7 ms·

Planner 2.6 – An open-source Todoist alternative for Linux

240 points by rayrag 6y ago

marvion 6y ago
It's so sad to see cool Linux tools without a Windows version:( I get why; I'm just sad - especially because some Linux users are annoyed by "Windows only" tools and then they use linux only features, that never can't be ported to other operating systems as well(not because lack of people, but incompatibility). Planner is one of those amazing niche tools that doesn't exist for Windows. It looks amazing - congrats!
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  I get where you're coming from but Linux exclusive desktop apps are so rare that it is probably worth it using tight platform integration as a way to convince users we have quality, nicely designed desktop apps too, especially considering Todoist have a Windows app but not a Linux one[1]. 1 - https://todoist.com/downloads/windows?lang=en https://todoist.com/downloads/windows?lang=en
  - marvion 6y ago
    I totally understand why. It just felt weird the first time I came across a beautiful Linux Mint app, that couldn't be ported to windows.. .. the cool thing is, that it is possible with WSL and it probably will be almost seamless in the future - without additional work for the devs. I specifically want to use Planner because of the local mode. Afaik ther are no nice local-only todo apps for windows with sub-task support.
  - spondyl 6y ago
    > considering Todoist have a Windows app but not a Linux one Todoist does have a Linux app, although it's effectively an electron wrapper around the web app. Having said that, I don't think this is unique to the linux version though? https://todoist.com/downloads/linux https://todoist.com/downloads/linux
- ajvs 6y ago
  Linux is open-source so it tends to follow that open-source projects choose to develop for it too.
- mbirth 6y ago
  From the screenshots it looks very similar to Microsoft To Do: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-to-do-list-app?rtc=1 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-to-d...
rayrag 6y ago
Github repo: https://github.com/alainm23/planner https://github.com/alainm23/planner
Nabati 6y ago
> For Todoist users, the Board View was introduced in this new update, a more visual way to organize your Planner projects. For someone not familiar with Planner, this sentence was really confusing for me, "for users of other service, there's a feature in this service", and it's not clear what the connection is.
sdwolfz 6y ago
Took me a while to find it, but this seems to be the repository: * https://github.com/alainm23/planner https://github.com/alainm23/planner Some notes from a quick browse: - Licensed GPL-3 - Written in Vala, using GTK - Uses sqlite - Meson+ninja as build system (which I like) If it ran on Android too I'd replace Orgzly with this as I wish to have a tool I use both on my phone and laptop, synchronized via Syncthing (so far orgmode in emacs + orgzly gives me what I want, but I wish I had something a bit more pretty and user friendly like this Planner).
- tgflynn 6y ago
  Thanks. I don't understand why they didn't include a github link on the website.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    You have to pay for it on the Elementary store, so maybe they don't want you to find it for free easily.
    - rayrag 6y ago
      Apps on Elementary store are available as pay as you want. The price there is just a suggestion and if don't want to pay just decrease it to 0.
- nguyenkien 6y ago
  Planner sync with Todoist [https://todoist.com/downloads/android https://todoist.com/downloads/android]
  - sdwolfz 6y ago
    Yes but I don't want a 3rd party to access my data. Right now I sync peer to peer via WiFi, no server involved, and would like to keep it that way.
    - 6y ago
finchisko 6y ago
Does Planner support any basic form of time tracking?
- itgoon 6y ago
  And/or cost tracking? That's the one feature missing from the simple planners that I've been wanting.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    And/or task dependency (as a DAG, not a tree)?
bschne 6y ago
Haven't used this personally, and it definitely seems to have taken lots of inspiration from Todoist, Things 3, et al., but it's really great to see this sort of well-designed app that looks like a lot of thought went into the UX even for non-advanced users for linux!
hcal 6y ago
I've been using this for a long time and I am Patreon supporter. When I switched from Mac to Linux I had to find a replacement for my todo/planner app called Things. Planner was initially a good enough solution, but Alain (the developer) has gone above and beyond to deliver an amazing tool. It is now every bit as good as Things and the Board view will be an awesome addition. This is one of those times where the open source option is clearly the best tool. You don't give up anything. Plus, and I think this is important for something you use all day long, it is has a nice visual design that is easy to use and figure out.
- hanklazard 6y ago
  Looks great for when I’m on my Linux laptop. Any way to use on iPhone without dealing with Todoist? Like a markdown text file or something.
- ruph123 6y ago
  That is true except that it does not offer a sufficient solution for a synced mobile app. I was very happily using it and even created a Todoist premium account only to find out that the interpretation between the two tools is very lacking and a lot of the things I configured and structured did not make it to Todoist and vice versa (notes, folders, hierarchies, etc). If there would be a 1–to-1 translation between the two this would be awesome. Having a great Linux Todo app is really great. But I have to be able to at least __see__ everything the same way on my smartphone, even if I can’t edit it. Having a half baked solution like this makes it unusable.
