[HN Gopher] I still use plain text for everything. (2016)
___________________________________________________________________
I still use plain text for everything. (2016)
Author : behnamoh
Score : 118 points
Date : 2021-06-29 17:28 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lifehacker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lifehacker.com)
| ternaryoperator wrote:
| This headline feels click-baity to me. After singing the praises
| of plain text "for everything," he then lists all the things for
| which he's no longer using plain text.
|
| > I've moved away from plain text in favor of apps in a couple
| places to help simplify things...any public, long form writing I
| do goes through the likes of Google Docs, Microsoft Word
|
| The only places where his preferences are likely to be different
| from most readers is that he uses plaintext for taking notes, to-
| do list, and reminders.
| riffic wrote:
| didn't read the article but I'm surprised no one in the comments
| has jumped into the Obsidian/Zettelkasten/PKMS rabbithole yet.
|
| There's a whole subculture growing up now surrounding linked
| notes in markdown / plaintext and it's glorious.
|
| edit: article needs a (2016) tag.
| floren wrote:
| Wrote my own vaguely Zettelkasten-inspired system because I
| wanted something that works at the command line and followed my
| own idiosyncratic (or idiotic) preferences. The data lives in
| my keybase KBFS mount and I symlink it into my home directory.
|
| You build up a hierarchy of notes, but you can also cross-link
| so a note appears in multiple places. You can also drop
| arbitrary files alongside any given note. I expand it
| occasionally as I need new features; most recently I added
| regular expression searching and a command to locate "orphaned"
| notes. It's at https://github.com/floren/zk which contains the
| Go library to interact with the files on disk, and a command-
| line tool which wraps the library.
| jerednel wrote:
| I recently discovered Logseq and have been loving the
| experience of networked notes and markdown. I feel like this is
| something that has been missing from my workflow that I never
| realized.
|
| File format is compatible with Obsidian as well so you can move
| your life anywhere. And you can back up to a private github
| repo so you can use multiple machines. I like Logseq so much I
| feel compelled to donate since its main competitor is
| outrageously priced.
| wcerfgba wrote:
| I love plain text for my digital note-taking and I use a Foam [1]
| workspace now, but I've always struggled with diagrams. I love
| pencil and paper because I have complete freedom to draw diagrams
| which can be incredibly useful. I'd love a note-taking
| application for Android which lets me write text and then add a
| 'canvas block' to draw, and then switch back to text.
|
| [1] https://foambubble.github.io/
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| how does this compare to just creating a personal wiki with
| internal hyperlinks between all your topics of interest?
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| I use plain text because of speed. Often I find by the time
| Google Docs or a more powerful editor loads, I've lost a thought
| or two I was going to write down, especially if it's alot of
| them.
|
| Plain text takes <1 second to open and start editing.
|
| And of course all of the code I write is plain text.
| criddell wrote:
| How does and article like this get that headline? About 2/3rds of
| the way down is a section titled "Where I've Abandoned Plain
| Text".
| blacktriangle wrote:
| I've been moving to gemtext for my plain text writing. I find it
| provides just enough semantics while also providing support for
| links.
| dmart wrote:
| Apple Notes is my go-to for "almost plain text." It's simple,
| instantly syncs across phone/desktop, and I can throw in bulleted
| lists, photos, PDFs, or whatever else if needed. I have meeting
| notes, to-do lists, journal entries, and god knows what else in
| there.
|
| It's not perfect - Markdown, or at least code blocks, would be
| nice, and tags (I think those are coming in the next OS release),
| but in terms of ease-of-use, I haven't found anything close.
| jakeva wrote:
| I recommend https://bear.app/. It has good markdown support
| with code blocks and a tagging system I like.
| tunesmith wrote:
| With markdown, it'd be so killer if you could just drop in
| tables from Numbers.app, or especially code kernels. I'm still
| looking for that shangri-la of "reactive Jupyter for the
| desktop" ObservableHQ is basically reactive Jupyter, and
| Jupyter-on-desktop can be hacked together, but I want all
| three.
| easrng wrote:
| It can do monospace text at least. (On iCloud accounts, not
| IMAP though)
| inferense wrote:
| I used to be a power-user of apple notes too. I loved how
| simple it is but I also missed having more functionality. My
| notes and folders became messy very quickly with limited
| options to organise. I also had to review my notes and put the
| action points into a calendar which became too much work.
