3 ms·

Productivity in Plaintext

33 points by luxpir 11y ago

luxpir 11y ago
Any questions on this I'm happy to answer. The link to the examples repo is at the end of the post, or here for convenience: https://github.com/luxpir/plaintext-productivity https://github.com/luxpir/plaintext-productivity Summary: A to-do list and calendar template for low-resource, quick management of work and personal life. Also included for good measure are a .vimrc and .muttrc file to borrow from.
noir_lord 11y ago
Why not just use org-mode? (genuine question not a smart ass question).
- luxpir 11y ago
  Cheers, no I appreciate that. I mention my issues with org-mode in the post, but it's mainly for simplicity, portability and to save time learning and configuring (and reconfiguring between versions). It's explained a little more fully in the post. In fact the system is a bit anti org-mode, or any productivity software that takes more time to learn (or implement) than to use.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    Indeed you did, my bad I made it to 5) Email :). Fair enough whatever works :), though I would point out to anyone reading this that the learning mode for emacs is open file, save file, type in file. Also not sure what you mean with portability since emacs is literally just plain text as well. Everything else you'll learn as you go - I wonder if I can do foo followed by I can do foo!. The irony of org-mode is that it made me actually use emacs every day something nothing else ever has (I've used IDE's for programming since the late 90's).
    - luxpir 11y ago
      I can see why you might not have made it to the end - I get tunnel-vision when writing sometimes. That's the edited down version! I think there's a lot of mileage left in the emacs + org-mode for productivity discussion, so I can completely see where you're coming from. I won't repeat what I said in the post here, but I'll just reiterate this HN comment[0] from 2 month's back where a frequent user of org-mode complained about backwards-compatibility. And this isn't an isolated case, the devs are apparently forging ahead with the simplification of org-mode at the expense of a few compatibility issues. I don't suppose users of the basic functionality would notice, but then do those users need all the potential complexity of org-mode? I'll also reiterate that, as per the citations in the post, even RMS can't bring himself to broach the org-mode subject. At least as of 2013. It probably boils down to there being two camps, those who make full use of org-mode's features and who enjoy delving into the minutae of configuring their productivity suites (most likely already emacs users?). And then there are those who can run their affairs from a paper diary (or who have help), 80s style, but prefer going digital for all the advantages that brings. I might be wrong, but I get the strong impression from seeing others use it that org-mode lets you, even encourages you to operate a system that holds hundreds of to-do's at any one time. To just get your thoughts into it, however relevant. I've used systems like that before and I didn't like the growing stress resulting from the pile-up. The final thing I'd say is that as one of the world's vim users (is it a 50/50 split vim:emacs?) I just can't bring myself to embrace the chorded keymappings of emacs. I'd rather learn piano. It'd sure sound nicer. -- [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10636589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10636589
guide42 11y ago
Have you tried hierarchical notebook[0]? [0]: http://hnb.sourceforge.net/ http://hnb.sourceforge.net/
- luxpir 11y ago
  Nice suggestion. That's the kind of software I really appreciate atm - I'd never seen this. Looks a little like taskwarrior with some interesting features? I won't test-drive it at this point though because I don't see it doing anything the text files haven't got covered (that I need) and there's nothing to install to use those on each additional device.
- dTal 11y ago
  Is shift-up and shift-down for moving nodes broken for you? I submitted a patch to Debian (who seem to be the maintainers now) but nobody else seems to have this problem. If anyone else does have the problem: add {KEY_SR, "sup"} and {KEY_SF, "sdown"} to ui_binding.c and change "sprevious" and "snext" to "sup" and "sdown" in the configuration file.
wanderfowl 11y ago
I love the idea of this, but sadly, it only works when your work is in Plaintext. I'm an audio and graphing sort of guy, and although I try to be in Plaintext as much as I can, it's a constant battle. One other loss is cross-device compatibility for things like calendaring. I totally get why text calendars are great, but I check my calendar from my phone or tablet enough that I couldn't rely on SSH. And losing calendar based alarms would be tough. Mutt is great, though. And respect for sticking to an aesthetic :)
- luxpir 11y ago
  Yep, that checks out :) Just a thought. Would sharing the files via Dropbox (shudder) or similar (rsync/syncthing) work on your devices? That would then rely on a local text editor to edit or just the built-in web-browser if you automated a regular :TOhtml export from vim. Suppose that starts to get a little cumbersome for some use cases. Admittedly I don't have to check my calendar that often. My to-do list, perhaps though.
  - wanderfowl 11y ago
    I already do that, actually, via Dropbox (shudder). But plaintext based systems, particularly the symbol-heavy ones, suck terribly on virtual keyboards.
AstralStorm 11y ago
It is fine and dandy until you get to cooperate (e.g. share task lists) or especially use machines not configured by yourself. The productivity is a third or less then in my experience. Then it's a losing battle to keep compatibility between your custom solution and everyone elses. To add insult to injury, few of the mainstream tools allow proper import and export which could be automated. And plenty of web tools don't even allow easy access to single functions, you get to deal with whole AJAX, cookies and all the mess... Bonus if the tool is closed, then it is a large reverse engineering effort.
- luxpir 11y ago
  So... nothing's ideal yet? How does cooperation work with org-mode, taskwarrior or hnb (mentioned below)? Are you describing a more general problem with local productivity software? A simple sharing service, version control or rsyncing the files to a simple webserver at regular intervals would be an option for sharing. Not something I'll have to deal with for now though. If you've checked out the files I'm not sure how you conclude that one would lose compatibility any time soon either. What do you use?

