15 ms·

Show HN: A plain-text file format for todos and check lists

452 points by jotaen 5y ago

After having cycled through various CLI-based todo apps, I started to realise that I actually don’t need a tool at all for managing my todos. Most of the time, my use cases are quite simple, like viewing my todo items, checking them off, or adding a new one. Rather than having to memorise CLI commands for these interactions (which I’m not super good at), I figured that it’s easier for me to use my text editor directly, and have an editor plugin help me with the visual structure and some convenience functionality. So, kind-of similar to Emacs Org Mode, but without having to use Emacs. I personally use Sublime Text, and even though I enjoy it a lot, I don’t like being bound to specific tools. I think the best basis for staying independent is to have a data format that’s properly specified and meaningful on its own. This puts the data first, and it allows the tools to be built on top and shared (or interchanged) more easily. This is what [x]it! is about, which is a plain-text file format for todos and check lists. I’m curious for thoughts and feedback. There is obviously not much tooling support (yet), but feel free to create something if the idea resonates with you. Website with demo: https://xit.jotaen.net https://xit.jotaen.net File specification: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md

mrleinad 5y ago
It looks great, I'd have to give it a try to be able to have an opinion on it though. Did you try PlainTasks? You might be able to borrow a few ideas from it too. Congrats!
jotaen 5y ago
Clickable links: Website with demo: https://xit.jotaen.net https://xit.jotaen.net File specification: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md
softwarebeware 5y ago
This is really cool. I am endlessly fascinated by the proliferation of "productivity apps" when I find the same thing as you: that they are quite unnecessary. My approach is similar. I already take notes via a Bash script. I configure a particular "label" for any todos and (essentially) just grep for them, excluding those that are crossed out (with Markdown tildes). This approach works great for me as a Staff Engineer in a large tech company. Reference: https://github.com/scottashipp/noted/blob/main/subcommands.md#todos https://github.com/scottashipp/noted/blob/main/subcommands.m... I also wanted to mention there are several related ideas / movements around the web. One of the biggest is todotxt. In case you hadn't heard of it: https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt
- jotaen 5y ago
  I used todo.txt for a while, but in the end I stopped using the CLI tool and just worked with the files directly. For my use cases, the todo.txt file format has a few shortcomings and inconveniences, and there also is no dedicated specification. That being said, I drew a great deal of inspiration from todo.txt, and I think it’s a well-made and powerful tool.
  - nhecker 5y ago
    This is very cool, thanks for sharing! I'm a huge proponent of tool-less things, and a consistent todo list format readable in any text editor has been extremely helpful for me. I use my own markdown-inspired todo+notes format, but looking through xit and todo.txt has given me some ideas, specifically around my format's[1] inability to indicate priority when a line is taken out of context. Question: why must the square brackets be used[2]? Could not the first and third chars be omitted, leaving only the status of the item as the first char on the line? I can see (and appreciate!) the desire to use brackets for readability, but if there's a functional benefit I'm not sure I see it at first glance. I especially like your use of `!` and `#`, that's a nice way to make those items accessible through a grep. [1]: Each day begins with a `\n# YYYY-MM-DD` section heading, then I use the ordering of my day's tasks in the list to indicate priority. `- ` prefixes an incomplete task, `* ` prefixes a completed task, `~ ` prefixes an obsolete task (similar to your xit), and a generic note doesn't have any predefined first char. One or more pair(s) of spaces indent subtasks or notes as appropriate. [2]: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md
    - jotaen 5y ago
      > Question: why must the square brackets be used[2]? There is no technical benefit behind the square bracket notation. As you mentioned, it’s mostly for readability reasons. My take on pleasant plain-text formats is to make use of symbolic notation if ever possible, because that makes the format more intuitive to understand. The `[ ]` resemble a check box, and it should be immediately clear what that means. The drawback is that you need to type in 2 extra characters, of course, so it’s really a tradeoff in the end.
kitplummer 5y ago
This is awesome! Super appreciate the effort on this. One challenge I've had is the file-based concept. And it losing "shape" quickly. I taken a few whacks at something different and have settled on a CLI-based kanban-y thing: https://github.com/kitplummer/clikan https://github.com/kitplummer/clikan But this lacks things like tags - which I appreciate as long as they are searchable in some form.
- pixxel 5y ago
  nb might be worth a look (has tags) https://xwmx.github.io/nb/ https://xwmx.github.io/nb/
  - kitplummer 5y ago
    I loved nb! Until I ran it from a top-level directory and it committed an update to every git repo within that top-level. :D. Definitely operator error, but I learned my lesson and am back to separating notes from todos.
- jotaen 5y ago
  Cool, that looks quite neat! I agree with you, at some point you have to structure things in one way or the other, in order to keep an overview. For me it works somewhat well to organise my data across different files and folders, which are setup in a certain structure. That either requires some manual labour and discipline, or you automate these workflows. That requires “standardised” data formats, however.
- oezi 5y ago
  Nice! I also have this pain of the file losing shape quickly. My take is to have a a CLI tool to "carry over" all todos which aren't solved into a new heading. This way the old/resolved items are moved to the back/lower in the file. I call it Rodo (Todos in Ruby): https://github.com/coezbek/rodo https://github.com/coezbek/rodo It uses Markdown for syntax.
tyingq 5y ago
Looks interesting. Might be worth looking at the Emacs Org Mode support for TODO lists[1]. Just as a reference for how someone else dealt with TODOs in a text format, but with a pretty complete feature set. [1] https://orgmode.org/org.html#TODO-Extensions https://orgmode.org/org.html#TODO-Extensions
zachwill 5y ago
Great work on this — love the website demo!
wodenokoto 5y ago
> [an item] MUST start at the beginning of a line with a checkbox. Why no subitem? [] large task [] subtask 1 [] subtask2 I use this all the time.
- jotaen 5y ago
  I also thought about this, but I have postponed it for now, because there are some implications with this (see here: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2). So I thought it’s better to properly think this through beforehand.
- nhecker 5y ago
  I use subitems pretty heavily in my todo_notes.md file as well; to work around the concern over conflict of state, I pay attention to only the checked status of the `large task`. If that parent is not checked off, I know there are still pending subtasks. So I won't really care if there are un-checked subtasks; as long as the parent task is checked I know I can ignore it and move on. Maybe that could be formalized a bit more strongly but since it's only my eyes which will see my todo 99% of the time, I'm fine with it and I know the convention.
wim 5y ago
This is very cool! We're actually building an editor/IDE of sorts from scratch, but specifically for "todo.txt" (https://thymer.com https://thymer.com if you're interested). I think a lot of parts of your spec would fit really well with the concepts we were thinking of (like the status in between [ ], due dates, #tags..). Maybe we should add compatibility for this spec as well (for things like autocomplete, and export/import). Thanks for posting, really helpful for portability to have more standards like these!
D13Fd 5y ago
I am conflicted on this. The spec is nice. I love the recognition that dates may be imprecise (e.g., 2022-05 -- although I would count that as the last day of the period, 23:59:59 on 2022-05-31, rather than the first day of the next period, 2022-06-01). I like the thought that went into it and the nice presentation. On the other hand, I do not think this is necessary or even all that helpful in the real world. You don't need a standardized format if you are writing to do items manually in a text editor. You just write them. In the vast majority of cases no one is going to see them but you. Time spent conforming to a spec is time wasted. A formal spec also doesn't help much for apps to use this format. There is not a huge need for portability between to do apps, and for most users to do items are ephemeral and not something that needs to be archived and revisited. Even if an app adopted this, being tied to a plain text format would likely hinder feature development, including the ability to sync across multiple devices. Beyond that, different to do apps use different systems of categorization and tagging, so really in practice I doubt this will become any kind of standardized format. So, all told, it is a beautiful effort, nicely presented, but I think it is unnecessary.
- haswell 5y ago
  > A formal spec also doesn't help much for apps to use this format. There is not a huge need for portability between to do apps... To add some counterpoint to this, I try a lot of apps. Partially because I'm always looking for the one that's better than what I use now - looking for the thing that fits me the best - but also because I just like trying things. Portability means a greater chance that I'll fully dive in and use an app to its potential vs. some light use. There have been a few times that I've found a new app/solution that was clearly better than what I was currently using, and this was both exciting and frustrating. Frustrating because it meant I'd either have to leave my history behind, or spend a ton of time trying to port it over somehow. I realize I'm part of a niche group of people, but I feel like a spec like this was meant for a pretty niche group of people. I for one do not agree that this is unnecessary, but I do acknowledge that it's probably not necessary for a lot of people.
