thereby connecting the task to the related source
| and any context that surrounds the todo. Furthermore, Logseq
| also allows for queries [4], allowing you to query your
| "knowledge graph", which you can embed in other pages.
|
| Both Obsidian and Logseq store your files locally, so they can
| be easily version-controlled (In fact, Logseq routines commits
| your files for you).
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30747131
|
| [2] https://github.com/blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview
|
| [3] https://logseq.com/
|
| [4] https://logseq.github.io/#/page/Queries
|
| [Edited for formatting]
| luxpir wrote:
| I'll just add that the tasks plugin in obsidian has its own
| scripting syntax, much simpler/plain English, and is lighter
| weight than the entire dataview alternative. I actually set
| my system up to replicate logseq and taskwarrior within the
| more mature and faster running obsidian project. Ran them in
| parallel for a while on the same files.
|
| Main difference for me was that Obsidian can be an outliner
| or general markdown editor. Logseq very focused on the
| former, and atomising your notes, but in reality this is
| rarely useful. In my case at least, especially when writing
| long form content. Search is fast and complete in obsidian,
| so there's very little benefit to recalling and embedding
| single lines from entire vault, it's just a resource sink in
| my case.
| iib wrote:
| Some people that were interested in their productivity that I
| read seemed to have systems that regularly cleaned their todo
| lists for old tasks. Stephen King [1] advises aspiring writers
| not to note their writing prompts, as the best ideas should pop
| into your head regularly, or nullprogram.com [2] programming in
| /tmp/.
|
| So maybe the way to go is to have a logrotate-like on your
| input file.
|
| [1] On writing -- Stephen King, although I read it a very long
| time ago and would not be able to point to a specific page. [2]
| I searched the web but can't find the exact citation, and there
| is no search feature on the website.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| Yeah, I've been thinking about how to tackle this and I am
| convinced any personal note taking app should have an archive
| all and start over button.
|
| A clean sheet is intimidating when you don't know where to
| start but is a hard requirement downstream once your chosen
| abstraction starts to break under the weight.
| jen729w wrote:
| Not necessarily a 'productivity hack' in that it neither relates
| to productivity nor is a hack, but in our latest side project my
| partner and I have a need to share textual data about the various
| episodes/lessons that we're creating.
|
| Of course any number of notes systems allow one to do that, and I
| have my very own system of organisation that helps [0], but we
| ended up, at my partner's suggestion, just saving individual .txt
| files in the folders containing the episodes.
|
| [0]: https://johnnydecimal.com
|
| Nothing new here of course, it's what we all used to do when it
| was the only option. But it feels like it's been so long since I
| just fired up TextEdit, typed the words, and File-SaveAs'd it in
| to a folder. It's weirdly refreshing and works really well.
|
| I noted that it was my partner's suggestion because she's been
| learning Markdown, and as an ex-professional-writer
| (medical/patient) is _overjoyed_ that she doesn't have to use
| Word. When we were looking for a solution she said, well why
| don't we just save a file there. So simple that I'd missed it.
| Flankk wrote:
| David Allen is a leader of The Movement of Spiritual Inner
| Awareness. Between cargo cult and actual cults I have a low
| opinion of programmers in general. Programmers think everything
| needs a system or an abstraction. I guess when all you have is a
| hammer everything is a nail.
| luxpir wrote:
| I'll be first to mention obsidian here. I solved my
| overloading/losing faith in systems issue with it by using a
| daily template. At the bottom of which are all the tasks in daily
| notes, generated by an inline script, another dynamic list of
| tasks for my freelance work. I could add my #ideas or #content
| lists too, but they are stored elsewhere. I add the #inv tag to
| my freelance work and that moves them to the "to invoice" list.
| When finally checked they disappear, but all still stored on
| their initial log date (all searchable, of course). So long lists
| of crud don't get the chance to accumulate, and ideas are easily
| searchable either in dynamic lists or just using search.
|
| On the same page are mental/physical subheadings so a small bit
| of journalling takes place. I never look back at it, but it's
| there.
|
| This beats all previous attempts at organisational systems.
| Obsidian has a great mobile app. Syncthing keeps them updated.
| Previous systems were Trello (perma loss of everything archived),
| big single plaintext file (soon becomes a heaving mess), paper
| (no search and easy for things to sink/not be surfaced).
| Taskwarrior, which was great for a long time, but tricky to sync
| and no additional features like journalling, swipe file creation,
| flashcards, search, mobile app (sync to cli env on Android was
| clunky). And surely more I'm forgetting.
|
| Side benefits: all plaintext, whatever happens to obsidian. Graph
| view of all interconnected ideas. Easy resurfacing of old but
| relevant ideas through search and backlink sidebar. Could import
| my attempts at using vimwiki with zero conversion required. Much
| better UX than Vim. Great place to also write content, use
| wordcount, sprint, wordcount goal, calendar features etc.
|
| For me the days of Vimwiki and org-mode are now numbered. Even
| most other note taking software tbh, for anyone OK with syncing
| their own stuff and figuring out a little bit of basic script
| syntax for the dynamic lists _within_ the plaintext files.
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