| Decided to start building something better, https://acreom.com/
|
| Happy to share the access and get feedback.
| spideymans wrote:
| > It's not perfect - Markdown, or at least code blocks, would
| be nice, and tags (I think those are coming in the next OS
| release), but in terms of ease-of-use, I haven't found anything
| close.
|
| On that note (no put intended), I'd expect iOS 16 Notes to
| support markdown now that SwiftUI and UIKit in iOS 15 now have
| native markdown support.
| dannywarner wrote:
| My favourite quote from The Pragmatic Programmer is this one.
|
| "Text manipulation languages are to programming what routers are
| to woodworking. They are noisy , messy, and somewhat brute force.
| Make mistakes with them, and entire pieces can be ruined. Some
| people swear they have no place in the toolbox. But in the right
| hands, both routers and text manipulation languages can be
| incredibly powerful and versatile. You can quickly trim something
| into shape, make joints, and carve. Used properly, these tools
| have surprising finesse and subtlety. But they take time to
| master. "
|
| Quoted from https://flylib.com/books/en/1.315.1.37/1/
| bumbada wrote:
| I use plain A4 paper, a physical clipboards and lots of
| colors(more than 10) and mechanical pencil.If I need to
| digitalize them for archival, I use same the Fujitsu snapscan
| automatic feed scanner that I use to digitalize books.
|
| I can draw well, so using plain text feels so limited and
| constrained, rigid and not flexible enough.
|
| Linear text and having to use a special language (markup) feels
| so clunky compared to a real 2D connection.
|
| With paper you have eink support, A3 and A2 sizes if necessary
| and as big space as you need.
|
| It is extremely cheap, does not need batteries, mobile and normal
| people understand it(WYSIWYG) much better than if you have to
| explain them how to install a Markdown viewer or worse something
| like emacs modes.
|
| I am a lisper,fluent in emacs, could use it for notes and
| sometimes I do. I used Latex in University instead of Word.
|
| But it feels so wrong for me. When I talk with artists in general
| they share the feeling I have. They will not use the keyboard if
| they could but their hand. For them programmers are just autistic
| not understanding their world.
|
| Most programmers also can not understand artists. For them losing
| all the expression of handwriting and writing is just fine and
| for them the keyboard is sacred, and people should be trained in
| typing instead of computers doing the work for understanding
| human natural movements.
|
| Very few people understand both worlds.
| xenonite wrote:
| Thank you for writing the nice comparison. I agree that most
| people are focused on one method, either keyboard or pencil.
| Also, for other people it is talking. I feel that I can express
| my ideas much quicker using speech than any other method.
|
| But let me ask you: What do you think about using an iPad with
| the Apple Pencil?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| i use org for a lot of stuff. Which is plain text.
|
| Easy to version, easy to diff, easy to render, easy to (rip)grep.
| [deleted]
| superkuh wrote:
| Yep. In the late 90s/early 2000s I tried out a complex rich text
| databased-mediated notes program. And it was pretty great. It had
| hyperlinks, and inline images, and all sorts of fancy stuff. The
| one thing it didn't have was longevity. The company went under,
| the product depends on unsatisfiable depends now, and my old
| database of notes effectively vanished by 2005.
|
| I've only used plain text for the last 15 years and it has been
| great. If I want images (or other files) I just put the file path
| to the images (or folder) in the notes. And since it's just a
| single text file called "notes" (now a handful of MB large) I can
| easily search through it with any tools I want.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Plain text, or pen/pencil and paper--that's taking the long
| view, for sure.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| I've got a folder on my family NAS called "notes." We store
| Markdown files and images in there. It's been a great way to
| organize loose information and media. Infinitely portable.
| eliss wrote:
| It seems like plain text has made a comeback among the generation
| that remembers Notepad and vim. The key thing is the focus on the
| routine and structure, rather than the choice of app or the
| styling. I've been putting together a collection of plain text
| applications:
|
| plain text todo / notes combination
| [https://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file/]
|
| plain text accounting [https://plaintextaccounting.org/]
|
| plain text academic publishing
| [http://www.sitzextase.de/blog/2017/02/22/plain-text/]
|
| plain text organizer [https://danlucraft.com/blog/2008/04/plain-
| text-organizer/]
|
| plain text daily diary
| [https://georgecoghill.wordpress.com/2018/01/01/the-one-line-...]