  - jotaen 5y ago
    > I feel like a spec like this was meant for a pretty niche group of people. That’s spot on actually.
reaperducer 5y ago
Kinda sorta related, on macOS, if you choose to store your Notes in a plain old e-mail server, they are stored as text files very similar to this. Or at least they were last time I checked a few years ago. It was very handy to be able to access my Notes and lists from a regular old webmail interface.
jrib 5y ago
I like it. I do something similar for my todo file but organize by date. Most recent date first. Every day I review unchecked items from the previous day and move them to today or mark them obsolete. It has the added functionality of serving as a nice log of my work. So it looks something like this: 2022-04-01 ========== [ ] do a thing 2022-03-31 ========== [x] foo the baz
- gcarvalho 5y ago
  Me too, although I use markdown todo lists, starting with a minus. I also record the creation date and timestamped notes on the progression of the task. And I use @ to keep tabs on tasks that I've delegated. 2022-04-02 - [x] [2022-03-30] do a thing #tag1 #tag2 - 2022-03-31 10:30 notes about work being done thing - 2022-03-02 14:00 completed thing by using X - [ ] [2022-03-28] @delegated_person: do another thing - 2022-03-29 09:00 delegated_person reported that Y
mpalczewski 5y ago
I switched away from Workflowy to a plain text file format. Load times are quicker, navigation is quicker, can use keyboard only without a mouse, the UX can keep up with the pace of my thinking. I prefer vimwiki for this purpose https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki You can get plugins that sync it to a git repository. I love this. There's also task warrior plugins, though I haven't figured out how that would for me, seems to get away from simple text files at that point.
zamubafoo 5y ago
Only thing I would think of changing would be allowing for the use of colons in tags to provide tag namespaces. Then it's fairly trivial to implement things like created on date, completion date, and the like since it's just "#created-on:yyyy-mm-dd" or "#completed-on:yyyy-mm-dd". It also allows users more generic organization options, with filtering based on the namespaced tags being something trivial, but ultimately up to the user or the app that is interfacing with the xit file.
shakezula 5y ago
It's bullet journal notation meets plain-text format and I dig it. I use pure text files for a lot of things, too, and I already use a similar system, but it's definitely more free-form. Cool idea!
Siira 5y ago
https://github.com/Vhyrro/neorg https://github.com/Vhyrro/neorg is a neovim format inspired by org-mode. It should be easier than learning the real org-mode. The real-org mode is not that hard to use though IMO.
jashmota 5y ago
Obsidian is pretty easy to use to maintain a to-do list as well.
sloankev 5y ago
Very cool! I made something very similar to this as a VS Code extension[1]. Inspired by the bullet journal method. [1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=blt.blt https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=blt.blt
- prideout 5y ago
  When I saw the OP's format, I immediately wanted a VS Code extension for it. This looks great, installing it as we speak. In fact, I like your format slightly more, because when I complete tasks I usually just delete them -- no need for a checkbox.
- geoelectric 5y ago
  This is really neat. It's similar to the BuJo rapid-logging-inspired system I handspun for myself around Markdown a few years ago that I outlined here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21580133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21580133 I'd quit using that one since because too many Markdown editors have forgotten tabs are legal whitespace after a UL bullet, and that there are three different UL bullet characters (and it really doesn't help that the CommonMark examples page only docs `-` and `*`, even though `+` is part of the CommonMark spec too). In particular, without the tab support being implemented, there's no fixed gutter for the BuJo-style sigil and queries get much harder. But I do miss the idea of those simple bullets. I may have to check out your extension.
forgotpwd16 5y ago
What you didn't liked with todo.txt?
- jotaen 5y ago
  A few (cosmetic) details, for example: - They don’t support multiline item descriptions. They actually prohibit that for a specific reason, because you can’t sort the lines lexicographically anymore. In my opinion, that should be an optional feature, however, which it is in [x]it! - Creation and completion date are featured prominently, but I actually think they are not that important, and I’m not sure they are really worth some dedicated syntax. What I do find important, though, are due dates, and these are not natively supported in todo.txt - I don’t like the notation of just preceding `x ` to the line for a checked item. It’s simple on the one hand, but it doesn’t look very tidy in the file.
wforfang 5y ago
I do something similar but I include informational notes as well (not just action items/todo's). * incomplete todo ~ completed todo - informational Each day I create a new note, titled by date. Grep the folder for topics or incomplete action items. No tooling or overhead needed. I have never felt the need to syntax "ongoing" or "obsolete" items. It's either open or closed.
navjack27 5y ago
I made this which is suitable for my needs when mixed with Obsidian. https://github.com/navjack/ConsoleJournal/blob/main/journal.ps1 https://github.com/navjack/ConsoleJournal/blob/main/journal....
softwarebeware 5y ago
One other small thought I have is about the name. It's common to use "xit" in popular JavaScript test framework like Mocha and Jasmine to indicate an excluded test. Could cause some ambiguity or an unwanted association.
_andrei_ 5y ago
Looks like quite similar to my own document / task management grammar [1]. I wrote a small library to parse mine, and built many tools on top of it, including editor support, various CLIs for task management, calendar, activity tracking, content consumption, etc. I invested a lot of time into learning Emacs, got into using Org, but Emacs is just too slow, and I got to a point where customizing the tool for what I want was harder than building a custom tool. [1] https://i.imgur.com/Nm6e31W.png https://i.imgur.com/Nm6e31W.png * sorry for ma english
HNHatesUsers 5y ago
djtriptych 5y ago
Heh - just did the same thing over the last week to compile my task list into trello cards to share out =)
halostatue 5y ago
Looks interesting. It doesn’t have a formal specification, but there may be things from TaskPaper https://www.taskpaper.com/guide/getting-started/ https://www.taskpaper.com/guide/getting-started/ that you may find interesting. There are lots of things that support the basic TaskPaper format: https://support.hogbaysoftware.com/t/taskpaper-extensions-wiki/1628/1 https://support.hogbaysoftware.com/t/taskpaper-extensions-wi...
cjohnson318 5y ago
How do the "tags with values" work? What is the intended use case?
- jotaen 5y ago
  It’s basically one way of allowing to create an information hierarchy, e.g. [ ] Work on #ticket=283 [x] Buy new computer. #done=2022-02-24 Then you could query for `#ticket`, or for specific values of it. (Well, that is, if you had a tool for querying, of course.)
Jellyspice 5y ago
interesting, I also happen to switched to vscode to manage my notes and todos. I use Todo+ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=fabiospampinato.vscode-todo-plus https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=fabiospa... for managing my todo list, what I like about todo+ is that it has simple formatting and I'm able to track start and end time of the task, it also has this little counter at the the top of the list to track finish/total tasks.
dugmartin 5y ago
I have my own informal format that doesn't use the [], just single characters - this is an unstarted todo / this is a started todo x this is a finished todo ~ this is a todo I'm not going to do It works well for me.
- kseistrup 5y ago
  That resembles what I use in my daily paper agenda: / Unfinished task X Finished task % Canceled task ↗ Task moved to a later date ↙ Task moved to an earlier date In effect, I can convert the ‘/’ sigil to any of the last four sigils and I can see at a glance what still needs to be done.
- yardshop 5y ago
  This is similar to my own format too, but opposite meanings for some of them, and a few have somewhat mnemonic character names: ~ todo (tilde) * started (star) - done (dash) x didn't or won't do # comment > design item I use this mostly to write out and track steps in scripts and programs I'm writing. I will use one or two levels of indentation and blank lines within entries. example feature steps > the example feature will demonstrate such and such and make use of this and that - write stub version * fill in actual code - part A ~ part B x call xyz function # didn't do this because of ... ~ add extra features I do this mostly in the header comment of a script (Python doc string), but sometimes pull it out into its own text file if it gets too big. I wrote a script at one point to convert these kinds of notes into a web page with various background colors per status. It helps to visualize it sometimes but I don't actually use it that often.
gorgoiler 5y ago
Nice, kind of weird like a bullet journal. Very ergonomic. For bonus points you should provide an LSP server that lints and syntax checks your xit! files. Why? Extracting data from notes is really useful. Even if it’s just to reformat them. To extract data they must first be parsed, and to be parsed they must be free of errors.
tconfrey 5y ago
