[HN Gopher] Show HN: TaskTXT, plain text task-timing notepad
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: TaskTXT, plain text task-timing notepad
I built TaskTXT.com based on my experience timing my tasks. I found
that committing to a task before I start helps with my focus, and
guessing how long it will take, then timing it prevents me from
wanting to give in to distractions because I'm "on the clock".
Video Overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOYO0c_D6w0
There's also a Mac app which you can download here:
https://dl.todesktop.com/22080519n9z1jew/mac Video overview of the
Mac app: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMs-V5v5gZY But I didn't
want the tool to be distracting, so its based on plain text. That
means the UI is very familiar and you can use it for generic notes
in any structure you like. When you work in TaskTXT you are working
directly on its data format, I made a video about this concept
here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZdBgVZn5NI I think this
tool is uniquely suited for programmers, so I'd be interested to
hear any feedback about the product, or its viability as a
business.
Author : trafnar
Score : 30 points
Date : 2022-09-20 18:25 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tasktxt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tasktxt.com)
| billybuckwheat wrote:
| Interesting tool. I like the simplicity. In some ways, it reminds
| me of a (now defunct) web app called Daystack. And thanks for
| taking that time to make TaskTXT responsive. It works well on a
| phone.
|
| Will you be implementing a way to export/download tasks?
| trafnar wrote:
| Yeah, I plan to eventually, for now you can at least copy/paste
| the text out of TaskTXT. You get all the same data that way,
| except maybe 'created at' and 'updated at' timestamps :)
| billybuckwheat wrote:
| Great. Also like the advice about using TaskTXT more as a
| transient space for your tasks -- what you need to do now or
| in the short term, rather than it being a long-term storage
| location for tasks that you might never get to.
| syncerr wrote:
| Love this! I use Horo[0] to set timers for myself, but this fits
| the use-case I have far better. Just picked up the yearly plan.
|
| I would love to see the current timer in my mac status bar to see
| time remaining at a glance.
|
| Congrats on the launch!
|
| [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/horo-timer-for-menu-
| bar/id1437...
| allang wrote:
| I've been using TaskTXT for a few weeks and it's a highly
| polished and very useful bit of software. Nice!
| leobg wrote:
| Nice. I've done this manually a couple of times. So I like the
| format. What have you the idea to build it? What was the most
| challenging part of building it?
| trafnar wrote:
| The idea came from doing it manually, fiddling with timers or
| calculating time passed was a pain, so I wouldn't actually use
| the technique often, but when I did, it was very helpful.
|
| One of the hardest parts for me has been dealing with parsing
| the text to extract the data from it, and to do syntax
| highlighting. It's not _that_ hard to do in a naive way, but I
| spent a lot of time trying to figure out more robust ways of
| doing it. I 'm still feeling stuck in that area, send help!
| masukomi wrote:
| I was all ready to be like "yeah, but org-mode can already..."
| and then I watched the video. You know what? This is actually a
| great idea. I love the timer. The graphics are very clean and
| nice. This is a great simple little idea.
|
| Of course, now I'm like .... "huh, how could i get that
| functionality in org-mode?" but... ;)
|
| for those of you not using org-mode... watch the really short vid
| and see if it's something that'd work for your brain.
|
| [edit: yup. org-mode has something similar, just not a running
| timer visible _in_ your doc]
| trafnar wrote:
| Many people have made comparisons to org-mode, and org-mode
| seems really cool. As someone who hasn't used emacs, its hard
| to get into, but I'd like to explore it more as I'm sure there
| are many ideas that would serve as inspiration for TaskTXT.
| jpwgarrison wrote:
| Looks cool! I did a quick skim of the website and privacy policy.
| It was quick, so maybe I missed it, but where are the notes
| stored? How are they protected? Are the contents of the notes
| considered Personal Data as relates to the privacy policy?
| trafnar wrote:
| The data is stored in Firebase, they are protected by https
| encryption in transit and firebase encrypts them at rest. Like
| most cloud services, I can access the notes but it is my policy
| never to do so and I never have.
|
| I'm hoping to implement a full offline mode and end to end
| encryption in the future.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-20 23:01 UTC)