| kevinslin wrote:
| plaintext works well because it is universal and interoperable
| with everything. markdown is a great compromise in terms of
| keeping the portable format while giving you a bit more power.
| the article talks about reaching outside of plaintext for certain
| content - another approach is to adopt a plaintext note taking
| tool that has better supported for more complicated note types.
|
| plug: i'm the creator of one of these tools (dendron.so) which I
| use to manage over 20k notes in plaintext
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| I would have preferred this article in plain text without all of
| the ads and hovering content.
| [deleted]
| Aperocky wrote:
| Markdown is a good in between.
|
| It's still mostly plain text, with just enough structure.
|
| Can also be read straight without rendering too.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Can I just be a little anal and say, Markdown is 100% plain
| text. HTML is plain text too. Org-Mode, RestructuredText, etc.
| etc. It's all just plain text.
|
| -- update --
|
| Okay then people. Go open a Word Document in your text editor
| and see what you get. If it is smart, like Emacs, it will open
| a directory of xml files. How about if you open up a ipython
| notebook? not plain text. But RMarkdown is.
|
| -- update 2 --
|
| Well, what does the Linux Information Project say about Plain
| Text?
|
| (http://www.linfo.org/plain_text.html)
|
| - Plain text refers to any string (i.e., finite sequence of
| characters) that consists entirely of printable characters
| (i.e., human-readable characters) and, optionally, a very few
| specific types of control characters (e.g., characters
| indicating a tab or the start of a new line).
|
| - However, plain text can contain instructions that are written
| in plain text for formatting, for adding images, for creating
| hyperlinks, etc. that can be used by programs that convert
| plain text into other forms. That is, it can contain tags
| (i.e., instructions or indicators that are written in plain
| text) that tell a word processor, web browser or other program
| to format it in a certain way, including which typefaces and
| fonts to use, how to set the margins, where to underline the
| text and where to use bold or italic characters.
|
| - HTML (hypertext markup language) and XML (extensible markup
| language) are good examples of the use of instructions that (1)
| are used to convert plain text into some form of formatted
| text, (2) are written in plain text and (3) are embedded in the
| plain text documents that they are used to format. For example,
| the HTML tags <b> and </b>, although written in plain text,
| instruct any web browser that reads a file containing them to
| render (i.e., display) any plain text located between them in
| bold characters. Among the many other things that HTML can tell
| browsers are where to create hyperlinks, how to set margins,
| which images to use and where to insert them, which typefaces
| and fonts to use and where to render text in italics or
| underlined characters.
|
| www.linfo.org/plain_text.html
| D13Fd wrote:
| That incorrect IMO. It's plain text with markup information,
| such that it can be rendered.
| imafish wrote:
| I disagree. The markup information makes sense on its own
| for structural purposes. There does not need to be any
| rendering engine.
| asdff wrote:
| Where does it end? Technically every script in every language
| is plain text.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| I'm afraid that if you can't accept this, then you may have
| a hard time accepting the existence of any kind of "plain"
| text at all. After all, what text does not include format?
| This does. How?
|
| Well, a paragraph is separated by a new line. Sentences are
| separated by periods and the first word of sentence of
| capitalized. White space is used to delimit words within
| sentences--with some exceptions, as just shown.
|
| Dammit, I guess this isn't plain text either.
| rspeele wrote:
| Really I don't think there is an objective definition of
| a term like "plain text" and it's even context sensitive.
| If I tell somebody my software can be configured with a
| JSON file, and they ask "what's a JSON file?", I might
| respond that it's "just a plain text format" to convey
| that they can open the thing in Notepad and have a
| reasonable chance of understanding and editing it. On the
| other hand, if I get some software that receives emails
| in an inbox and parses them to load data into a table,
| and it claims to support "plain text emails only" I
| wouldn't send it HTML emails and think I'm doing it right
| because "HTML is plain text".
|
| If you absolutely must have an objective definition, I
| might try saying that "plain text" is WYSIWYG Unicode or
| ASCII. WYSIWYG meaning the formatting it exhibits when
| displayed is the same formatting it exhibits in the
| editor, and Unicode or ASCII meaning only the formatting
| available from those character encodings is available (so
| a Word Document doesn't count as plain text even though
| it is WYSIWYG).
