XML TODO List

In keeping with my principle that tools should help work go faster and that less time should be spent playing with tools (and more time working), I'm offering up my todo list solution. Note this is inspired by the GTD and 43Folders folks.

Basically, the idea is to use a super simple XML file, much like the software schedules , and use an XSLT to format it into a viewable format. Since modern web browsers have a processor built in, no special software is needed. A simple text editor (VI, emacs, Notepad, etc) will suffice for changes.

I've created the XML file with 3 parts, a list title, the list of todo's, and an area for the finished things. The actual todo's may contain a priority attribute that will be used for sorting. When an item is complete, a cut/paste operation is performed to move the task to the 'done' section.

Another benefit of using a browser for rendering is the list can be published on a web server or shared drive for public viewing. On Linux it looks like the following:

I've prepared a little demo to show the code redering in a browser. Displaying the link will show it. I've also packaged the demo xml and stylesheet into a zip file.

The following is a sample XML todo list.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="todo.xsl"?>
<todos>
<list-name>
My Site Dev TODO List
</list-name>
<todo>
<entry priority="1">
Re-work article on software schedules (get rid of 'here' links)
</entry>
<entry priority="1">
Write article about todo list
</entry>
<entry priority="2">
describe the purpose
</entry>
<entry priority="1">
describe the code
</entry>
</todo>
<done>
<entry priority="3">
package code into zip file
</entry>
<entry priority="3">
publish raw files and zip file to static server
</entry>
</done>
</todos>