SWTF (Simple Worklog Task Format)

Simple format that serves it's one and only purpose and that's creating simple task list everywhere where you can write plain text

⚠️ This project is created to meet the needs of our development team. Our main focus won't be on maintainig this project.

Content

• SWTF (Simple Worklog Task Format)
  • Content
  • Motivation
  • Rules
    • Task
    • Attribute
    • Subtask
  • Tools
  • Contribution

Motivation

Managing small daily based tasks can be boring for developers, specialy using modern task management tools where often you have to put more effort in using a tool than focusing on task definition.

Based on daily practice we defined a format that is so simple you can use it everywhere where you can write a simple plain text. We defined 7 simple rules( ❗ ) that provide:

• 🔨 Simplicity in writing tasks
• ⚡ Eeasy and efficient parsing
• 👽 Human friendly format
• 🚀 Portability to multiple platforms
• 🎱 Old and simple look but it's cool that way

Rules

Task

Task template:

- TASK_TEXT [FIRST_ATTR][SECOND_ATTR]...[NTH_ATTR]\n

Rule no. 1 ❗ Every task must start with dash leading whitespace (- ) and end with newline character (\n)

Rule no. 2 ❗ If exists, array of attributes must be defined after whitespace character at the end of task(before \n)

• TASK_TEXT - string value
• [FIRST_ATTR][SECOND_ATTR]...[NTH_ATTR] - optional array of attributes

Let's write some tasks:

- My first task written in one line of SWTF
- Define format that can be so simple and used acrossed devices [me][high]

Attribute

Single attribute template:

[(ATTR_NAME: )?ATTR_VALUE]

Every attribute is defined in task attributes array(at the end of the task).

Rule no. 3 ❗ Attribute can't contain [ and ] characters

Rule no. 4 ❗ If attribute starts with any array of characters followed by : , that array of characters represents attribute name

Rule no. 5 ❗ Attribute value is list of comma separated values(can be a single value)

• ATTR_NAME - any string value that doesn't containt [, ] and if exists must be followed by : .
• ATTR_VALUE - any string value that doesn't containt [ and ]. If contains , character, will be treated as comma separated array of values

Let's rewrite some tasks:

- My third task using SWTF and i love it 🏄
- Define format that can be so simple and used acrossed devices [member: djora,burga,me][priority: high]

Subtask

Subtasks extends task definition by adding whitespace characters ( or \t) at the line begining. Number of leading whitespace characters defines level of nesting.

Rule no. 6 ❗ Subtasks are tasks starting with sequence of unique whitespace characters ( or \t)

Rule no. 7 ❗ Subtasks are related to frist upper defined task with lower level of nesting

Let's rewrite some tasks:

- My third task using SWTF and i love it 🏄
- Define format that can be so simple and used acrossed devices:
    - Define format rules [member: me][priority: high]
    - Write JSON parser [member: burga][priority: high]
    - Write SWTF file viewer [member: djora][priority: low]

Tools

Checkout our tools 👀 :

• swtf-parser - Javascript SWTF parser

• swtf-fmt - Javascript SWTF formatter

Contribution

Feel free to create your own tools. Here is our simple parser example written in typescript:

• swtf-parser-example