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| sane
| unilynx wrote:
| Under that definition (printable plus whitespace controlling
| characters) a BASE64 encoded document is plain text. I'm not
| sure that makes it a very useful definition.
| Aperocky wrote:
| <p id="myResponse">I <i>really</i> don't think so</p>
|
| <p id="edit"> but I did upvote you for your different
| opinion, I don't really think it should be downvoted like it
| did, arbitrary word definitions are just that - arbitrary,
| including opinions from Linux Info and of course me and you.
| What really decide them in the end is the public perception
| of the term in question.</p>
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Are you sure?
|
| What about the blank line between these two paragraphs?
| Andwhydontiwritesentenceslikethis?
| slightwinder wrote:
| > Can I just be a little anal and say, Markdown is 100% plain
| text. HTML is plain text too. Org-Mode, RestructuredText,
| etc. etc. It's all just plain text.
|
| When people talk about plain text in that space, they usually
| mean the interaction level, not the technical level. Any
| cryptic rules which gives the text meaning in some parser is
| a rule the user need to first learn and internalize, which
| makes usage harder. Any tooling is an extra step you need to
| maintain for handling your texts.
|
| Of course, markdown and org-mode are relativ simple, but it
| stills needs tools, thus has extra requirements. It's not as
| plain and simple as starting notepad and call it a day.
| OrderlyTiamat wrote:
| interesting, I think I describe my criteria identically to
| you, but I have different conclusions. The thing aboht
| markdown and org-mode is that it's fully readable without
| any extra requirements whatsoever, as opposed to e.g.
| jupyter, word, etc.
|
| I've read and edited my own org files in notepad on
| occasion, which works perfectly well (imagine doing that
| with a word document!), The same is true for markdown
| files- to such a degree that it is the standard for readme
| files, and those are definitely supposed to be readable by
| anyone.
|
| So to me that definitely makes it plain text- all the more
| as you will be perfectly fine not adhering to any of the
| rules within an org file, but then suddenly dropping a
| table with formulas in there and having it work immediately
| (again, image word here).
|
| So I would say it doesn't _need_ tools, but can _benefit_,
| as opposed to word/etc.
|
| You might say these are quantitatively less "plain text" in
| some way when compared with a literal .txt file, which is
| fair enough, but I think they're extremely similar when
| compared to a .docx file.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Org-mode as well, for those who can get into emacs. Especially
| as a programmer, the code blocks are awesome.
|
| Want a quick analysis of some data in the same file? Toss it
| into a table, write a code block, run the code block, get a new
| table as output. I can export it to a variety of formats
| without much trouble in order to share with others.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Editor war commence!
|
| Joking, but as someone that has mostly used vim, I have the
| feeling that emacs is trying to do everything _within_ emacs
| while vim are supposed to be used in tandem with other unix
| tools.
| Lio wrote:
| I saw this new Org mode port for NeoVim[1].
|
| I wouldn't expect this to be anywhere near feature complete
| but for an old vim hand like me it's interesting.
|
| I'm a big fan of VimWiki personally but I'm in awe of some
| of the Org-mode demos I've seen.
|
| 1. https://github.com/kristijanhusak/orgmode.nvim
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Definitely a factor. There are still a lot of emacs use-
| cases which call out to or depend on unix tools, but yes.
| It's more common to try and "live" in emacs than in vim,
| whereas vim is more of a component within a larger
| experience.
| falcolas wrote:
| I'm mostly with the author, mostly.
|
| The biggest downside to a text file is when you need to add "not
| text". At least, "not ASCII". Non-latin characters. Images. Sound
| files.
|
| Sure, some programs will accept unicode as readily as ASCII, but
| _not all_. Formatting symbols are not well, or universally,
| defined. And definitely no consistent support for non-text items.
|
| Of course, these are mostly minor non-issues on a day-to-day
| basis.
|
| That said, I do wonder sometimes if the answer is HTML. Easily
| written, significant support for writing in text editors,
| virtually automatic support for the entire unicode set, lots of
| built-in markup, images, sounds, and movies are easy to embed,
| and there isn't an OS that can't display it.