33 points by luxpir 11y ago

Any questions on this I'm happy to answer. The link to the examples repo is at the end of the post, or here for convenience: https://github.com/luxpir/plaintext-productivity https://github.com/luxpir/plaintext-productivity Summary: A to-do list and calendar template for low-resource, quick management of work and personal life. Also included for good measure are a .vimrc and .muttrc file to borrow from.

noir_lord 11y ago

Why not just use org-mode? (genuine question not a smart ass question).

luxpir 11y ago
Cheers, no I appreciate that. I mention my issues with org-mode in the post, but it's mainly for simplicity, portability and to save time learning and configuring (and reconfiguring between versions). It's explained a little more fully in the post. In fact the system is a bit anti org-mode, or any productivity software that takes more time to learn (or implement) than to use.
- noir_lord 11y ago
  Indeed you did, my bad I made it to 5) Email :). Fair enough whatever works :), though I would point out to anyone reading this that the learning mode for emacs is open file, save file, type in file. Also not sure what you mean with portability since emacs is literally just plain text as well. Everything else you'll learn as you go - I wonder if I can do foo followed by I can do foo!. The irony of org-mode is that it made me actually use emacs every day something nothing else ever has (I've used IDE's for programming since the late 90's).
  - luxpir 11y ago
    I can see why you might not have made it to the end - I get tunnel-vision when writing sometimes. That's the edited down version! I think there's a lot of mileage left in the emacs + org-mode for productivity discussion, so I can completely see where you're coming from. I won't repeat what I said in the post here, but I'll just reiterate this HN comment[0] from 2 month's back where a frequent user of org-mode complained about backwards-compatibility. And this isn't an isolated case, the devs are apparently forging ahead with the simplification of org-mode at the expense of a few compatibility issues. I don't suppose users of the basic functionality would notice, but then do those users need all the potential complexity of org-mode? I'll also reiterate that, as per the citations in the post, even RMS can't bring himself to broach the org-mode subject. At least as of 2013. It probably boils down to there being two camps, those who make full use of org-mode's features and who enjoy delving into the minutae of configuring their productivity suites (most likely already emacs users?). And then there are those who can run their affairs from a paper diary (or who have help), 80s style, but prefer going digital for all the advantages that brings. I might be wrong, but I get the strong impression from seeing others use it that org-mode lets you, even encourages you to operate a system that holds hundreds of to-do's at any one time. To just get your thoughts into it, however relevant. I've used systems like that before and I didn't like the growing stress resulting from the pile-up. The final thing I'd say is that as one of the world's vim users (is it a 50/50 split vim:emacs?) I just can't bring myself to embrace the chorded keymappings of emacs. I'd rather learn piano. It'd sure sound nicer. -- [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10636589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10636589

guide42 11y ago

Have you tried hierarchical notebook[0]? [0]: http://hnb.sourceforge.net/ http://hnb.sourceforge.net/

luxpir 11y ago
Nice suggestion. That's the kind of software I really appreciate atm - I'd never seen this. Looks a little like taskwarrior with some interesting features? I won't test-drive it at this point though because I don't see it doing anything the text files haven't got covered (that I need) and there's nothing to install to use those on each additional device.
dTal 11y ago
Is shift-up and shift-down for moving nodes broken for you? I submitted a patch to Debian (who seem to be the maintainers now) but nobody else seems to have this problem. If anyone else does have the problem: add {KEY_SR, "sup"} and {KEY_SF, "sdown"} to ui_binding.c and change "sprevious" and "snext" to "sup" and "sdown" in the configuration file.

wanderfowl 11y ago

I love the idea of this, but sadly, it only works when your work is in Plaintext. I'm an audio and graphing sort of guy, and although I try to be in Plaintext as much as I can, it's a constant battle. One other loss is cross-device compatibility for things like calendaring. I totally get why text calendars are great, but I check my calendar from my phone or tablet enough that I couldn't rely on SSH. And losing calendar based alarms would be tough. Mutt is great, though. And respect for sticking to an aesthetic :)

luxpir 11y ago
Yep, that checks out :) Just a thought. Would sharing the files via Dropbox (shudder) or similar (rsync/syncthing) work on your devices? That would then rely on a local text editor to edit or just the built-in web-browser if you automated a regular :TOhtml export from vim. Suppose that starts to get a little cumbersome for some use cases. Admittedly I don't have to check my calendar that often. My to-do list, perhaps though.
- wanderfowl 11y ago
  I already do that, actually, via Dropbox (shudder). But plaintext based systems, particularly the symbol-heavy ones, suck terribly on virtual keyboards.

AstralStorm 11y ago

It is fine and dandy until you get to cooperate (e.g. share task lists) or especially use machines not configured by yourself. The productivity is a third or less then in my experience. Then it's a losing battle to keep compatibility between your custom solution and everyone elses. To add insult to injury, few of the mainstream tools allow proper import and export which could be automated. And plenty of web tools don't even allow easy access to single functions, you get to deal with whole AJAX, cookies and all the mess... Bonus if the tool is closed, then it is a large reverse engineering effort.

luxpir 11y ago
So... nothing's ideal yet? How does cooperation work with org-mode, taskwarrior or hnb (mentioned below)? Are you describing a more general problem with local productivity software? A simple sharing service, version control or rsyncing the files to a simple webserver at regular intervals would be an option for sharing. Not something I'll have to deal with for now though. If you've checked out the files I'm not sure how you conclude that one would lose compatibility any time soon either. What do you use?