+1 for plain-text for all the points you mention, particularly "data-first with tools on top". But why reinvent the wheel when the org-mode format is well established and does everything you want, and more? There are an increasing number of tools using org-mode as a plain-text data store, so you are more likely to be able to participate in a tool ecosystem. In addition to my own https://braintool.org https://braintool.org see the list below. BrainTool (mainly a bookmark manager) has an elemental to-do system, I'd love to have my users be able to use your tool for todos. NB see also Karl Voit's push for org markup awareness outside of Emacs via Orgdown: https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown. ------ ORG-MODE TOOLS OUTSIDE EMACS https://plainorg.com https://plainorg.com https://flathabits.com https://flathabits.com https://beorg.app https://beorg.app https://braintool.org https://braintool.org https://easyorgmode.com https://easyorgmode.com https://logseq.com https://logseq.com https://organice.200ok.ch https://organice.200ok.ch https://orgro.org https://orgro.org http://orgzly.com http://orgzly.com
- greggman3 5y ago
  Funny that all the phone versions have a hard coded UI. Isn't the point that org mode is just plain text so it's more free from? I currently use google keep. I'm not recommending it but to some extent I can use at as just a collection of synced text files.
  - MichaelDickens 5y ago
    The only phone version I've used is beorg, but beorg lets you directly edit the plaintext if you want to. I usually don't because the hard coded UI is pretty convenient.
  - xenodium 5y ago
    <insert “porque no los dos?” meme here> A mobile-friendly interface that enables jotting things down quickly while on the go… (coincidentally, fully typing “- [ ] remember the milk” is clunky on mobile, switching keyboard, etc). Also powered by plain text, so you can drop down to the details whenever you want to (including your mobile) with all the portability associated with it. disclosure: I wrote https://plainorg.com https://plainorg.com and https://flathabits.com https://flathabits.com because I wanted a frictionless mobile experience without giving up on org markup (plain text).
sunshi23 5y ago
I also have cycled through many todo apps and tried to make my own. I ended up using pen and paper.
deleted 5y ago
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Giho 5y ago
There is a todo format that I use daily called todotxt. It has even application support on most platforms or you just write manually in a txt file. Easy to overview by yourself. In combination with Syncthing I have a very seamless experience where ever I go. http://todotxt.org/ http://todotxt.org/ https://syncthing.net/ https://syncthing.net/
chrisweekly 5y ago
You do you, and thanks for sharing, but it'd be pretty tough to convince me Markdown isn't the right underlying format for whatever client or functionality you might want to build. See eg Obsidian and its amazing plugins to see what I mean.
bachmeier 5y ago
Looks like a decent format for human readability, but I think the more important things once you get more than 20 or so items are (a) maintaining, (b) rearranging, and (c) querying. You have to be able to remove completed items and move open items into different places. You have to limit the tasks you are viewing to those relevant in the moment. Perhaps there is a way to use an existing system like Taskwarrior to do the querying and rearranging.
netgusto 5y ago
Wow such a coincidence! I recently toyed on such a spec for my shell prompt task manager https://github.com/netgusto/tax https://github.com/netgusto/tax (I display it in my prompt and my tmux session bar, it's nice to keep current work in focus) I'm certainly going to look into implementing the spec. Some questions/suggestions: * do you plan support for text unrelated to tasks ? * do you plan support for sections / nested sections? * idea suggestion: in tax (linked above) we use markdown bold to notify "focused" tasks and sections, ie the one(s) that should be front and center; ex: - [ ] **This is a focused task**
- jotaen 5y ago
  > do you plan support for text unrelated to tasks ? I haven’t thought about that much yet. I’ve tracked it here for it to be discussed: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/10 https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/10 > do you plan support for sections / nested sections? I think that would be cool and useful, but I need to play around with that more. There is already a ticket for it: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 > idea suggestion: in tax (linked above) we use markdown bold to notify "focused" tasks and sections I think that’s similar to the priorities: [ ] !!! Do this
bccdee 5y ago
I ended up reaching a similar conclusion after I went looking for a todo app that suited my needs. I had very few requirements and I was surprised nothing satisfied them. I wanted something (1) that allows me to attach dates to tasks; (2) that lists tasks by date in a calendar; (3) that is local-only — not a web app, no cloud sync or anything, and not too many extraneous features. I couldn't find anything that met those criteria without also having a bunch of extra features and a subscription service tacked on, and eventually I just wrote a script for scraping a text file and printing out all the lines tagged with dates (e.g. @jun-10) in order. That's the only real functionality I needed that a text file can't satisfy on its own, and it's been working great so far.
- jotaen 5y ago
  Yeah, I agree – as great as a separate file spec is, it’s only half the story without tools that provide useful functionality on top of it. For my current purposes, it’s syntax highlighting that makes a big difference.
terminal_d 5y ago
Why reinvent the wheel, when Org-Mode exists?
divbzero 5y ago
As an alternative, the todo.txt format [1][2] first defined in 2006 [3] is supported by a CLI client (desktop) and several GUI clients (desktop, mobile, web). [1]: https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt [2]: http://todotxt.org/ http://todotxt.org/ [3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060701121920/https://lifehacker.com/software/top/geek-to-live--readerwritten-todotxt-manager-173018.php https://web.archive.org/web/20060701121920/https://lifehacke...
- WesternWind 5y ago
  This is what I use. It's a little hobbled in terms of add-ons to the standard because the orginal standard isn't centralized or versioned, but it works really well for a lot of things.
- neilv 5y ago
  I've been using todo.txt too, for personal tasks and appointments. I have a few tweaks: https://www.neilvandyke.org/todotxt/ https://www.neilvandyke.org/todotxt/
la_fayette 5y ago
Looks great, I am quite happy with todo.txt and all apps and tools available. Have you ever looked into that? It seems quite similar...
jbverschoor 5y ago
Already allin on noteplan.
roberthahn 5y ago
Good work! I might just try this out in my next attempt to GTD I’d like to suggest thinking more deeply about dates. I love that you opted to use the yyyy-mm-dd format and I also think it’s great that you’re making things flexible because life is messy. The problem I see is this; suppose I’m in a text editor and I want to see my todos ordered by due date. This will help me see what’s coming up. The advantage of using a yyyy-mm-dd format is that it makes things really easy to sort in reverse lexicographic order. However, with dates coming in at any point in the todo, sorting might be tricky. The week-style date format would also be tricky to sort properly. Granted, this is an option for tools to solve! But if the primary tool is a text editor, then this might be an area that could use refinement. Again: love the work you put into this and I also love the ergonomics! Thanks for sharing!
- jotaen 5y ago
  You can have lexicographic ordering with [x]it!, as long as you stick to a specific structure, which is: - Write due dates first - Pad your priority with dots - Don’t use line breaks within descriptions - Don’t use titles Then it will sort (in that order) by: item status, priority, due date. [ ] !!! -> 2022-05-01 Something [ ] ..! -> 2022-06-15 Something else [x] .!! -> 2022-01-04 More text
_h9mb 5y ago
I had a similar insight some years ago. I write my TODOs mixed with text in markdown notes and use a CLI to do nice things like exploration and journaling. It purposefully doesn't have any state besides the notes in itself. https://github.com/danisztls/journal https://github.com/danisztls/journal Lately I'm rarely using it because most of the things that I really have to do (work) are on my email inbox or containerized in project dirs. And for the later I just run 'rg "TODO:"' in the project dir.
- ma2rten 5y ago
  I didn't know about rg, how does it compare to ag?
  - _h9mb 5y ago
    AFAIK ripgrep is faster. Haven't used ag much so I can't compare features.
  - _h9mb 5y ago
    https://blog.burntsushi.net/ripgrep/ https://blog.burntsushi.net/ripgrep/
eternityforest 5y ago
This is so wonderful! I hope it becomes a standard, and we get calandering/reminder type tools to work with it.
syngrog66 5y ago
vi TODO
didip 5y ago
I thought of something similar, so I just write it in a YAML + Markdown format and push it to github as private publishing.
ryanolsonx 5y ago
This is really cool. I dig it. I like that there's a Sublime Text package for it. Seeing my plain text todos with nice syntax highlighting is a perk. I maintain a Zenburn color scheme[0] for Sublime Text. After playing with this, I added specialized support for [x]it! and I think it looks pretty good[1]. [0]: https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Zenburn%20Color%20Scheme https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Zenburn%20Color%20Scheme [1]: https://github.com/ryanolsonx/sublimetext-zenburn-theme/issues/2 https://github.com/ryanolsonx/sublimetext-zenburn-theme/issu...
jll29 5y ago
Plain text rocks. After trying dozens of "productivity apps", I've settled on using two simple sh aliases: alias todos="emacs -nw ~/todo.txt;" alias today="head -n 7 ~/todo.txt" and a homegrown binary "todo" command that preprends its arguments to ~/todo.txt (more precisely, while ignoring the first two lines of the existing file, which say "TODO" and "----", respectively). Missing: version control.
dllthomas 5y ago
I have a couple scripts that manipulate a stupidly simple "every line is a todo" format ".ck" file anywhere up from the CWD, combined with logic in my PROMPT_COMMAND to print the top item.
jkl5xx 5y ago