|
| Just a thought.
| imafish wrote:
| I use a markdown editor (Joplin) for all my notes. It easily
| allows for adding unicode characters, formatted code snippets
| and images. Sound files, probably not.
| ajosh wrote:
| I also like and use Joplin - it can sync with anything that
| uses file sync but recently released its own server which is
| supposed to be faster.
| dugmartin wrote:
| I've been playing around with the idea of "Google Docs for
| Plaintext" and have a working (but ugly) version using the
| CodeMirror 6 collaboration protocol using a Elixir-based server I
| wrote.
|
| The idea is to have either single pane docs for just a plain text
| editor or split pane docs for Markdown, AsciiDoc, Latex, etc with
| the editor in one pane and the rendered version in the other. Doc
| editing/viewing would be collaborative with sharing similar to
| Google Docs.
|
| I've done some research and I haven't seen anything like this
| which means either I have lost my Google-fu, it is a dumb idea or
| nobody has thought of it (in descending likely-hood).
|
| Anyone have thoughts? Does this seem interesting/useful?
| bhl wrote:
| At face value, the idea feels reminiscent of earlier
| collaborative text editors like etherpad, hackpad, or
| usecanvas. I think the hard part would be resisting the
| temptation of folding your markdown (hiding # or *) or moving
| to WYSIWYG.
|
| For starters, you can take inspiration from apps like bear
| notes, ia writer, ulysses, typora, or even apple notes (which
| has collaborative editing nowadays).
| jedbrown wrote:
| It sounds like you're pitching https://hackmd.io/
|
| Also, https://overleaf.com for LaTeX projects.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2016) f*king hell
| [deleted]
| intrepidhero wrote:
| I do too and love it. Drives my coworkers nuts though.
|
| "Can you send me the word doc source for that PDF so I can make
| changes?"
|
| "Uh, it's actually markdown with this hacked together rendering
| pipeline."
|
| "..."
| asdff wrote:
| You can use pandoc to give them a word version
| celeritascelery wrote:
| But what happens when they give you a modified version back?
| asdff wrote:
| You can just convert back
| g8oz wrote:
| pandoc -f docx -t markdown foo.docx -o foo.markdown
| imafish wrote:
| The formatting will not be pretty.
|
| Source: I tried this.
| [deleted]
| pge wrote:
| This is exactly why I gave up and use word for all work
| documents (but not for any personal files). Colleague asked for
| the original word file of a PDF I sent them. Explaining that it
| was compiled to PDF from a LaTeX source was not worth it...
| hota_mazi wrote:
| This approach breaks down pretty quickly when you want to edit
| your notes on two computers and a phone.
|
| Or when you want to share them and edit them collaboratively with
| someone else.
| cryptoz wrote:
| Gmail drafts are my #1 note taking app. Plain text, no
| formatting required but it's there if you want. Just hit Send
| to share a note. Not collaborative editing, but does solve all
| of the sync issues.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Plain text without some sort of markup makes little sense. (Even
| the usual punctuation is, in fact, an ancient form of markup.) So
| why deprive yourself of the convenience of an existing modern
| standard, such as HTML or XML. (Unlike various markdowns these
| ensure a clear separation of content from, well, markup). You
| retain full control, and, at the same time, you can add as much
| structural and/or semantic complexity as you like.
| D13Fd wrote:
| It seems obvious, but it is much more cumbersome to read and
| write HTML than it is to read and write Markdown.
|
| Markdown is perfectly readable directly off the page, and is
| easy to write. HTML and XML are a pain both to read and write.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| You are absolutely correct that modern punctuation rules is
| markup.
| human807 wrote:
| I use Google Docs for almost everything these days. At a basic
| level, you can use it as plain text + easy hypertext via CMD+k.
| That by itself is very powerful. I don't know if there is another
| product that makes it so easy to create hyper text. (They could
| make that even easier if they had a hot key to "copy a shareable
| url to this doc to the clipboard" or similar.) The downside I
| suppose is that your data is in Google's cloud. Personally, I
| think that is a manageable trade off for my use cases, but I get
| that it may not work for everyone.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| I used to use RTFD for all my note taking. Simple colored text
| options, embedded images, stored as a bundle. But when I stopped
| using MacOS(X), I found that RTFD support was basically
| nonexistent in Windows and Linux, and even regular RTF was pretty
| limited.
