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Comment by doctorRetro | Hacker News Reader

So this is a third party application (or one of several) I can download and install to make editing a text file sitting on my desktop easier and more accessible? Easier and more accessible than, say, opening it in Notepad? I apologize if I'm being snide, but I don't understand the use case here. This just seems like one extra step on an already very simple process.

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I think the use case is pretty clear and simple, and somewhat appealing: You can use a todo list app of your choice, with whatever features you like, without getting locked in to a proprietary format.

Haven't used it myself, but if anyone has experience and/or recommendation for clients, I'd be interested to hear. It looks like it's been around for well over a decade.

Thank you (and all other respondents) for clarifying that. The website doesn't do a great job of explaining it.

I've followed Todo.txt from the beginning. It's an interesting project because it started without code, as just a Lifehacker post (back when it was very popular) about GTD-esque formatting for text files [0]. The actual application was built later [1] to simplify creating/querying todos in the files.

[0]: https://lifehacker.com/geek-to-live-list-your-life-in-txt-16...

[1]: https://lifehacker.com/geek-to-live-reader-written-todo-txt-...

It appears to share some qualities with bullet journaling.

This is a simple text format that you can edit using any tools you want, including Notepad.

They have created their own convenient apps that makes It slightly easier to edit, because unlike a general purpose editing app, it knows the format that this file is expecting.

I have to try it out, but I suspect I would use Vim on the desktop, but use their apps on my cellphone.

This is a really nice idea.

I've seen many text editing tools on touch devices, and the verdict is "painful to use." OTOH, if you exclusively use a single desktop computer, this is probably not a tool for you.

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