Nowadays, I manage my todo list in a paper notebook. But when I did use a digital tool for that job, my todo list app of choice was Todo.txt. It's a command line tool that save tasks lists as plain text. And although using Todo.txt means jumping to the terminal, it's not too difficult to use and master.
Over the years, I've tried a few graphical applications that work with Todo.txt. Most were, to be blunt, clunky. I always returned to Todo.txt at the command line.
Recently, though, I came across TxDx. It's a desktop application that implements full compatibility with the Todo.txt syntax. The user interface is clean and modern, but definitely not clunky.
Blog posts, articles, essays, and more. Like many people, you probably have a pile of bookmarks pointing to whatever you want to read sometime in the future. But those bookmarks also tend to get buried under other ones.
So, what's a poor, overwhelmed would-be reader to do? Turn to a read-it-later app. In the open source world, my long-time favourite is wallabag. Towards the end of 2022, I started hearing more about a read-it-later app called Omnivore. So much so, that I decided to give it a test drive.
Let's take a look at what I found.
Note: If looking for a comprehensive deep dive into Omnivore, this ain't it. I'm only going to look at the basics of using Omnivore and will gloss over the features that I don't use.
I do most of my writing in a text editor and format it with Markdown — articles, essays, blog posts, ebooks, and much more. I'm not the only one, either. Not only do countless people write with Markdown, but there are also more than a few publishing tools built around it.
Who'd have thought that a simple way to format web documents created by John Gruber and the late Aaron Schwartz would become so popular?
While most of my writing takes place in a text editor, I can understand the appeal of a dedicated Markdown editor. You get quick access to formatting, you can easily convert your documents to other formats, and you can get an instant preview.
If you're thinking about going Markdown and are looking for a dedicated editor, here are three open source options for your writing pleasure.
Even though I put The Plain Text Project out to pasture in December, 2022, I still use plain text for most everything that I do. And I'm always stumbling across some new text-only tool or another.
One that I encountered at the end of 2022 is Noodle. It's billed as a collection of text-based thinking tools. I look at it more as an easy-to-use plain text workspace.
Lately, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time and mental energy dealing with various myths and misconceptions that others have embraced. In a number of areas. In a number of spaces. About a number of things.
And, to be honest, it's been getting tiring.
Case in point: an email I received a few weeks before writing this post, taking me to task for both using and advocating the use of elementary OS. The two main arguments that my correspondent put forward in that missive were that 1) users get locked into elementary OS, and 2) that users have to pay for not only the distro but also for the software that they install.
The content of that email reflects some of the FUD I read elsewhere on the web in 2022. At that time, some troubles between elementary OS's founders hit the online Linux press and blogosphere and, as can be expected, speculation was dialed up to 11. The contents of the email I received, and all that speculation, also illustrates a level of ignorance about the distribution in question.
The next several hundred words are my response to the person who emailed me and to others like them. And those words don't only apply to elementary OS.
Fifteen or so years ago, I split my text editing time between both Emacs and Vim. That said, I was more of an Emacs guy. But while Emacs had an edge in my affections in those days, I knew (and still know) that Vim is no slouch.
So do other people even though who, like me, are all thumbs technically. Over the years, I've talked to a few new Linux users who wanted to use Vim but were a bit disappointed that it doesn't act like the text editors they've used on those other operating systems.
That disappointment changed to satisfaction when I introduced them to Cream, an add-on for Vim that makes it easier to use. Cream turned each of them into a regular Vim user. And, thanks to Cream, most of them still are to this day.
In a post that's bound to trigger a couple or three hard-nosed Vim purists, I'm taking you on a short tour of Cream and how it makes Vim easier to use.