|
| Switched to plaintext, never looked back. Simple, cross-platform
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| My absolute favorite hierarchical note application is
| CherryTree (https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree), but there's no
| mobile support, and looks like there will never be.
|
| I migrated all my notes to QOwnnotes
| (https://www.qownnotes.org) synchronized with DropBox, and use
| any markdown editor in mobile. I would be happier if it had
| encryption, but even if it had, a compatible mobile editor
| would be hard to find.
|
| Both let you mix text and media/attachments, but CherryTree is
| more user friendly.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| For mobile notes, I actually do the most fastest most cross-
| platform thing of all: I email myself. I can sort everything
| later if need be into my regular journals or wherever is
| applicable.
| _Nat_ wrote:
| I was kinda expecting to open a *.txt-like page. xD
| sys_64738 wrote:
| It's why schools should teach a class on Emacs at every high
| school.
| npteljes wrote:
| Schools, govt, and other public places should all run on FOSS.
| [deleted]
| genjipress wrote:
| I built myself a little note-taking / wiki app that uses
| Markdown. The main issue I find with plaintext is that the minute
| you need anything like rich metadata on a document, it gets very
| clumsy, so the MD files are stored in a SQLite database which
| also holds any needed metadata.
|
| I like the idea of plaintext as a least-common-denominator for
| many things, but it becomes difficult to use it beyond a small,
| constrained set of applications.
| jjjbokma wrote:
| Can't you store the meta-data as a YAML block like how for
| example pandoc uses for several of its output formats?
| knazarov wrote:
| There is an alternative: you can use a MIME envelope to store
| notes. This way you'll have a plaintext container and a way
| to attach files in a portable way.
|
| I've built a note taking system based on this idea:
| https://github.com/knazarov/notes.sh
| genjipress wrote:
| Sure, I can do that. The problem is what to do if I want to
| mass update the metadata across an entire set of documents.
| It's just easier to do that with a DB.
| jjjbokma wrote:
| That's very true, thanks for explaining.
| asdff wrote:
| You could just have a link to the rich metadata on the drive
| within the plain text document, and calling it up is as easy as
| grabbing the path and piping to your viewer.
| genjipress wrote:
| That's a scenario I do plan to add support for, actually.
| falcolas wrote:
| So, silly thought: HTML.
|
| Support for your metadata.
|
| Still readable and writeable as plain text.
|
| Lots of built-in support in the major text editors.
| genjipress wrote:
| I don't want to use HTML.
| fridif wrote:
| "I have a requirement for my grill. I need to cook steaks,
| but I don't want to use gas or electric because of valid
| reasons."
|
| "Have you considered using charcoal?"
|
| "I don't want to use charcoal, which is potentially one of
| the last viable options, for unspecified reasons."
| blacktriangle wrote:
| I tried going that way. Authoring HTML by hand is miserable,
| it totally breaks up your flow of writing. Then to make
| matters worse, reading HTML raw text vs reading in an editor
| is a painful experience as well.
|
| I feel like if you wanted to write notes in HTML, you would
| need to do it from within some WYSIWYG editor environment
| that felt like plain text most of the time but easily let you
| drop into metadata, links, tables, etc.
| falcolas wrote:
| Fair enough. I don't necessarily agree with you, but I'm
| not you...
| meesterdude wrote:
| There's more to plaintext than .txt files.
|
| I'm building an app (3D memory palace) and the save file format
| is JSON. It's not plaintext, but it _is_ text, and structured in
| such a way that you could rebuild the app yourself if you wanted
| to - or still have access to your data should the app stop
| working one day. It also means it 's trivial to edit the JSON if
| you want to add or remove something, or make mass-changes that
| would be impractical to do within the app itself.
|
| At work as a web developer, I'll often facilitate CSV import &
| Export for Product to work with the app. This lets them use
| Excel, which they're already comfortable with, and removes me
| from the development cycle because now changes are just a file
| upload that they can do themselves.
|
| Both JSON and CSV are great plaintext ways to represent
| structured data. Personally, I wish there was a markdown for
| excel, or some way of representing the entire capabilities (such
| as formulas) in plaintext instead of in a proprietary XLS.
