pTODO
pTODO is a command line todo manager, written in Ruby, which hooks into the remind calender tool. Unlike other textual todo managers it works from a straight text file - with an easy format for tags and dates.
pTODO is hosted at ![[WWW]](/classic/img/moin-www.png){kind=small}
Rubyforge and can be downloaded from there.
I include it here as scientists often have a bewildering number of projects and things to do. pTODO serves as both an example how easy it is to accomplish a tool like this in Ruby - and shows why scientists are best of with a number of carefully selected command line tools. pTODO uses a combination of a text editor (see VimEmacs) and a command line calender program.
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Introduction
This software I wrote in the quest of handling my ever growing TODO lists, tying them in with a calender - in fact multiple calenders for multiple projects. I have tried a number of software solutions - and in general you end up with separate programs. I wanted one solution, and preferably one that can be run on any computer that can hold a repository.
Lastly I think a textual (xterm) interface is fine - and the GUI should be a text editor (in my case vim) - as editors are made for cut and paste, repetition and search and replace. Something I do not want to learn a new interface for (even if it was offered).
The remind calendar program
ptodo use a calendar tool named 'remind'. The remind tool is a great command line utility for maintaining a calender/diary with alarm functionality. For an overview see:
In fact it is perfect, but it does not handle TODO lists well. This is because TODO lists have both dated and undated items, as wel as priority numbers. Furthermore TODO items fall into categories - which you want to split out. Typical queries are:
list the TODO items for one project (or tag)
list all items that are due
list all dated items
pTODO
Naturally I do not want to reinvent the wheel, so I checked a few TODO listing tools, like td (A Command-line Todo List Manager in Python) which has nice colors, but fell short because it stores items in XML (which is for machines, not for humans) and provides a command line language to modify items in the list. There is too much typing for my taste. I also had a look at the source code, and it did not invite to improve on.
Similarly I reviewed another popular tool, named IKog, which shares a number of the same issues. Next I looked at todo.txt - which again has a command line type interface, and lacks date handling, for one.
So - I ended up rolling my own (it is a theme really). Not so hard with Ruby - and great in conjunction with the remind program. A minimal todo list file looks like:
# priority tags description
01/05 [doc soon] Write ptodo documentation
+ [admin soon] Pay bicycle shop
- [shop later] Buy a Mango velomobile
[science] Figure tri in triangle
05/01/2008 [admin linux] Update packages
(etc.)
line 1 and 4 are dated items. Line 2 is prioritized and line 3 has no priority. For prioritization any character can be used - they are sorted by priority.
Tell ptodo where to find this file in ~/.ptodo:
todos: /home/pjotr/flash/todos/todo.txt
Where everything is optional. A priority can also be a number or letter. Standard use is:
ptodo --help (show options)
ptodo (list all items with tag 'soon')
ptodo admin (list all items with tag 'admin')
ptodo --due (list all due items in the coming weeks)
ptodo --dated (list all dated items)
ptodo --remind (create output for remind)
Then I have some aliases which pipe into the remind calender tool:
alias week='ptodo --remind|remind -c+1 -' alias weeks='ptodo --remind|remind -c+4 -' alias month='ptodo --remind|remind -c -' alias months='ptodo --remind|remind -c3 -'
combining the dated items listed in the TODO list with the calender items in [ http://www.roaringpenguin.com/en/penguin/openSourceProducts/remind remind]. See the screenshot at the bottom of this page.
Obviously dated todo items can be piped to all 'remind' tools - including a GUI viewer and postscript/PDF output.
Screen shots
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ptodo without arguments lists all items tagged as 'soon', ordered by date and priority. For items that should be done the dates are printed red.
'soon' is a special tag for marking items that ought to be handled soon.
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Running ptodo with the --due flag lists all items that are due in the coming two weeks. In addition all items are set that have a priority set.
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Here all items are listed with the 'shop' tag. Items with a 'later' tag are always listed at the end.
'later' is a special tag for marking items that have no immediate concern.
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Here we pipe dated items in the pTODO list to the remind calender tool. Fancy constructs are possible, but here we show this weeks diary combined with due pTODO items.
Getting pTODO
pTODO is hosted at Rubyforge and can be downloaded from there.
The source code can be downloaded and viewed here:
http://rubyforge.org/scm/?group_id=3743
Enjoy!