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The Plain Text Project

plaintextproject.online

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Re: The Plain Text Project

#21

Post by drongoking »

geraldbauer wrote: post #5

Great collection of tools and articles. Plain text is also a great (and the best) choice for datasets. Do NOT use JSON, YAML and friends, for example, as your input format but use plain text with a custom parser to import into any SQL database and than you can easily export to JSON, YAML and friends. See the football.db and the Premier League or World Cup match schedule as living examples [1]. [1]: https://github.com…

I'm confused about what plain text means if JSON and YAML don't qualify. They are non-binary and non-proprietary. Is CSV plain text? And the example URL of openfootball has data files with fixed column positions and square brackets. Looks like you're packing semantics implicitly into the parser rather than leaving it explicit. I don't see why that's an argument in favor of plain text.

Re: The Plain Text Project

#22

Post by kirubakaran »

I use this plain text planner / calendar every day and I love it, if I can say so myself, since I made it too. I've been using it for a few years now and I can say that it has definitely made me more productive.

https://crushentropy.com/

You can plan and log your day in plain text and it visualizes your schedule.

Markdown for planning, if you will.

Re: The Plain Text Project

#23

Post by TkTech »

bauerd wrote: post #20
tubbs wrote: post #11

I recently just upped my StandardNotes subscription (the Black Friday ad is still active), and I'm now locked in for ~5.5 years. It's a very plain-text webapp/mobile app that aims to be simple and long-lasting, yet feature-full by means of optional extensions. It's not perfect, but I've been using it for a few months now without any data loss/major bugs encountered, and was excited to use it to ditch Google Keep/Goog…

I'm curious how you use Standard Notes for 2FA?

Likely using the TokenVault[1] extension for StandardNotes.

[1]: https://standardnotes.org/extensions/tokenvault

Re: The Plain Text Project

#25

Post by hinkley »

tabtab wrote: post #19

I've been kicking around the idea of a plain-text GUI to demonstrate what a "GUI Markup Standard" may work like. Making a graphics-enabled version is a lot work for a demo. VB-classic also had a text-based mouse-able GUI option for a short while, but it never took off. It was based on ANSI escape sequences for DOS consoles, which is sort of in-between "pure text" and graphics. A pure-text GUI is also doable, but cons…

Interactive shell libraries exist. They are quite common for Unix oriented tools. Might be possible to reimplement the same API for a GUI

Re: The Plain Text Project

#26

Post by solipsism »

loh wrote: post #15

I think more and more people are realizing that simpler is almost always better, and not only when it comes to software. I've found that this approach works best for nearly all aspects of life. The hard part is simplifying complex things. We have so many odd pieces (usually due to legacy reasons or conflicting designs) which don't quite fit into an otherwise simple solution. Plain text could probably work for most fo…

I'm skeptical any such trend exists. Are you sure you're not misinterpreting your anecdotal experience?

I'm not sure if it's a result of the fact that most people are tech savvy

Most people aren't tech savvy. Again, maybe you are extrapolating inappropriately from your personal experiences, the people you hang out with, etc?

Re: The Plain Text Project

#28

Post by beiz »

tubbs wrote: post #11

I recently just upped my StandardNotes subscription (the Black Friday ad is still active), and I'm now locked in for ~5.5 years. It's a very plain-text webapp/mobile app that aims to be simple and long-lasting, yet feature-full by means of optional extensions. It's not perfect, but I've been using it for a few months now without any data loss/major bugs encountered, and was excited to use it to ditch Google Keep/Goog…

i want to like StandardNotes but they basically force you to use the 5 year plan and it's much too expensive a cost to pay straight up (but i could and would use them if they slimmed it down to an annual charge, maybe even bi-annual, the current annual charge is overpriced tho). Bearapp is by far my favorite both by design, cost, stability and features, but I've left the Apple echosystem and their webapp isn't available yet and probably a long way off.

i guess, for us who can't afford StandardNotes, we're stuck with Joplin. bad phone app, no web app. but it has decent features and CLI support.

Re: The Plain Text Project

#30

Post by nlh »

While we’re on the subject, I just moved my whole financial life over to hledger (https://hledger.org/) and oh my goodness I’m so much happier (I dumped both QuickBooks and Quicken, which I’d been using previously).

It won’t be for everyone, but if you know a bit about what you’re doing with double-entry accounting, it’s so so so much better. I only wish I’d discovered this was of doing things years ago (before dumping hundreds of hours into clicking and trying to wrestle with Intuit’s tools.)

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