I’ve naturally developed a similar syntax to this and recently dumped all my notes into NotePlan 3. It’s been one of the best task management/note taking solutions I’ve found yet (not an ad, just an enthusiastic user!) With a little bit of find-and-replace in your favorite editor, you get great UX across platforms and all the benefits of plaintext without too many additions/deviations from standard markdown. The one big addition I’d make to this syntax is a time estimate. I use the syntax ~15m or ~2.5h etc. With the autotimebox plugin in Noteplan 3, I’m able to automatically fill in blank space on my calendar with these as events. If things come up and the day doesn’t go as planned, I just run autotimebox again and it finds a new time for them
nobody_nothing 5y ago
This is great! I wrote Margin[1] for similar reasons. But because I wanted to be able to incorporate notes as well as to-dos, absolutely anything can go between two square brackets in Margin: [ ] denotes a to-do item [x] denotes item marked as done [anything] denotes an annotation of type "anything" At first blush, it would appear Margin and [x]it! are compatible, with some very minor differences. Feel free to draw inspo from the Margin spec, and hit me up if you want to combine / collab. [1] https://margin.love https://margin.love
- mmcgaha 5y ago
  Exactly this. I also use ( ) to denote things that others owe me.
ZYinMD 5y ago
I haven't checked the Sublime package because I'm not very familiar with Sublime (anymore), but I have some experience developing VSCode themes. Did you need to use "tokens / scopes" to hack the colors? E.g. the color theme of the IDE (whatever theme the user is using at the moment) will paint variables in a certain color, functions in another color, arguments in a third color, etc, so you use regex to parse the text file, identify things that you want to color, then set them to be variables, functions, arguments, etc, so the text editor will give them different colors?
- jotaen 5y ago
  That’s how it works in Sublime, yes. You have a regex-based parsing engine that you configure via a YAML file, and there you assign scopes to the tokens.[1] As a default, the [x]it! Sublime Package uses the available default scopes. The user can choose to override the associated colours in their local settings.[2] [1]: https://github.com/jotaen/xit-sublime/blob/main/xit.sublime-syntax https://github.com/jotaen/xit-sublime/blob/main/xit.sublime-... [2]: https://github.com/jotaen/xit-sublime#syntax-highlighting--colour-overrides https://github.com/jotaen/xit-sublime#syntax-highlighting--c...
  - ZYinMD 5y ago
    Thanks, just to confirm: if you want the users to see nice colors out of the box (no matter what theme they use) without needing to customizing anything in their settings, then you'd have to utilize common scopes like variables / functions / errors in a hacky way, correct?
    - jotaen 5y ago
      Yes. What I did is try to choose default (common) scopes that have a high chance of being coloured the way I want, e.g. for the `[x]` token I use `markup.inserted` which is for markup diffs, so it should be green. Or `markup.underline` for the headlines. But the options are pretty limited.
woile 5y ago
Nice work! I use a obsidian with reminder plugin and I end up writing something similar: - [ ] work (@2022-04-04) - [X] not work I like the priority features though, didn't think of that, but I haven't needed it much (I try to keep them in order of priority)
mrtweetyhack 5y ago
MattRix 5y ago
This is great! This is the nearly the exact format I’ve been using myself.
vietvu 5y ago
I have come back to plain text and sublimetext too. Simple and just works.
ChanderG 5y ago
Shameless plug. For those who use Orgmode, but think that Agenda is a bit too heavyweight to manage Todos, I created a Magit like interface to manage Todos (in an orgmode file): https://github.com/ChanderG/toodoo.el https://github.com/ChanderG/toodoo.el
MattyRad 5y ago
Any todo list that doesn't account for dependency tasks is exclusively limited to short term planning (i.e. days not weeks). After skimming the spec, I don't think dependency tasks are accounted for? For example, say this is my (out of order) to-do list: - [ ] Mix ingredients - [ ] Eat cake - [ ] Bake a cake - [ ] Find cake pan These tasks need to be done in a specific order, but reading the list top to bottom doesn't make sense. So let's denote dependencies with indentation: - [ ] Eat cake - [ ] Bake a cake - [ ] Find cake pan - [ ] Mix ingredients By specifying order through indentation, we've now created a DAG that orders and contextualizes tasks; with the most actionable tasks having the largest indentation. This is how I organize my plaintext to-do files, but afaict no todo list software is able to handle large task trees gracefully- with the exception of grit, which is more of an experiment (but the readme is incredibly well written and describes the DAG problem to a tee). https://github.com/climech/grit https://github.com/climech/grit Does anyone know if org-mode handles complex task trees gracefully? All the examples I've found online were trivial (i.e. one task deep)
- drran 5y ago
  IMHO, you are mixing TODO lists and task management/planning software. No, I don't know a good task manager or business process manager for command line. Instead, I created a simpler TODO list manager, called `td`[0], which supports flat TODO lists only, and use directories and command-line generators to manage todo's. `td` prints top item only, by default, leaving little room for procrastination. I'm keeping one `TODO.md` file per project instead of one large TODO file for all todo's. [0]: https://github.com/vlisivka/bash-modules/blob/master/bash-modules/examples/td https://github.com/vlisivka/bash-modules/blob/master/bash-mo...
mherrmann 5y ago
A little note to other HNers: The demo on the web site is clickable. To OP: Very cool. I've switched to it from Markdown for my monthly goal-setting. I like the Sublime Text plugin.
- jotaen 5y ago
  Have you also tried checking all the items?
  - mherrmann 5y ago
    Haha ;)
    - jotaen 5y ago
      I’m seriously considering to make that mandatory via the spec. :D
cehrlich 5y ago
Interesting idea, I like the premise that people might build fancy ways to interact with this such as VSCode addons with a 'real' UI, but there will always be a plaintext fallback. I already manage my hobby software projects using plaintext files, using a made-up syntax that is not quite org-mode, not quite xit, but that I'm also not too strongly attached to. The one thing that jumps out of me that would make it hard to switch to xit that the spec currently doesn't allow lines to start with whitespace, which I use for grouping things. I settled on 2 spaces, but could also see 4 maybe being a better choice because of how it makes things line up. (presented here with additional spacing because hn doesn't parse single newlines) UI [ ] Buttons [ ] Front page call to action [ ] Make it red [ ] Make it really big [ ] General [ ] Increase padding [ ] Stronger drop shadow
- jotaen 5y ago
  I didn’t include nesting in the first edition of the draft, because there might be some implications with it and I was curious for feedback on this. https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 But it seems like my potential concerns are not shared that much, so I think the nesting should be added to the [x]it! spec.
stewbrew 5y ago
I think you should discuss pro/cons wrt/ other (more established) formats like todo.txt that provide a wide variety of tools.
neurocat123 5y ago
Just my 2¢: I'm also using plain text files as a 'mind-dump'/exocortex/organsation system. After a while, the file tends to get rather big, and so I need some coarse hierarchical levels, like 'random cool stuff to look at when idle', 'high priority stuff/this week', 'medium priority stuff/this month', etc. A copious amount of unicode and especially ASCII art helps me a lot to find sections quickly. Behold my elite retro headers like ╗ ║ TODAY ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════╗ and grab-box of symbols: ↗↙⋇⟡*═╔╗╚╝║∙◽◼▪→▶▷▸▹⇒⇨◉๏⦿⊙○●⭗⭘⭘ ────── ∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗ ────── Markdown-style headers (with - or = underlines) also help a lot to organise within the top-level sections. In general I find it very helpful to re-use Markdown (or reStructuredText) syntax, even if it's not rendered.
mishaker 5y ago
I searched for todo management for years and I tested tons of apps. But as a developer this is the solution I use that works well for me: Use YAML as a todo list, you can organise your things like: Perso: - Take an appointment at ... - ... Client1: - Do something - ... Then put it in todo.yml in your Google Drive (for backup): /Users/mishaker/Google Drive/My Drive/todo.yml Then add an alias on your cli: alias todo="subl /Volumes/GoogleDrive/My\ Drive/todo.yml" Voilà, that's a simple solution which works for me.
- cwmartin 5y ago
  That is very similar to the Taskpaper syntax if you end up wanting some additional tooling in the future. https://www.taskpaper.com https://www.taskpaper.com
aimor 5y ago
I like it, is very close to what I've been using to keep my own to-do lists: Instead of "[ ]" I just use "-" or "x". The only thing I do that this doesn't mention is nested lists: [ ] This task has subtasks [x] Post about it on HN [ ] See if someone else already did
- jotaen 5y ago
  Nesting is currently being worked on https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2, as there are some questions to be figured out first. (Note that the [x]it! specification is a working draft right now, it’s not supposed to be final yet.)
fladd 5y ago
Nice, but (like most tools) misses the crucial feature of start (or scheduled) dates. I think of one the best plain text implementations of a todo system is the one that is a bit hidden in the task plugin that comes with Zim Wiki [0]. It has start and due dates, nested tasks, priority flags, keywords (which can function as GTD states for instance) and tags. [ ] An example task with a @tag [ ] A subtask with start AND due date >2022-04-02 <2022-04-09 [x] A prioritized subtask ! [x] An subtask with higher priority !! NEXT Another task defined by a keyword [0] https://zim-wiki.org https://zim-wiki.org
quickthrower2 5y ago
Dont dwell on choosing todo apps. Pick any reasonable one and use it alot. Habit > software. The main thing you need is for it to sync. Text file and dropbox is fine. The Microsoft one is pretty advanced and easy to use. That is my go to.
incel 5y ago

