Auto-sync to do lists (or any file) across machines

Nov 23, '05 06:24:00AM

Contributed by: tinker

I've been trying to implement David Allen's Getting Things Done productivity system, in particular the to-do lists, for a little while. This hint isn't exclusive to that system -- it would work for any to-do list, or any document that a single user wants to edit from multiple locations, for that matter.

My main criteria for a useful to-do list were that the lists be available from any of my three computers at any time, and that they be as easy as possible to use (including drag-and-drop list ordering -- I can't stand having to set priority numbers!). For a while, I optimized on my first criteria by using an online wiki, but the editing wasn't nearly as drop-dead easy as a native Cocoa app. I considered using OmniOutliner, which has a much better interface, but keeping track of different versions of the to-do list would be more of a hassle than I wanted.

Finally I found a happy medium: an Applescript wrapper for OmniOutliner that will automatically sync to my main machine before and after I make changes.

To do this you will need:

Optional (and highly recommended): Once you've put these ingredients together, create your list (let's call it kgtd.oo3) and put it in local/path/to/file/kgtd.oo3/. Then create this AppleScript (with the obvious substitutions where needed).

When the AppleScript is run, it syncs your to-do list with the version on your server (or desktop or whatever). It then opens it and waits while you make whatever edits you want. (The assumption is that the Finder will know which application to use to open it.) When you're done editing, just save and quit. The script beeps once to tell you that it's recognized the fact that the application has quit, then beeps again once it has re-synced with the server and with a backup directory (which could be on another server if you want).

Credit to Eelco Houwink for the part that waits until the program quits.

Comments (5)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20051117094952410