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Customizing Taskpaper

Since I am a big fan of keeping all important information in plain text and since Things.app is taking forever to roll out their syncing solution, I am trying out Taskpaper.

I use Taskpaper on the mac and the iPhone to manage my todo-list and to do some simple bug tracking for the web sites I develop.

I created a new theme for Taskpaper on the mac and use some applescripts and Alfred to enhance my productivity. On the iPhone I use Textexpander to speed up things. Maybe some of my customizations can be helpfull for someone else.

Taskpaper theme

theme theme

You can download the theme I created for Taskpaper.

Taskpaper on the mac : Applescript and Alfred

Generally I have a few tabs open in Taskpaper with different views on my todo list. :

  • a tab that only shows the tasks I have to do today or that are due in a few days
  • a tab that shows the project I am currently working on
  • a tab that shows my whole todo list without the archived elements.

I use a few applescripts to create these different views. I also use a script that hides the notes from my a taskpaper view.

Show everything except the Archive

tell application "TaskPaper"
    tell front document
        set search field string to "not project = \"Archive\""
    end tell
end tell

Only show tasks

tell application "TaskPaper"
    tell front document
        set x to search field string
        if x is not "" then
            set search field string to "(" & x & ") and type=task"
        else
            set search field string to "type=task"
        end if
    end tell
end tell

Show tasks that are tagged today or due the following 3 days

on getShortDate(now)
    set {day:d, year:y, time:t} to now

    -- Calculate the month number.
    copy now to b
    set b's month to January
    set m to (b - 2500000 - now) div -2500000

    -- Short date in yyyy-mm-dd format.
    tell (y * 10000 + m * 100 + d) as string
        set dateString to text 1 thru 4 & "-" & text 5 thru 6 & "-" & text 7 thru 8
    end tell

    return dateString
end getShortDate

set today to getShortDate(current date)
set soon to getShortDate((current date) + 3 * days)

set searchString to "(@due < \"" & soon & "\" or @today) and not @done"

tell application "TaskPaper"
    set the search field string of the front document to searchString
end tell

You can add these applescripts to the global MacOsX Applescript menu and assign keyboard shortcuts to them.

However, since I already am a heavy user of Alfred, I added them as extensions Applescript extensions and assigned global hotkeys to them. So to show the view with the tasks that are due the following 3 days, I can either invoke Alfred and type “due” or use my keyboard shortcut CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+d.

alfred_extension alfred_extension

You can download the scripts I use.

Taskpaper on the Iphone : Textexpander

When using Taskpaper on the Iphone, I use textexpander to generate my custom views and speed up the typing of my tags.

When I type @@d it expands to @due( ) with the cursor between the parentheses.

@due(%|)

When I type aactif in the search bar, Taskpaper only shows the tasks and hides the Archive

not project = "Archive" and Type=task

When I type ddue in the search bar, Taskpaper only shows items that have been tagged with @today or that are due the following 3 days.

(@due < "%@+3D%Y-%m-%d" or @today) and not @done

Notes

  1. bridie-comer reblogged this from groenewege
  2. groenewege posted this