452 points by jotaen 5y ago

mrleinad 5y ago

It looks great, I'd have to give it a try to be able to have an opinion on it though. Did you try PlainTasks? You might be able to borrow a few ideas from it too. Congrats!

jotaen 5y ago

Clickable links: Website with demo: https://xit.jotaen.net https://xit.jotaen.net File specification: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md

softwarebeware 5y ago

This is really cool. I am endlessly fascinated by the proliferation of "productivity apps" when I find the same thing as you: that they are quite unnecessary. My approach is similar. I already take notes via a Bash script. I configure a particular "label" for any todos and (essentially) just grep for them, excluding those that are crossed out (with Markdown tildes). This approach works great for me as a Staff Engineer in a large tech company. Reference: https://github.com/scottashipp/noted/blob/main/subcommands.md#todos https://github.com/scottashipp/noted/blob/main/subcommands.m... I also wanted to mention there are several related ideas / movements around the web. One of the biggest is todotxt. In case you hadn't heard of it: https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt

jotaen 5y ago
I used todo.txt for a while, but in the end I stopped using the CLI tool and just worked with the files directly. For my use cases, the todo.txt file format has a few shortcomings and inconveniences, and there also is no dedicated specification. That being said, I drew a great deal of inspiration from todo.txt, and I think it’s a well-made and powerful tool.
- nhecker 5y ago
  This is very cool, thanks for sharing! I'm a huge proponent of tool-less things, and a consistent todo list format readable in any text editor has been extremely helpful for me. I use my own markdown-inspired todo+notes format, but looking through xit and todo.txt has given me some ideas, specifically around my format's[1] inability to indicate priority when a line is taken out of context. Question: why must the square brackets be used[2]? Could not the first and third chars be omitted, leaving only the status of the item as the first char on the line? I can see (and appreciate!) the desire to use brackets for readability, but if there's a functional benefit I'm not sure I see it at first glance. I especially like your use of `!` and `#`, that's a nice way to make those items accessible through a grep. [1]: Each day begins with a `\n# YYYY-MM-DD` section heading, then I use the ordering of my day's tasks in the list to indicate priority. `- ` prefixes an incomplete task, `* ` prefixes a completed task, `~ ` prefixes an obsolete task (similar to your xit), and a generic note doesn't have any predefined first char. One or more pair(s) of spaces indent subtasks or notes as appropriate. [2]: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md https://github.com/jotaen/xit/blob/main/Specification.md
  - jotaen 5y ago
    > Question: why must the square brackets be used[2]? There is no technical benefit behind the square bracket notation. As you mentioned, it’s mostly for readability reasons. My take on pleasant plain-text formats is to make use of symbolic notation if ever possible, because that makes the format more intuitive to understand. The `[ ]` resemble a check box, and it should be immediately clear what that means. The drawback is that you need to type in 2 extra characters, of course, so it’s really a tradeoff in the end.

kitplummer 5y ago

This is awesome! Super appreciate the effort on this. One challenge I've had is the file-based concept. And it losing "shape" quickly. I taken a few whacks at something different and have settled on a CLI-based kanban-y thing: https://github.com/kitplummer/clikan https://github.com/kitplummer/clikan But this lacks things like tags - which I appreciate as long as they are searchable in some form.

pixxel 5y ago
nb might be worth a look (has tags) https://xwmx.github.io/nb/ https://xwmx.github.io/nb/
- kitplummer 5y ago
  I loved nb! Until I ran it from a top-level directory and it committed an update to every git repo within that top-level. :D. Definitely operator error, but I learned my lesson and am back to separating notes from todos.
jotaen 5y ago
Cool, that looks quite neat! I agree with you, at some point you have to structure things in one way or the other, in order to keep an overview. For me it works somewhat well to organise my data across different files and folders, which are setup in a certain structure. That either requires some manual labour and discipline, or you automate these workflows. That requires “standardised” data formats, however.
oezi 5y ago
Nice! I also have this pain of the file losing shape quickly. My take is to have a a CLI tool to "carry over" all todos which aren't solved into a new heading. This way the old/resolved items are moved to the back/lower in the file. I call it Rodo (Todos in Ruby): https://github.com/coezbek/rodo https://github.com/coezbek/rodo It uses Markdown for syntax.

tyingq 5y ago

Looks interesting. Might be worth looking at the Emacs Org Mode support for TODO lists[1]. Just as a reference for how someone else dealt with TODOs in a text format, but with a pretty complete feature set. [1] https://orgmode.org/org.html#TODO-Extensions https://orgmode.org/org.html#TODO-Extensions

zachwill 5y ago

Great work on this — love the website demo!

wodenokoto 5y ago

> [an item] MUST start at the beginning of a line with a checkbox. Why no subitem? [] large task [] subtask 1 [] subtask2 I use this all the time.

jotaen 5y ago
I also thought about this, but I have postponed it for now, because there are some implications with this (see here: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2). So I thought it’s better to properly think this through beforehand.
nhecker 5y ago
I use subitems pretty heavily in my todo_notes.md file as well; to work around the concern over conflict of state, I pay attention to only the checked status of the `large task`. If that parent is not checked off, I know there are still pending subtasks. So I won't really care if there are un-checked subtasks; as long as the parent task is checked I know I can ignore it and move on. Maybe that could be formalized a bit more strongly but since it's only my eyes which will see my todo 99% of the time, I'm fine with it and I know the convention.

wim 5y ago

This is very cool! We're actually building an editor/IDE of sorts from scratch, but specifically for "todo.txt" (https://thymer.com https://thymer.com if you're interested). I think a lot of parts of your spec would fit really well with the concepts we were thinking of (like the status in between [ ], due dates, #tags..). Maybe we should add compatibility for this spec as well (for things like autocomplete, and export/import). Thanks for posting, really helpful for portability to have more standards like these!

D13Fd 5y ago

I am conflicted on this. The spec is nice. I love the recognition that dates may be imprecise (e.g., 2022-05 -- although I would count that as the last day of the period, 23:59:59 on 2022-05-31, rather than the first day of the next period, 2022-06-01). I like the thought that went into it and the nice presentation. On the other hand, I do not think this is necessary or even all that helpful in the real world. You don't need a standardized format if you are writing to do items manually in a text editor. You just write them. In the vast majority of cases no one is going to see them but you. Time spent conforming to a spec is time wasted. A formal spec also doesn't help much for apps to use this format. There is not a huge need for portability between to do apps, and for most users to do items are ephemeral and not something that needs to be archived and revisited. Even if an app adopted this, being tied to a plain text format would likely hinder feature development, including the ability to sync across multiple devices. Beyond that, different to do apps use different systems of categorization and tagging, so really in practice I doubt this will become any kind of standardized format. So, all told, it is a beautiful effort, nicely presented, but I think it is unnecessary.

haswell 5y ago
> A formal spec also doesn't help much for apps to use this format. There is not a huge need for portability between to do apps... To add some counterpoint to this, I try a lot of apps. Partially because I'm always looking for the one that's better than what I use now - looking for the thing that fits me the best - but also because I just like trying things. Portability means a greater chance that I'll fully dive in and use an app to its potential vs. some light use. There have been a few times that I've found a new app/solution that was clearly better than what I was currently using, and this was both exciting and frustrating. Frustrating because it meant I'd either have to leave my history behind, or spend a ton of time trying to port it over somehow. I realize I'm part of a niche group of people, but I feel like a spec like this was meant for a pretty niche group of people. I for one do not agree that this is unnecessary, but I do acknowledge that it's probably not necessary for a lot of people.
- jotaen 5y ago
  > I feel like a spec like this was meant for a pretty niche group of people. That’s spot on actually.

reaperducer 5y ago

Kinda sorta related, on macOS, if you choose to store your Notes in a plain old e-mail server, they are stored as text files very similar to this. Or at least they were last time I checked a few years ago. It was very handy to be able to access my Notes and lists from a regular old webmail interface.

