Using AppleScript to automate some beautiful ToDo.txt action for GTD shenanigans

AppleScript, ToDo.txt, & GTD

A month after switching my GTD needs to the nerdtastic ToDo.txt system (paired with GeekTool and the awesome Visor), I created an AppleScript to email my assistant the items that I’ve delegated to him.

I think it’s pretty neat, but then again, I’m easily impressed.

How’s it all work? It’s all pretty easy, actually. (It’d have to be, because I’m not a great programmer, and I’m very new to AppleScript.) I label items that I’ve delegated to my assistant with @steve. To list all the items I’ve delegated to Steve, I run the terminal command t list @steve. The trick is just to (automatically) email Steve the terminal output.

The “automatically” is taken care of by Cronnix and Anacron (mentioned in my previous AppleScript post), and the emailing is taken care of with a bit of AppleScript.

When it’s all said and done, Steve gets an email with something like this:

14 @steve +CHI new design
13 @steve +FB +PFM remake the homepage
15 @steve +TT install crazyegg on homepage
12 zzz @steve +HSI swap stevens picture

Other Uses, @phone, @errand

I’m thinking I might modify this oh-so-slightly to have it send my phone a text message every morning with all my @phone and @errand items.

Interesting Ideas for the Future

It might be interesting to create a script that could process a response from Steve on my own ToDo.txt list. For example, if Steve were to email back t do 13 , we could send that command to the terminal. I don’t have a need for this at the moment, but it’s interesting to think about…

As it is now, Steve just replies to the email at the end of his day with an ’@x@’ before the tasks he’s completed. It’s the first task-managerment/productivity type system that he’s stuck with for more than 4 days, so I count it a success.

The Code

Disclaimers:

Make sure you change the email addresses and your username (chucknorris).
I’m very new to AppleScript, so this might be a horrible way to do things. It seems to work though, so I’m happy.

Other than that, you should be good to go.

-- set the date
set theDate to (do shell script "date '+%Y.%m.%d'")
-- set the mail options
set theRecipient to "steve@yourdomain.tld"
set theCCRecipient to "list@yourdomain.tld"
set theSender to "list@yourdomain.tld"
set theSubject to "ToDo for Steve: " & theDate
set theBody to (do shell script "/Users/chucknorris/Documents/ToDo/todo.sh list @steve")

if theBody is not "" then
	tell application "Mail"
		-- create and send the message
		activate
		set newMessage to make new outgoing message
		tell newMessage
			set visible to true
			set subject to theSubject
			set content to theBody & return & return
			set sender to theSender
			-- set to recipients to theRecipient
			make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {name:"Steve", address:"steve@yourdomain.tld"}
		end tell
		send newMessage
	end tell
end if

Known Issues

None so far, but I’m sure the programming department and/or the ToDo.txt mailing list will find something. I’ll update if there’s anything.

Over and out.
-Kelley, Web Developer for Cari.net