Sublime Forum

Improved productivity workflow

#1

I’ve been using Sublime more and more to handle the mass (mess?) of information I have to deal with at work. Although I do some web design, most of it does not have to do with programming. But I’ve found that using text files, especially with Sublime’s feature set, is the easiest way to handle the information.

What I currently use & what I am still missing:

  • A 300+ line TODO list using orgmode (Orgmode). This works well enough, but I can’t generate any kind of reports. For example, lines with a deadline this week, or tagged “:WaitingForGodot:”, etc. Also, opening links is painfully
    slow.

  • Several tab separated files (.tsv). These are useful for importing to Excel when I need to collaborate with other people. On the down side, they are hard to work with, because the values are not lined up. Longer files are especially headache inducing.

  • A bunch of markdown files with notes and other bits and pieces of information. This is actually where I am happiest: I use markdown headings for structure and then fly through the file using Ctrl+R. But I sometimes miss orgmode’s features here and I often want to incorporate tabular data with the same problems as above.

I was wondering if other users are have found any ingenious solutions (including plugins, hacks, etc.) on organizing their work/home life and what your workflows are.

Alex

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#2

If you want new features and stuff you can better make a topic at Ideas and Feature Requests.
But Sublime is indeed a great tool for web development :smile:.

~Juje007

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#3

I’m not interested in suggesting changes to the core of Sublime. It’s great as it is.

I just find myself using Sublime for all sorts of reasons, simply because I almost always have it open. (And if I don’t, it opens faster than any other application.)

To give an off-beat example. I often myself entering tabular data in Sublime because it’s faster than firing up Excel or another equivalent. It doesn’t have to be particularly complicated data. I keep a “radio.tsv” file around for jotting down songs I like when listening to Soma FM, so I can look them up later. I use the format: Artist [tab] Song [tab] Album. This does the job, but the entries don’t line up, so it’s not that easy to parse. I thought other people might have put Sublime to equally off-beat uses, and might have found useful workflows.

But maybe it’s just me.

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#4

Hi Alex

You’re not alone, I use Sublime for all kinds of things too - have a look at the Elastic Tabstops plugin (wbond.net/sublime_packages/community for more info.

Regarding Orgmode plugins, have a look at github.com/danielmagnussons/orgmode which is based on the one you referred to above

HTH

Cheers,
Mick

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#5

Take a look at workflowy

https://workflowy.com

Youtube

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#6

[quote=“PinnacleWebDesign”]have a look at the Elastic Tabstops plugin (github.com/SublimeText/ElasticTabstops) which you can install from Package Control which does what you want.
[/quote]

Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for.

My link was to the thread rather than a specific plugin; I actually use the orgmode plugin you link to. Unfortunately, I have yet to get any of the orgmode plugins to work in Linux.

Also:

I wasn’t aware of Workflowy, but what I (try to) do in orgmode is pretty similar. I’ll register to see what workflow of Workflowy is like, but I think I’ll stick to my text files for now.

My main gripe with orgmode (aside from not being able to use it in Linux) is not being able to filter by tags. Or perhaps I just haven’t figured out how to do it. (There seems to be a lot of that going round :smile: )

Any other productivity tips anyone?

Alex

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#7

Hi Alex

If you use Wine, there is a nifty free (Windows) app called Resophnotes that syncs to Simplenote. It also lets you use plain text notes - even with the Simplenote sync, I keep mine in Dropbox to make use of it’s file versioning - and edit them using Sublime. It has Markdown support too. I can then run Pandoc from within Sublime to convert files to .docx format for those “lesser types” that prefer their documents that way. If you run an Android (my app of choice is Flicknote) or an iphone you can then sync these with your phone.

Another app I find really useful is Autohotkey - it should run under Wine or have a look at github.com/polyethene/IronAHK

I use it for various things, including expanding various text snippets…useful for email addresses or canned forum sigs! :smiley:

What saves me loads of time is the following which I use as a hotkey to give focus to Sublime (it will also minimize it) but you could apply it to any app

ToggleWinMinimize(TheWindowTitle)
{
SetTitleMatchMode,2
DetectHiddenWindows, Off
IfWinActive, %TheWindowTitle%
{
WinMinimize, %TheWindowTitle%
}
Else
{
IfWinExist, %TheWindowTitle%
{
WinGet, winid, ID, %TheWindowTitle%
DllCall(“SwitchToThisWindow”, “UInt”, winid, “UInt”, 1)
}
}
Return
}

; Give focus to Sublime Text and maximize the window: Ctrl-Shift-/
^+/::ToggleWinMinimize(“Sublime Text”)

I also have my Capslock as a general minimize key (applying shift with it makes it work as a “normal” caps lock)

;turns Capslock key into a dedicated minimize key for the app that has focus
Capslock::WinMinimize,A

…or if I want to make an(y) app stay on top:

;always on top Win + t
#t:: Winset, Alwaysontop, , A

Mick

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#8

Hi Mick,

Thanks for the app recommendations.

If I understand your Resophnotes workflow properly, you use it for syncing to Simplenote. I don’t really need that as I don’t have any particularly intelligent mobile devices. My various computers are hooked to Dropbox and I just drop my notes as .md files in a folder and call it a sublime project. (On the ancient laptop I use at home, my notetaking application – Tomboy – takes about three times as long to create a “New Note” as it takes to launch sublime and hit ctrl+n. I wish I was kidding.)

AutoHotKey seems a bit overkill, although your Sublime configuration for it seems nifty enough that I’ll give it a whirl just for that. I use a Thunderbird plugin (whose name escapes me at the moment) for my canned e-mail responses, especially for entering: “Please find attached the following files:” (it also adds a list of attached files automatically).

Let me make a recommendation of my own: I recently became aware of Divvy, which is nifty if you need to place Sublime side-by-side with a browser (or other window) without fiddling for a half-an-hour. (This is for Windows/Mac, obviously. In Linux, you can just use awesome :stuck_out_tongue: )

Alex

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#9

Relevant cross post:

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