jrib 5y ago

I like it. I do something similar for my todo file but organize by date. Most recent date first. Every day I review unchecked items from the previous day and move them to today or mark them obsolete. It has the added functionality of serving as a nice log of my work. So it looks something like this: 2022-04-01 ========== [ ] do a thing 2022-03-31 ========== [x] foo the baz

gcarvalho 5y ago
Me too, although I use markdown todo lists, starting with a minus. I also record the creation date and timestamped notes on the progression of the task. And I use @ to keep tabs on tasks that I've delegated. 2022-04-02 - [x] [2022-03-30] do a thing #tag1 #tag2 - 2022-03-31 10:30 notes about work being done thing - 2022-03-02 14:00 completed thing by using X - [ ] [2022-03-28] @delegated_person: do another thing - 2022-03-29 09:00 delegated_person reported that Y

mpalczewski 5y ago

I switched away from Workflowy to a plain text file format. Load times are quicker, navigation is quicker, can use keyboard only without a mouse, the UX can keep up with the pace of my thinking. I prefer vimwiki for this purpose https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki You can get plugins that sync it to a git repository. I love this. There's also task warrior plugins, though I haven't figured out how that would for me, seems to get away from simple text files at that point.

zamubafoo 5y ago

Only thing I would think of changing would be allowing for the use of colons in tags to provide tag namespaces. Then it's fairly trivial to implement things like created on date, completion date, and the like since it's just "#created-on:yyyy-mm-dd" or "#completed-on:yyyy-mm-dd". It also allows users more generic organization options, with filtering based on the namespaced tags being something trivial, but ultimately up to the user or the app that is interfacing with the xit file.

shakezula 5y ago

It's bullet journal notation meets plain-text format and I dig it. I use pure text files for a lot of things, too, and I already use a similar system, but it's definitely more free-form. Cool idea!

Siira 5y ago

https://github.com/Vhyrro/neorg https://github.com/Vhyrro/neorg is a neovim format inspired by org-mode. It should be easier than learning the real org-mode. The real-org mode is not that hard to use though IMO.

jashmota 5y ago

Obsidian is pretty easy to use to maintain a to-do list as well.

sloankev 5y ago

Very cool! I made something very similar to this as a VS Code extension[1]. Inspired by the bullet journal method. [1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=blt.blt https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=blt.blt

prideout 5y ago
When I saw the OP's format, I immediately wanted a VS Code extension for it. This looks great, installing it as we speak. In fact, I like your format slightly more, because when I complete tasks I usually just delete them -- no need for a checkbox.
geoelectric 5y ago
This is really neat. It's similar to the BuJo rapid-logging-inspired system I handspun for myself around Markdown a few years ago that I outlined here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21580133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21580133 I'd quit using that one since because too many Markdown editors have forgotten tabs are legal whitespace after a UL bullet, and that there are three different UL bullet characters (and it really doesn't help that the CommonMark examples page only docs `-` and `*`, even though `+` is part of the CommonMark spec too). In particular, without the tab support being implemented, there's no fixed gutter for the BuJo-style sigil and queries get much harder. But I do miss the idea of those simple bullets. I may have to check out your extension.

forgotpwd16 5y ago

What you didn't liked with todo.txt?

jotaen 5y ago
A few (cosmetic) details, for example: - They don’t support multiline item descriptions. They actually prohibit that for a specific reason, because you can’t sort the lines lexicographically anymore. In my opinion, that should be an optional feature, however, which it is in [x]it! - Creation and completion date are featured prominently, but I actually think they are not that important, and I’m not sure they are really worth some dedicated syntax. What I do find important, though, are due dates, and these are not natively supported in todo.txt - I don’t like the notation of just preceding `x ` to the line for a checked item. It’s simple on the one hand, but it doesn’t look very tidy in the file.

wforfang 5y ago

I do something similar but I include informational notes as well (not just action items/todo's). * incomplete todo ~ completed todo - informational Each day I create a new note, titled by date. Grep the folder for topics or incomplete action items. No tooling or overhead needed. I have never felt the need to syntax "ongoing" or "obsolete" items. It's either open or closed.

navjack27 5y ago

I made this which is suitable for my needs when mixed with Obsidian. https://github.com/navjack/ConsoleJournal/blob/main/journal.ps1 https://github.com/navjack/ConsoleJournal/blob/main/journal....

softwarebeware 5y ago

One other small thought I have is about the name. It's common to use "xit" in popular JavaScript test framework like Mocha and Jasmine to indicate an excluded test. Could cause some ambiguity or an unwanted association.

_andrei_ 5y ago

Looks like quite similar to my own document / task management grammar [1]. I wrote a small library to parse mine, and built many tools on top of it, including editor support, various CLIs for task management, calendar, activity tracking, content consumption, etc. I invested a lot of time into learning Emacs, got into using Org, but Emacs is just too slow, and I got to a point where customizing the tool for what I want was harder than building a custom tool. [1] https://i.imgur.com/Nm6e31W.png https://i.imgur.com/Nm6e31W.png * sorry for ma english

HNHatesUsers 5y ago

djtriptych 5y ago

Heh - just did the same thing over the last week to compile my task list into trello cards to share out =)

halostatue 5y ago

Looks interesting. It doesn’t have a formal specification, but there may be things from TaskPaper https://www.taskpaper.com/guide/getting-started/ https://www.taskpaper.com/guide/getting-started/ that you may find interesting. There are lots of things that support the basic TaskPaper format: https://support.hogbaysoftware.com/t/taskpaper-extensions-wiki/1628/1 https://support.hogbaysoftware.com/t/taskpaper-extensions-wi...

cjohnson318 5y ago

How do the "tags with values" work? What is the intended use case?

jotaen 5y ago
It’s basically one way of allowing to create an information hierarchy, e.g. [ ] Work on #ticket=283 [x] Buy new computer. #done=2022-02-24 Then you could query for `#ticket`, or for specific values of it. (Well, that is, if you had a tool for querying, of course.)

Jellyspice 5y ago

interesting, I also happen to switched to vscode to manage my notes and todos. I use Todo+ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=fabiospampinato.vscode-todo-plus https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=fabiospa... for managing my todo list, what I like about todo+ is that it has simple formatting and I'm able to track start and end time of the task, it also has this little counter at the the top of the list to track finish/total tasks.

dugmartin 5y ago

I have my own informal format that doesn't use the [], just single characters - this is an unstarted todo / this is a started todo x this is a finished todo ~ this is a todo I'm not going to do It works well for me.

kseistrup 5y ago
That resembles what I use in my daily paper agenda: / Unfinished task X Finished task % Canceled task ↗ Task moved to a later date ↙ Task moved to an earlier date In effect, I can convert the ‘/’ sigil to any of the last four sigils and I can see at a glance what still needs to be done.
yardshop 5y ago
This is similar to my own format too, but opposite meanings for some of them, and a few have somewhat mnemonic character names: ~ todo (tilde) * started (star) - done (dash) x didn't or won't do # comment > design item I use this mostly to write out and track steps in scripts and programs I'm writing. I will use one or two levels of indentation and blank lines within entries. example feature steps > the example feature will demonstrate such and such and make use of this and that - write stub version * fill in actual code - part A ~ part B x call xyz function # didn't do this because of ... ~ add extra features I do this mostly in the header comment of a script (Python doc string), but sometimes pull it out into its own text file if it gets too big. I wrote a script at one point to convert these kinds of notes into a web page with various background colors per status. It helps to visualize it sometimes but I don't actually use it that often.

gorgoiler 5y ago

Nice, kind of weird like a bullet journal. Very ergonomic. For bonus points you should provide an LSP server that lints and syntax checks your xit! files. Why? Extracting data from notes is really useful. Even if it’s just to reformat them. To extract data they must first be parsed, and to be parsed they must be free of errors.

tconfrey 5y ago

+1 for plain-text for all the points you mention, particularly "data-first with tools on top". But why reinvent the wheel when the org-mode format is well established and does everything you want, and more? There are an increasing number of tools using org-mode as a plain-text data store, so you are more likely to be able to participate in a tool ecosystem. In addition to my own https://braintool.org https://braintool.org see the list below. BrainTool (mainly a bookmark manager) has an elemental to-do system, I'd love to have my users be able to use your tool for todos. NB see also Karl Voit's push for org markup awareness outside of Emacs via Orgdown: https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown. ------ ORG-MODE TOOLS OUTSIDE EMACS https://plainorg.com https://plainorg.com https://flathabits.com https://flathabits.com https://beorg.app https://beorg.app https://braintool.org https://braintool.org https://easyorgmode.com https://easyorgmode.com https://logseq.com https://logseq.com https://organice.200ok.ch https://organice.200ok.ch https://orgro.org https://orgro.org http://orgzly.com http://orgzly.com

greggman3 5y ago
Funny that all the phone versions have a hard coded UI. Isn't the point that org mode is just plain text so it's more free from? I currently use google keep. I'm not recommending it but to some extent I can use at as just a collection of synced text files.
- MichaelDickens 5y ago
  The only phone version I've used is beorg, but beorg lets you directly edit the plaintext if you want to. I usually don't because the hard coded UI is pretty convenient.
- xenodium 5y ago
  <insert “porque no los dos?” meme here> A mobile-friendly interface that enables jotting things down quickly while on the go… (coincidentally, fully typing “- [ ] remember the milk” is clunky on mobile, switching keyboard, etc). Also powered by plain text, so you can drop down to the details whenever you want to (including your mobile) with all the portability associated with it. disclosure: I wrote https://plainorg.com https://plainorg.com and https://flathabits.com https://flathabits.com because I wanted a frictionless mobile experience without giving up on org markup (plain text).

