Update Sat, Aug 22, 10:54 am: Simplenote updated it’s web app design according to this stylesheet. Awesome!

I have never been keen on “full–featured” software¹ like Things, Evernote or The Hit List, I’ve used them, but never got really used to them. There are too many options, and while I can understand why — people ask for them — it’s not my thing.

Taskpaper, Perfect Task Management and Note Taking App for the Mac

I’ve mentioned Taskpaper on this blog before, and I just can’t hide my fascination with it. It is simple and it gets out of my way when I try to do things. There is no interface, it is a text file editor. Throw in a couple of clever user scripts and you got yourself an awesome little app. I have been perfectly satisfied with Taskpaper for some time (I’ve installed it on several occasions) it’s missing a key thing — a mobile version. I have come to realize that I usually think of stuff and ideas when I’m actually away from my computer, and that’s when I need something to write stuff down. That’s when I decided I will transfer all my note–taking to my iPhone, for convenience sake.

I have used iPhone’s Note app for that, but that thing is just weird. The font, again the missing sync feature (enabled now, but I’m not on iPhone OS 3.0 so I don’t have it), it just didn’t feel right.

Simplenote and iPhone

Then a couple of days ago, John Gruber wrote about a nifty little app called Simplenote and I was instantly hooked. It truly fixed all of the shortcomings and imperfections of the native Note app, it’s blazing fast, there’s search, and it syncs to the Web version.

I was a little skeptical at first about transferring all my note–taking to my phone, but I went with it, it’s a bit clunky, but the benefit of being able to jot stuff down at any given time was just too much to pass on. Then I remembered — hey, they do have a web version of the app, there must be a hassle–free way of using it from my computer.

Enter Fluid

For those of you who don’t know, Fluid is a “Site Specific Browser”. Basically it makes your web apps applications on your computer. For instance I have an activeCollab app that I use for managing our company projects. There is one cool thing Fluid can do, and that’s create “MenuExtra SSB” apps. Those are the apps that don’t reside in the dock, but in your menu bar. As soon as I remembered that — I figured this will be perfect for Simplenote.

Basically all you need to do is to create an app with Fluid with the web app URL and convert it to a menuExtra SSB. Additionally you can map a shortcut key combo so you can add and edit notes without the mouse (the Simplenote web app is keyboard–friendly which is a great plus.) I have also added a touch of design to the app itself through a user stylesheet (which Fluid supports, how awesome is that?!) nothing fancy, but still enough to make it not so spartan as it is by default, but also pleasant to look at (I believe that things that are in frequent use should have minimal design.) In case you like it, here are a couple of lines of CSS to achieve the effect²:

#custom-doc{ margin: 24px 12px 0 12px !important; padding: 1px 24px !important; background: #efefef !important; border: 1px solid #ccc !important; -webkit-border-radius: 8px !important; width: auto !important; }
#header{ top: 7px !important; right: 12px !important; font-size: 11px !important; }
#dt_input{ background-color: #fff !important; }
#ft{ display: none !important; } 

Task Management in Plain Text

As far as the setup goes — that’s it for me. As for managing tasks, I have basically adopted TaskPaper’s syntax for task management, which I find extremely well thought out and simple. I have two notes for tasks: “now” and “sometime”, and both of those contain two sub–projects: “work and office” and “other”. This covers all of my task management needs, and for project ideas and regular notes, I simply open up a new note for each new item I want to jot down.

In conclusion I think this will work well for me, since I have now covered my note–taking needs when I’m on the go, and when I want to write something down while I’m at work, or just on my computer, and I hope it will help you too.

¹ I think all of those are good apps, but they just don’t fit my style of task management. I do use Evernote for research and filing purposes, but the iPhone app is just too wonky in my opinion.

² Please note here that I am hiding the footer that contains some links and notices, in order to save on vertical space. I don’t know if this is considered a violation of their TOS.