neilv 6y ago
In case anyone else was wondering, this doesn't seem to be the same thing as the Planner app of Gnome: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Planner https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Planner (Gnome's Planner doesn't look like it's being developed at the moment, but it's a pretty decent tool in the style of old-school Microsoft Project. The files are also pretty git-friendly. I'd actually been thinking of moving back to it, since it's lower friction to edit than Instagantt, and also lets one assign multiple resources to a task.)
- hcal 6y ago
  I wish someone would pick it back up. It was pretty useful. It took some work to get it to run on Modern Fedora and I had a lot of stability problems with it.
  - neilv 6y ago
    FWIW, I don't recall a stability problem with it on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. I exercised a lot of features, but I didn't use it for a long duration (CEO wanted to try having the entire company updating Instagantt). At first glance, I wondered whether Gnome Planner was one of those open source projects that was started overly-ambitiously, and then quickly abandoned when development got difficult. However, after using it, I got the impression that Gnome Planner was mostly there.
  - ognarb 6y ago
    Maybe you could take a look at Calligra Plan, it is one of the only part of Calligra still actively maintained. https://calligra.org/plan/ https://calligra.org/plan/
    - hcal 6y ago
      Thanks for the suggestion. I did try Calligra Plan. I manage a lot of medium-small projects, and to ended up not fitting my workflow very well. That said, I could see how it might be perfect for people who manage and plan bigger projects.
  - drran 6y ago
johnchristopher 6y ago
There's something weird these days about how there are a lot of cool apps in elementary and rearely deb/ubuntu packages :/. Is that a writing on the wall ? I usually want to test them out but the vala/meson/ninja compilation steps often gets in my way.
- j1elo 6y ago
  I was curious about the Elementary AppCenter and what distribution format they use: https://docs.elementary.io/develop/appcenter/publishing-requirements https://docs.elementary.io/develop/appcenter/publishing-requ... Turns out they use .deb packages, so the packages should be available somewhere.
- fleg 6y ago
  A lot of them are available as Flatpaks, too. Planner is available there as well: https://www.flathub.org/apps/details/com.github.alainm23.planner https://www.flathub.org/apps/details/com.github.alainm23.pla...
solarkraft 6y ago
Is there a chance to of getting synchronization via something non-proprietary? It looks great, but still lacks a mobile option.
tux 6y ago
Good looking GUI, too bad it requires "evolution-data-server" to build and run.
ISL 6y ago
Does the underlying datastructure allow for permissioned collaboration with others? Can I share just a project with a co-worker without sharing the entire task database?
mgbmtl 6y ago
Looks great! Could I use this (and todoist) to aggregate tasks from various sources, such as different Gitlab instances, GitHub, etc?
FreeFull 6y ago
For those using Arch linux, this seems to be the AUR package for Planner: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/elementary-planner/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/elementary-planner/
inferense 6y ago
I appreciate its open-source nature. Although, to be completely honest, the functionality and design don't seem to provide anything unique in comparison to already existing apps like trello / todo apps which I believe suck. I have tried many of "productivity" tools but somehow always ended up with pen&paper or notepad app. I wonder if that's the best we can do in 21st century. And all of these apps seem to follow the same design paradigm. After a pro-longed experimentation and reflection, I designed my own system. Shared it with friends and we're building a tool with a slightly different approach. Hopefully to address user problems holistically. If anyone's curious I'd be happy to share our work once ready. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18lEuJ9cQLhgiPaH1K1bp2j8yy_BQYHscXMxSBaZzVxU/edit https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18lEuJ9cQLhgiPaH1K1bp2j8yy_B...
jgilias 6y ago
This looks pretty good! One of the most important things to me when using Todoist is seamless syncing between mobile and web. I absolutely need the possibility of quickly jotting down a task when I'm on the go. As well as getting a quick overview of the day in the morning or late in the evening without having to use the computer. Todoist is actually one of the few apps I pay for and feel happy doing that. For me it's really money well spent as I'm pretty sure I recover the yearly cost in productivity gains in a few days max. That being said, it's always nice to see good open source software being actively developed!
29athrowaway 6y ago
GNOME has an app called Planner: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Planner https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Planner Planner is packaged in many distros, e.g.: - https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/planner/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/planner/ - https://packages.debian.org/source/buster/planner https://packages.debian.org/source/buster/planner - https://packages.ubuntu.com/groovy/planner https://packages.ubuntu.com/groovy/planner There's this unspoken rule of open-source project naming etiquette where you try to not use names used by projects once they reach certain level of popularity.