sunshi23 5y ago

I also have cycled through many todo apps and tried to make my own. I ended up using pen and paper.

deleted 5y ago

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Giho 5y ago

There is a todo format that I use daily called todotxt. It has even application support on most platforms or you just write manually in a txt file. Easy to overview by yourself. In combination with Syncthing I have a very seamless experience where ever I go. http://todotxt.org/ http://todotxt.org/ https://syncthing.net/ https://syncthing.net/

chrisweekly 5y ago

You do you, and thanks for sharing, but it'd be pretty tough to convince me Markdown isn't the right underlying format for whatever client or functionality you might want to build. See eg Obsidian and its amazing plugins to see what I mean.

bachmeier 5y ago

Looks like a decent format for human readability, but I think the more important things once you get more than 20 or so items are (a) maintaining, (b) rearranging, and (c) querying. You have to be able to remove completed items and move open items into different places. You have to limit the tasks you are viewing to those relevant in the moment. Perhaps there is a way to use an existing system like Taskwarrior to do the querying and rearranging.

netgusto 5y ago

Wow such a coincidence! I recently toyed on such a spec for my shell prompt task manager https://github.com/netgusto/tax https://github.com/netgusto/tax (I display it in my prompt and my tmux session bar, it's nice to keep current work in focus) I'm certainly going to look into implementing the spec. Some questions/suggestions: * do you plan support for text unrelated to tasks ? * do you plan support for sections / nested sections? * idea suggestion: in tax (linked above) we use markdown bold to notify "focused" tasks and sections, ie the one(s) that should be front and center; ex: - [ ] **This is a focused task**

jotaen 5y ago
> do you plan support for text unrelated to tasks ? I haven’t thought about that much yet. I’ve tracked it here for it to be discussed: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/10 https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/10 > do you plan support for sections / nested sections? I think that would be cool and useful, but I need to play around with that more. There is already a ticket for it: https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 > idea suggestion: in tax (linked above) we use markdown bold to notify "focused" tasks and sections I think that’s similar to the priorities: [ ] !!! Do this

bccdee 5y ago

I ended up reaching a similar conclusion after I went looking for a todo app that suited my needs. I had very few requirements and I was surprised nothing satisfied them. I wanted something (1) that allows me to attach dates to tasks; (2) that lists tasks by date in a calendar; (3) that is local-only — not a web app, no cloud sync or anything, and not too many extraneous features. I couldn't find anything that met those criteria without also having a bunch of extra features and a subscription service tacked on, and eventually I just wrote a script for scraping a text file and printing out all the lines tagged with dates (e.g. @jun-10) in order. That's the only real functionality I needed that a text file can't satisfy on its own, and it's been working great so far.

jotaen 5y ago
Yeah, I agree – as great as a separate file spec is, it’s only half the story without tools that provide useful functionality on top of it. For my current purposes, it’s syntax highlighting that makes a big difference.

terminal_d 5y ago

Why reinvent the wheel, when Org-Mode exists?

divbzero 5y ago

As an alternative, the todo.txt format [1][2] first defined in 2006 [3] is supported by a CLI client (desktop) and several GUI clients (desktop, mobile, web). [1]: https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt [2]: http://todotxt.org/ http://todotxt.org/ [3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060701121920/https://lifehacker.com/software/top/geek-to-live--readerwritten-todotxt-manager-173018.php https://web.archive.org/web/20060701121920/https://lifehacke...

WesternWind 5y ago
This is what I use. It's a little hobbled in terms of add-ons to the standard because the orginal standard isn't centralized or versioned, but it works really well for a lot of things.
neilv 5y ago
I've been using todo.txt too, for personal tasks and appointments. I have a few tweaks: https://www.neilvandyke.org/todotxt/ https://www.neilvandyke.org/todotxt/

la_fayette 5y ago

Looks great, I am quite happy with todo.txt and all apps and tools available. Have you ever looked into that? It seems quite similar...

jbverschoor 5y ago

Already allin on noteplan.

roberthahn 5y ago

Good work! I might just try this out in my next attempt to GTD I’d like to suggest thinking more deeply about dates. I love that you opted to use the yyyy-mm-dd format and I also think it’s great that you’re making things flexible because life is messy. The problem I see is this; suppose I’m in a text editor and I want to see my todos ordered by due date. This will help me see what’s coming up. The advantage of using a yyyy-mm-dd format is that it makes things really easy to sort in reverse lexicographic order. However, with dates coming in at any point in the todo, sorting might be tricky. The week-style date format would also be tricky to sort properly. Granted, this is an option for tools to solve! But if the primary tool is a text editor, then this might be an area that could use refinement. Again: love the work you put into this and I also love the ergonomics! Thanks for sharing!

jotaen 5y ago
You can have lexicographic ordering with [x]it!, as long as you stick to a specific structure, which is: - Write due dates first - Pad your priority with dots - Don’t use line breaks within descriptions - Don’t use titles Then it will sort (in that order) by: item status, priority, due date. [ ] !!! -> 2022-05-01 Something [ ] ..! -> 2022-06-15 Something else [x] .!! -> 2022-01-04 More text

_h9mb 5y ago

I had a similar insight some years ago. I write my TODOs mixed with text in markdown notes and use a CLI to do nice things like exploration and journaling. It purposefully doesn't have any state besides the notes in itself. https://github.com/danisztls/journal https://github.com/danisztls/journal Lately I'm rarely using it because most of the things that I really have to do (work) are on my email inbox or containerized in project dirs. And for the later I just run 'rg "TODO:"' in the project dir.

ma2rten 5y ago
I didn't know about rg, how does it compare to ag?
- _h9mb 5y ago
  AFAIK ripgrep is faster. Haven't used ag much so I can't compare features.
- _h9mb 5y ago
  https://blog.burntsushi.net/ripgrep/ https://blog.burntsushi.net/ripgrep/

eternityforest 5y ago

This is so wonderful! I hope it becomes a standard, and we get calandering/reminder type tools to work with it.

syngrog66 5y ago

vi TODO

didip 5y ago

I thought of something similar, so I just write it in a YAML + Markdown format and push it to github as private publishing.

ryanolsonx 5y ago

This is really cool. I dig it. I like that there's a Sublime Text package for it. Seeing my plain text todos with nice syntax highlighting is a perk. I maintain a Zenburn color scheme[0] for Sublime Text. After playing with this, I added specialized support for [x]it! and I think it looks pretty good[1]. [0]: https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Zenburn%20Color%20Scheme https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Zenburn%20Color%20Scheme [1]: https://github.com/ryanolsonx/sublimetext-zenburn-theme/issues/2 https://github.com/ryanolsonx/sublimetext-zenburn-theme/issu...

jll29 5y ago

Plain text rocks. After trying dozens of "productivity apps", I've settled on using two simple sh aliases: alias todos="emacs -nw ~/todo.txt;" alias today="head -n 7 ~/todo.txt" and a homegrown binary "todo" command that preprends its arguments to ~/todo.txt (more precisely, while ignoring the first two lines of the existing file, which say "TODO" and "----", respectively). Missing: version control.

dllthomas 5y ago

I have a couple scripts that manipulate a stupidly simple "every line is a todo" format ".ck" file anywhere up from the CWD, combined with logic in my PROMPT_COMMAND to print the top item.

jkl5xx 5y ago

I’ve naturally developed a similar syntax to this and recently dumped all my notes into NotePlan 3. It’s been one of the best task management/note taking solutions I’ve found yet (not an ad, just an enthusiastic user!) With a little bit of find-and-replace in your favorite editor, you get great UX across platforms and all the benefits of plaintext without too many additions/deviations from standard markdown. The one big addition I’d make to this syntax is a time estimate. I use the syntax ~15m or ~2.5h etc. With the autotimebox plugin in Noteplan 3, I’m able to automatically fill in blank space on my calendar with these as events. If things come up and the day doesn’t go as planned, I just run autotimebox again and it finds a new time for them

nobody_nothing 5y ago

This is great! I wrote Margin[1] for similar reasons. But because I wanted to be able to incorporate notes as well as to-dos, absolutely anything can go between two square brackets in Margin: [ ] denotes a to-do item [x] denotes item marked as done [anything] denotes an annotation of type "anything" At first blush, it would appear Margin and [x]it! are compatible, with some very minor differences. Feel free to draw inspo from the Margin spec, and hit me up if you want to combine / collab. [1] https://margin.love https://margin.love

mmcgaha 5y ago
Exactly this. I also use ( ) to denote things that others owe me.

