todotxt-machine 2.0.4

An interactive terminal based todo.txt file editor with an interface similar to mutt

todotxt-machine is an interactive terminal based todo.txt file editor with an interface similar to mutt. It follows the todo.txt format and stores todo items in plain text.

In Action

Features

• View your todos in a list with helpful syntax highlighting

• Define your own colorschemes

• Tab completion of contexts and projects

• Filter contexts and projects

• Search for the todos you want with fuzzy matching

• Sort in ascending or descending order, or keep things unsorted

• Clickable UI elements

Requirements

Python 2.7 or Python 3.4 on Linux or Mac OS X.

todotxt-machine 1.1.8 and earlier drew its user interface using only raw terminal escape sequences. While this was very educational it was difficult to extend with new features. Version 2 and up used urwid to draw its interface and is much more easily extendable.

Installation

Using pip

pip install todotxt-machine

Manually

Download or clone this repo and run the todotxt-machine.py script.

git clone https://github.com/AnthonyDiGirolamo/todotxt-machine.git
cd todotxt-machine
./todotxt-machine.py

Command Line Options

todotxt-machine

Usage:
  todotxt-machine
  todotxt-machine TODOFILE
  todotxt-machine [--config FILE]
  todotxt-machine (-h | --help)
  todotxt-machine --version

Options:
  -c FILE --config=FILE  Path to your todotxt-machine configuraton file [default: ~/.todotxt-machinerc]
  -h --help              Show this screen.
  --version              Show version.

Config File

You can tell todotxt-machine to use the same todo.txt file whenever it starts up by adding a file entry to the ~/.todotxt-machinerc file. You can also set you preferred colorscheme or even define new themes.

Here is an example config file with a complete colorscheme definition:

[settings]
file = ~/todo.txt
colorscheme = myawesometheme

[colorscheme-myawesometheme]
plain=h250
selected=,h238
header=h250,h235
header_todo_count=h39,h235
header_todo_pending_count=h228,h235
header_todo_done_count=h156,h235
header_sorting=h235,h39
header_file=h48,h235
dialog_button=h255,h242
dialog_background=,h248
dialog_color=,h240
dialog_shadow=,h238
footer=h39,h235
search_match=h222,h235
completed=h59
context=h39
project=h214
creation_date=h135
due_date=h161
priority_a=h167
priority_b=h173
priority_c=h185
priority_d=h77
priority_e=h80
priority_f=h62

You can add colorschemes by adding sections with names that start with colorscheme-. Then under the [settings] section you can say which colorscheme you want to use.

The format for a color definitions is:

name=foreground,background

Foreground and background colors are follow the 256 color formats defined by urwid. Here is an excerpt from that link:

High colors may be specified by their index h0, …, h255 or with the shortcuts for the color cube #000, #006, #008, …, #fff or gray scale entries g0 (black from color cube) , g3, g7, … g100 (white from color cube).

You can see all the colors defined here.

I recommend you leave the foreground out of the following definitions by adding a comma immediately after the =

selected=,h238
dialog_background=,h248
dialog_color=,h240
dialog_shadow=,h238

If you want to use your terminal’s default foreground and background color use blank strings and keep the comma:

dialog_background=,

Let me know if you make any good colorschemes and I’ll add it to the default collection.

Key Bindings

General

h, ?         - show / hide this help message
q            - quit and save
t            - show / hide toolbar
w            - toggle word wrap
b            - toggle borders on todo items
S            - save current todo file
R            - reload the todo file (discarding changes)

Movement

mouse click  - select any todo, checkbox or button
j, down      - move selection down
k, up        - move selection up
g, page up   - move selection to the top item
G, page down - move selection to the bottom item
left, right  - move selection between todos and filter panel
H, L
tab          - toggle focus between todos, filter panel, and toolbar

Manipulating Todo Items

x            - complete / un-complete selected todo item
n            - add a new todo to the end of the list
o            - add a todo after the selected todo (when not filtering)
O            - add a todo before the selected todo (when not filtering)
enter, A, e  - edit the selected todo
D            - delete the selected todo
J            - swap with item below
K            - swap with item above

While Editing a Todo

tab          - tab complete contexts and projects
return       - save todo item
left, right  - move cursor left and right
ctrl-b       - move cursor backwards (left) by one word
ctrl-f       - move cursor forwards (right) by one word
home, end    - move cursor the beginning or end of the line
ctrl-a, ctrl-e
ctrl-w       - delete one word backwards
ctrl-k       - delete from the cursor to the end of the line
ctrl-y       - paste last deleted text

Filtering

f            - open the filtering panel
F            - clear any active filters

Sorting

s            - toggle sort order (Unsorted, Ascending, Descending)
               sort order is saved on quit

Searching

/            - start search
enter        - finalize search
L            - clear search

Known Issues

OSX

• On Mac OS hitting ctrl-y suspends the application. Run stty dsusp undef to fix.

• Mouse interaction doesn’t seem to work properly in the Apple Terminal. I would recommend using iTerm2 or rxvt / xterm in XQuartz.

Tmux

• With tmux the background color in todotxt-machine can sometimes be lost at the end of a line. If this is happening to you set your $TERM variable to screen or screen-256color

  export TERM=screen-256color

Planned Features

• [STRIKEOUT:User defined color themes]

• [STRIKEOUT:Manual reordering of todo items]

• [STRIKEOUT:Config file for setting colors and todo.txt file location]

• Add vi readline keybindings. urwid doesn’t support readline currently. The emacs style bindings currently available are emulated.

• Support for archiving todos in done.txt

Updates

See the log here