Todo Indicator: Ubuntu AppIndicator For todo.txt

Todo Indicator is a simple AppIndicator that lets you take advantage of the power and simplicity of todo.txt. The AppIndicator displays the list of tasks in the todo.txt file and lets you mark tasks as "done" directly from the indicator.

todo.txt is a popular, minimalistic todo list format in which, like you've probably guessed, the data is stored in a flat text file. There is a huge list of todo.txt clients, including for iOS, Android and even for the command line. And since it's both machine and human-readable, you can check out your todos with a simple text editor from any OS, synchronize it with cloud sync tools such as Dropbox, etc.

You can read about the todo.txt format HERE. A sample todo list can be found on the Todo Indicator GitHub page.

Todo Indicator doesn't come with a fancy editor for your tasks or anything like that. Clicking "edit" from the indicator menu, the todo.txt file opens in the default text editor. The tasks from your todo.txt file automatically show up in the Todo AppIndicator.

There's no GUI to configure Todo Indicator but if you want to use a custom text editor with Todo Indicator, you open "Startup Applications", look for "Todo Indicator", click "Edit"  and add "-e TEXTEDITOR" where "TEXTEDITOR is the text editor you want to use) after "/usr/bin/todo-indicator".

Install Todo Indicator in Ubuntu

Since there was no PPA (or deb files) available for Todo Indicator, I've uploaded it to the main WebUpd8 PPA. To add the PPA and install Todo Indicator in Ubuntu, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install todo-indicator

If you don't want to add the PPA (you won't get automatic updates), you can download the deb from HERE and install it manually.

You won't find Todo Indicator in the Dash / Menu. Instead, after you've installed it, log out and log back in and Todo Indicator should start automatically. If you want to avoid logging out after installing Todo Indicator, press ALT + F2 and enter:

todo-indicator todo.txt

By default, Todo Indicator stores your todo.txt file in your home folder. If you want to place it somewhere else, like your Dropbox folder for instance, open "Startup Applications", look for "Todo Indicator", click "Edit" and add the path to where you want todo.txt to be saved:

/usr/bin/todo-indicator /path/to/todo.txt

For example, if you want the todo.txt file to be stored in your Dropbox folder, you'd have to change the "Command" so it looks like this:

/usr/bin/todo-indicator /home/andrei/Dropbox/todo.txt

("andrei" is my username so change it to yours; using relative paths doesn't work with autostart items so don't use ~/Dropbox for instance)

Report any bugs you may find @ GitHub.

For more Ubuntu Indicators, browse out our appindicator tag.