ZYinMD 5y ago

I haven't checked the Sublime package because I'm not very familiar with Sublime (anymore), but I have some experience developing VSCode themes. Did you need to use "tokens / scopes" to hack the colors? E.g. the color theme of the IDE (whatever theme the user is using at the moment) will paint variables in a certain color, functions in another color, arguments in a third color, etc, so you use regex to parse the text file, identify things that you want to color, then set them to be variables, functions, arguments, etc, so the text editor will give them different colors?

jotaen 5y ago
That’s how it works in Sublime, yes. You have a regex-based parsing engine that you configure via a YAML file, and there you assign scopes to the tokens.[1] As a default, the [x]it! Sublime Package uses the available default scopes. The user can choose to override the associated colours in their local settings.[2] [1]: https://github.com/jotaen/xit-sublime/blob/main/xit.sublime-syntax https://github.com/jotaen/xit-sublime/blob/main/xit.sublime-... [2]: https://github.com/jotaen/xit-sublime#syntax-highlighting--colour-overrides https://github.com/jotaen/xit-sublime#syntax-highlighting--c...
- ZYinMD 5y ago
  Thanks, just to confirm: if you want the users to see nice colors out of the box (no matter what theme they use) without needing to customizing anything in their settings, then you'd have to utilize common scopes like variables / functions / errors in a hacky way, correct?
  - jotaen 5y ago
    Yes. What I did is try to choose default (common) scopes that have a high chance of being coloured the way I want, e.g. for the `[x]` token I use `markup.inserted` which is for markup diffs, so it should be green. Or `markup.underline` for the headlines. But the options are pretty limited.

woile 5y ago

Nice work! I use a obsidian with reminder plugin and I end up writing something similar: - [ ] work (@2022-04-04) - [X] not work I like the priority features though, didn't think of that, but I haven't needed it much (I try to keep them in order of priority)

mrtweetyhack 5y ago

MattRix 5y ago

This is great! This is the nearly the exact format I’ve been using myself.

vietvu 5y ago

I have come back to plain text and sublimetext too. Simple and just works.

ChanderG 5y ago

Shameless plug. For those who use Orgmode, but think that Agenda is a bit too heavyweight to manage Todos, I created a Magit like interface to manage Todos (in an orgmode file): https://github.com/ChanderG/toodoo.el https://github.com/ChanderG/toodoo.el

MattyRad 5y ago

Any todo list that doesn't account for dependency tasks is exclusively limited to short term planning (i.e. days not weeks). After skimming the spec, I don't think dependency tasks are accounted for? For example, say this is my (out of order) to-do list: - [ ] Mix ingredients - [ ] Eat cake - [ ] Bake a cake - [ ] Find cake pan These tasks need to be done in a specific order, but reading the list top to bottom doesn't make sense. So let's denote dependencies with indentation: - [ ] Eat cake - [ ] Bake a cake - [ ] Find cake pan - [ ] Mix ingredients By specifying order through indentation, we've now created a DAG that orders and contextualizes tasks; with the most actionable tasks having the largest indentation. This is how I organize my plaintext to-do files, but afaict no todo list software is able to handle large task trees gracefully- with the exception of grit, which is more of an experiment (but the readme is incredibly well written and describes the DAG problem to a tee). https://github.com/climech/grit https://github.com/climech/grit Does anyone know if org-mode handles complex task trees gracefully? All the examples I've found online were trivial (i.e. one task deep)

drran 5y ago
IMHO, you are mixing TODO lists and task management/planning software. No, I don't know a good task manager or business process manager for command line. Instead, I created a simpler TODO list manager, called `td`[0], which supports flat TODO lists only, and use directories and command-line generators to manage todo's. `td` prints top item only, by default, leaving little room for procrastination. I'm keeping one `TODO.md` file per project instead of one large TODO file for all todo's. [0]: https://github.com/vlisivka/bash-modules/blob/master/bash-modules/examples/td https://github.com/vlisivka/bash-modules/blob/master/bash-mo...

mherrmann 5y ago

A little note to other HNers: The demo on the web site is clickable. To OP: Very cool. I've switched to it from Markdown for my monthly goal-setting. I like the Sublime Text plugin.

jotaen 5y ago
Have you also tried checking all the items?
- mherrmann 5y ago
  Haha ;)
  - jotaen 5y ago
    I’m seriously considering to make that mandatory via the spec. :D

cehrlich 5y ago

Interesting idea, I like the premise that people might build fancy ways to interact with this such as VSCode addons with a 'real' UI, but there will always be a plaintext fallback. I already manage my hobby software projects using plaintext files, using a made-up syntax that is not quite org-mode, not quite xit, but that I'm also not too strongly attached to. The one thing that jumps out of me that would make it hard to switch to xit that the spec currently doesn't allow lines to start with whitespace, which I use for grouping things. I settled on 2 spaces, but could also see 4 maybe being a better choice because of how it makes things line up. (presented here with additional spacing because hn doesn't parse single newlines) UI [ ] Buttons [ ] Front page call to action [ ] Make it red [ ] Make it really big [ ] General [ ] Increase padding [ ] Stronger drop shadow

jotaen 5y ago
I didn’t include nesting in the first edition of the draft, because there might be some implications with it and I was curious for feedback on this. https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 But it seems like my potential concerns are not shared that much, so I think the nesting should be added to the [x]it! spec.

stewbrew 5y ago

I think you should discuss pro/cons wrt/ other (more established) formats like todo.txt that provide a wide variety of tools.

neurocat123 5y ago

Just my 2¢: I'm also using plain text files as a 'mind-dump'/exocortex/organsation system. After a while, the file tends to get rather big, and so I need some coarse hierarchical levels, like 'random cool stuff to look at when idle', 'high priority stuff/this week', 'medium priority stuff/this month', etc. A copious amount of unicode and especially ASCII art helps me a lot to find sections quickly. Behold my elite retro headers like ╗ ║ TODAY ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════╗ and grab-box of symbols: ↗↙⋇⟡*═╔╗╚╝║∙◽◼▪→▶▷▸▹⇒⇨◉๏⦿⊙○●⭗⭘⭘ ────── ∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗ ────── Markdown-style headers (with - or = underlines) also help a lot to organise within the top-level sections. In general I find it very helpful to re-use Markdown (or reStructuredText) syntax, even if it's not rendered.

mishaker 5y ago

I searched for todo management for years and I tested tons of apps. But as a developer this is the solution I use that works well for me: Use YAML as a todo list, you can organise your things like: Perso: - Take an appointment at ... - ... Client1: - Do something - ... Then put it in todo.yml in your Google Drive (for backup): /Users/mishaker/Google Drive/My Drive/todo.yml Then add an alias on your cli: alias todo="subl /Volumes/GoogleDrive/My\ Drive/todo.yml" Voilà, that's a simple solution which works for me.

cwmartin 5y ago
That is very similar to the Taskpaper syntax if you end up wanting some additional tooling in the future. https://www.taskpaper.com https://www.taskpaper.com

aimor 5y ago

I like it, is very close to what I've been using to keep my own to-do lists: Instead of "[ ]" I just use "-" or "x". The only thing I do that this doesn't mention is nested lists: [ ] This task has subtasks [x] Post about it on HN [ ] See if someone else already did

jotaen 5y ago
Nesting is currently being worked on https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2 https://github.com/jotaen/xit/discussions/2, as there are some questions to be figured out first. (Note that the [x]it! specification is a working draft right now, it’s not supposed to be final yet.)

fladd 5y ago

Nice, but (like most tools) misses the crucial feature of start (or scheduled) dates. I think of one the best plain text implementations of a todo system is the one that is a bit hidden in the task plugin that comes with Zim Wiki [0]. It has start and due dates, nested tasks, priority flags, keywords (which can function as GTD states for instance) and tags. [ ] An example task with a @tag [ ] A subtask with start AND due date >2022-04-02 <2022-04-09 [x] A prioritized subtask ! [x] An subtask with higher priority !! NEXT Another task defined by a keyword [0] https://zim-wiki.org https://zim-wiki.org

quickthrower2 5y ago

Dont dwell on choosing todo apps. Pick any reasonable one and use it alot. Habit > software. The main thing you need is for it to sync. Text file and dropbox is fine. The Microsoft one is pretty advanced and easy to use. That is my go to.

incel 5y ago