240 points by rayrag 6y ago

It's so sad to see cool Linux tools without a Windows version:( I get why; I'm just sad - especially because some Linux users are annoyed by "Windows only" tools and then they use linux only features, that never can't be ported to other operating systems as well(not because lack of people, but incompatibility). Planner is one of those amazing niche tools that doesn't exist for Windows. It looks amazing - congrats!

AsyncAwait 6y ago
I get where you're coming from but Linux exclusive desktop apps are so rare that it is probably worth it using tight platform integration as a way to convince users we have quality, nicely designed desktop apps too, especially considering Todoist have a Windows app but not a Linux one[1]. 1 - https://todoist.com/downloads/windows?lang=en https://todoist.com/downloads/windows?lang=en
- marvion 6y ago
  I totally understand why. It just felt weird the first time I came across a beautiful Linux Mint app, that couldn't be ported to windows.. .. the cool thing is, that it is possible with WSL and it probably will be almost seamless in the future - without additional work for the devs. I specifically want to use Planner because of the local mode. Afaik ther are no nice local-only todo apps for windows with sub-task support.
- spondyl 6y ago
  > considering Todoist have a Windows app but not a Linux one Todoist does have a Linux app, although it's effectively an electron wrapper around the web app. Having said that, I don't think this is unique to the linux version though? https://todoist.com/downloads/linux https://todoist.com/downloads/linux
ajvs 6y ago
Linux is open-source so it tends to follow that open-source projects choose to develop for it too.
mbirth 6y ago
From the screenshots it looks very similar to Microsoft To Do: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-to-do-list-app?rtc=1 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-to-d...

rayrag 6y ago

Github repo: https://github.com/alainm23/planner https://github.com/alainm23/planner

Nabati 6y ago

> For Todoist users, the Board View was introduced in this new update, a more visual way to organize your Planner projects. For someone not familiar with Planner, this sentence was really confusing for me, "for users of other service, there's a feature in this service", and it's not clear what the connection is.

sdwolfz 6y ago

Took me a while to find it, but this seems to be the repository: * https://github.com/alainm23/planner https://github.com/alainm23/planner Some notes from a quick browse: - Licensed GPL-3 - Written in Vala, using GTK - Uses sqlite - Meson+ninja as build system (which I like) If it ran on Android too I'd replace Orgzly with this as I wish to have a tool I use both on my phone and laptop, synchronized via Syncthing (so far orgmode in emacs + orgzly gives me what I want, but I wish I had something a bit more pretty and user friendly like this Planner).

tgflynn 6y ago
Thanks. I don't understand why they didn't include a github link on the website.
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  You have to pay for it on the Elementary store, so maybe they don't want you to find it for free easily.
  - rayrag 6y ago
    Apps on Elementary store are available as pay as you want. The price there is just a suggestion and if don't want to pay just decrease it to 0.
nguyenkien 6y ago
Planner sync with Todoist [https://todoist.com/downloads/android https://todoist.com/downloads/android]
- sdwolfz 6y ago
  Yes but I don't want a 3rd party to access my data. Right now I sync peer to peer via WiFi, no server involved, and would like to keep it that way.
  - 6y ago

finchisko 6y ago

Does Planner support any basic form of time tracking?

itgoon 6y ago
And/or cost tracking? That's the one feature missing from the simple planners that I've been wanting.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  And/or task dependency (as a DAG, not a tree)?

bschne 6y ago

Haven't used this personally, and it definitely seems to have taken lots of inspiration from Todoist, Things 3, et al., but it's really great to see this sort of well-designed app that looks like a lot of thought went into the UX even for non-advanced users for linux!

hcal 6y ago

I've been using this for a long time and I am Patreon supporter. When I switched from Mac to Linux I had to find a replacement for my todo/planner app called Things. Planner was initially a good enough solution, but Alain (the developer) has gone above and beyond to deliver an amazing tool. It is now every bit as good as Things and the Board view will be an awesome addition. This is one of those times where the open source option is clearly the best tool. You don't give up anything. Plus, and I think this is important for something you use all day long, it is has a nice visual design that is easy to use and figure out.

hanklazard 6y ago
Looks great for when I’m on my Linux laptop. Any way to use on iPhone without dealing with Todoist? Like a markdown text file or something.
ruph123 6y ago
That is true except that it does not offer a sufficient solution for a synced mobile app. I was very happily using it and even created a Todoist premium account only to find out that the interpretation between the two tools is very lacking and a lot of the things I configured and structured did not make it to Todoist and vice versa (notes, folders, hierarchies, etc). If there would be a 1–to-1 translation between the two this would be awesome. Having a great Linux Todo app is really great. But I have to be able to at least __see__ everything the same way on my smartphone, even if I can’t edit it. Having a half baked solution like this makes it unusable.