| Hopefully someone has something in the works around that.
|
| Proprietary is easy - just do whatever you want. But doing things
| in a way that lets users & other developers "yes and" your work
| is an under appreciated value add.
| npteljes wrote:
| I think this is a fantastic attitude. And if the file grows too
| big, you can also do a simple compression.
|
| MS office is a weird thing in this regard. The current formats
| are technically open (called Office Open XML), but good luck
| with the multi-thousand page reference.
| ylee wrote:
| I've been using Emacs for more than a quarter century, 99.9999%
| of the time text-only (whether Linux console, X terminal console,
| xterm, or SSH client) on a remote server.
|
| My email client is VM, written in Emacs Lisp. I've used it to
| read mail for almost as long as I've used Emacs. VM (and
| ancillary tools, like Personality Crisis and mairix)
|
| * does a great of job displaying HTML messages. For the very few
| that it doesn't, one keystroke sends the message to my web
| browser running locally.
|
| * sends URLs I select (all from the keyboard) to the web browser
|
| * opens images and attachments
|
| * auto-adjusts the From: line of outgoing messages depending on
| the recipient
|
| * archives messages to various folders using various criteria
|
| * search my archived mail going back a quarter century at
| lightning speed
|
| Of course, I can write Emacs Lisp code of my own to extend any or
| all of the above.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Analogy fans: Plain text is to human as IR is to compiler.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The reason I use plain text is that nobody has made a similarly
| universal format for multimedia, and nobody has made tools for
| that fantasy format like Emacs and Vim. I'd love to use still and
| moving images at times.
|
| The FOSS world thinks it's innovative but it's stuck in the
| 1980s. And because of that, ordinary people (and tech geeks)
| don't have a way to personally utilize and store their copious
| multimedia - it's all tied to some company's servers. For
| example, there's no good way to backup your Snapchat or Facebook
| page, or even better, to create an equivalent locally.
| sharikone wrote:
| Exactly. I won't use any proprietary format for stuff that
| should last but the free software world is very lacking.
|
| But I also guess the likes of Facebook make it hard to access
| "your" data on purpose
| criddell wrote:
| What's a proprietary solution that makes it easy for ordinary
| people to utilize and store their copious multimedia?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| There is a universal, open format for text mixed with images.
| It's HTML. Support already exists everywhere.
| Lio wrote:
| Well I guess you could also say that formats like Markdown,
| Mediawiki, Asciidoc, Vimwiki and Org support images in
| plain text too.
|
| All of these are easily convertible to HTML or many other
| formats using something like Pandoc[1].
|
| They're also pretty easy to write and to read.
|
| 1. https://pandoc.org/
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That's a start, but we still need multimedia handling:
| conversion, editing, etc. And we need a way to easily
| edit stored content: I create it, export it, now I want
| to edit it ...
|
| It's not like posting something on Facebook, or using a
| good text editor.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It's not realistic - it's too hard to use, even for me. Do
| you use local HTML archives for anything? What authoring
| software do you use?
| criddell wrote:
| That's not easy for ordinary people to write.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| Most word processors will export to HTML.
| criddell wrote:
| You would seriously recommend people move all their
| photos and videos into Word and then export HTML as a
| solution for ordinary users?
| arpa wrote:
| hello mso-styles everywhere
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| Quality and size of exported HTML are word processor-
| dependent.
|
| Some are better than others.
| colecut wrote:
| not ideal but does it really matter
| vikiomega9 wrote:
| Yes exactly, was looking to comment this. HTML and other
| formats (markdown) are driven by adoption and stick around
| for that reason.
| falcolas wrote:
| And, just as importantly, it's easy to write, with lots of
| support in a majority of text editing programs.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Facebook, Instagram, etc.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| Anytime I think about how everything is plain text, I m
| reminded of TempleOS
| (http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-
| temp...), an operating system written by a schizophrenic man
| according to God's instruction. The fact that one guy built a
| system where _everything_ is written in hypertext (yes, you can
| embed images in source files -- why not?), where *nix systems
| would use plaintext, shows just how far behind the FOSS world
| is.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> where *nix systems would use plaintext, shows just how far
| behind the FOSS world is.