neilv 6y ago

In case anyone else was wondering, this doesn't seem to be the same thing as the Planner app of Gnome: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Planner https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Planner (Gnome's Planner doesn't look like it's being developed at the moment, but it's a pretty decent tool in the style of old-school Microsoft Project. The files are also pretty git-friendly. I'd actually been thinking of moving back to it, since it's lower friction to edit than Instagantt, and also lets one assign multiple resources to a task.)

hcal 6y ago
I wish someone would pick it back up. It was pretty useful. It took some work to get it to run on Modern Fedora and I had a lot of stability problems with it.
- neilv 6y ago
  FWIW, I don't recall a stability problem with it on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. I exercised a lot of features, but I didn't use it for a long duration (CEO wanted to try having the entire company updating Instagantt). At first glance, I wondered whether Gnome Planner was one of those open source projects that was started overly-ambitiously, and then quickly abandoned when development got difficult. However, after using it, I got the impression that Gnome Planner was mostly there.
- ognarb 6y ago
  Maybe you could take a look at Calligra Plan, it is one of the only part of Calligra still actively maintained. https://calligra.org/plan/ https://calligra.org/plan/
  - hcal 6y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion. I did try Calligra Plan. I manage a lot of medium-small projects, and to ended up not fitting my workflow very well. That said, I could see how it might be perfect for people who manage and plan bigger projects.
- drran 6y ago

johnchristopher 6y ago

There's something weird these days about how there are a lot of cool apps in elementary and rearely deb/ubuntu packages :/. Is that a writing on the wall ? I usually want to test them out but the vala/meson/ninja compilation steps often gets in my way.

j1elo 6y ago
I was curious about the Elementary AppCenter and what distribution format they use: https://docs.elementary.io/develop/appcenter/publishing-requirements https://docs.elementary.io/develop/appcenter/publishing-requ... Turns out they use .deb packages, so the packages should be available somewhere.
fleg 6y ago
A lot of them are available as Flatpaks, too. Planner is available there as well: https://www.flathub.org/apps/details/com.github.alainm23.planner https://www.flathub.org/apps/details/com.github.alainm23.pla...

solarkraft 6y ago

Is there a chance to of getting synchronization via something non-proprietary? It looks great, but still lacks a mobile option.

tux 6y ago

Good looking GUI, too bad it requires "evolution-data-server" to build and run.

ISL 6y ago

Does the underlying datastructure allow for permissioned collaboration with others? Can I share just a project with a co-worker without sharing the entire task database?

mgbmtl 6y ago

Looks great! Could I use this (and todoist) to aggregate tasks from various sources, such as different Gitlab instances, GitHub, etc?

FreeFull 6y ago

For those using Arch linux, this seems to be the AUR package for Planner: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/elementary-planner/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/elementary-planner/

inferense 6y ago

I appreciate its open-source nature. Although, to be completely honest, the functionality and design don't seem to provide anything unique in comparison to already existing apps like trello / todo apps which I believe suck. I have tried many of "productivity" tools but somehow always ended up with pen&paper or notepad app. I wonder if that's the best we can do in 21st century. And all of these apps seem to follow the same design paradigm. After a pro-longed experimentation and reflection, I designed my own system. Shared it with friends and we're building a tool with a slightly different approach. Hopefully to address user problems holistically. If anyone's curious I'd be happy to share our work once ready. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18lEuJ9cQLhgiPaH1K1bp2j8yy_BQYHscXMxSBaZzVxU/edit https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18lEuJ9cQLhgiPaH1K1bp2j8yy_B...

jgilias 6y ago

This looks pretty good! One of the most important things to me when using Todoist is seamless syncing between mobile and web. I absolutely need the possibility of quickly jotting down a task when I'm on the go. As well as getting a quick overview of the day in the morning or late in the evening without having to use the computer. Todoist is actually one of the few apps I pay for and feel happy doing that. For me it's really money well spent as I'm pretty sure I recover the yearly cost in productivity gains in a few days max. That being said, it's always nice to see good open source software being actively developed!

29athrowaway 6y ago

GNOME has an app called Planner: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Planner https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Planner Planner is packaged in many distros, e.g.: - https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/planner/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/planner/ - https://packages.debian.org/source/buster/planner https://packages.debian.org/source/buster/planner - https://packages.ubuntu.com/groovy/planner https://packages.ubuntu.com/groovy/planner There's this unspoken rule of open-source project naming etiquette where you try to not use names used by projects once they reach certain level of popularity.