|
| Plain text is a design decision that is still advantageous
| today. Plain text is universal and easy to build more complex
| formats on top of. It can easily be inspected, edited,
| compressed, encrypted, diff'ed, filtered, and processed by
| tools on any platform.
|
| ESR wrote: "Text streams are a valuable universal format
| because they're easy for human beings to read, write, and
| edit without specialized tools. These formats are (or can be
| designed to be) transparent.
|
| Also, the very limitations of text streams help enforce
| encapsulation. By discouraging elaborate representations with
| rich, densely encoded structure, text streams also discourage
| programs from being promiscuous with each other about their
| internal states and help enforce encapsulation."
|
| Source:
| http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch05s01.html
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I love plain text. I also need to use images and video.
| tomcooks wrote:
| It's FOSS supposed lack of interest in multimedia the reason
| why closed gardens don't let you backup stuff?
|
| Moreover, the FOSS world is what is pushing technology further,
| without FOSS you wouldn't have git, ffmpeg, 7z and other
| archiving tools. The reason why a lot of FOSS tools deal with
| plaintext is because it opens much more doors than you can even
| think about.
|
| BTW, if you're an EU citizen you can get zipped html copies of
| your FaceBook data, and I assume of Snapchat as well.
| OrderlyTiamat wrote:
| I don't know about _moving_ images per se, but still images
| have been possible for a while in org mode. simply drop a link
| to the image file (possibly with an ORG_OPTION specifying image
| size) and you'll have an image displayed in the buffer of you
| plain text file.
|
| (there are even packages for making a screenshot and dropping
| the file in the current folder and making the aforementioned
| link, which I use a lot during online lecture note taking)
| slightwinder wrote:
| > The reason I use plain text is that nobody has made a
| similarly universal format for multimedia
|
| Care to explain what you mean with multimedia? What is missing
| with the existing audio/video/picture-formats?
|
| > And because of that, ordinary people (and tech geeks) don't
| have a way to personally utilize and store their copious
| multimedia
|
| There are dozens of tools to organize and utilize your media-
| content? Kodi is widely used as I know.
|
| > For example, there's no good way to backup your Snapchat or
| Facebook page,
|
| How is this the fault of the FOSS-world? They can't dicate a
| company what they offer and what not.
|
| > or even better, to create an equivalent locally.
|
| Yes, but for what? What is Facebook or Snapchat in your mind
| that it would be even neccessary to create it locally? But,
| there are tools with similar function. It's just not simple to
| use, because such services are not simple by they their own
| nature and nobody, neither FOSS nor commercial world, has made
| it simple enough yet to setup services for any random user.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I mean one document that contains multiple kinds of media
| (text, stills, moving images, etc), which you can very easily
| author in many server-based applications such as wikis,
| social media apps, etc. Word and LibreOffice struggle with
| it.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Take a look at obsidian, it just outputs plaintext markup.
| You can embed stuff in there also (I frequently paste
| images in, and also edit the same documents directly on
| gitlab or via vim etc)
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Thanks, I will.
|
| To be clear, my wishful thinking would include an editor
| for images and video that's like a great text editor.
| sharikone wrote:
| That's exactly the issue. Obsidian is great but not open
| source. I think the closest free software equivalent is
| Joplin (or maybe Zettlr)
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Doesn't Obsidian output open source (i.e., plain text
| Markdown documents)?
| WalterBright wrote:
| I fixed my editor so that it recognizes URLs, and underlines
| them. Clicking on one brings up a browser on that site. I should
| have done that 20 years ago.
|
| No special syntax is required. It just works. I've since been
| adding URLs in comments all over my code, for references. It's
| marvelous.
|
| It could be extended to recognize filename.jpg and filename.mp3
| to display or play those files, too. Again with no special syntax
| whatsoever. It just works.
|
| https://github.com/DigitalMars/med
| ectopod wrote:
| I wish vim could do this. Or maybe it can and I don't know how.
|
| Everyone suggests using "gx" but this is for opening local
| files in a viewer. If you do gx on a url it downloads the
| referent, and then tries to open the result using the local
| filename. If the extension is ".html" this fails fairly
| miserably because all the css, images, etc. are missing. If the
| page doesn't have an extension it fails entirely.
|
| I look forward to being corrected!
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(page generated 2021-06-29 23:01 UTC)