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Marcus Rohrmoser 🌻Hi <a href="https://pkm.social/@ellane" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@ellane</a>, speaking of links: it's the mail agent's decision to display https://... in plain text unclickable. It could do otherwise. What you surely loose is pretty/arbitrarily/deceptively labelled links. And frictionlessly clickable links in emails is it's own can of worms (I'm happy to avoid). Those <a href="https://digitalcourage.social/tags/phishing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#phishing</a> hate <a href="https://digitalcourage.social/tags/plaintext" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plaintext</a> <a href="https://digitalcourage.social/tags/email" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#email</a>.

EllaneAs much as I love the idea of a fully plain text life, I've decided that naked email is, for me, a step too far. Switching to plain text email means losing product thumbnails, inline links, and visual formatting that makes some emails useful.This week I've written about my response to the useplaintext.email website, plus some of the things I do to avoid the traps that HTML emails can hide.<a href="https://pkm.social/tags/email" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#email</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/ptpl" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ptpl</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/html" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#html</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plainText</a>Medium <a href="https://medium.com/@miscellaneplans/why-i-keep-html-email-in-my-plain-text-life-8414afcbd91f" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://medium.com/@miscellaneplans/why-i-keep-html-email-in-my-plain-text-life-8414afcbd91f</a> Blog <a href="https://ellanew.com/2025/11/17/ptpl-182-why-keep-html-email-not-plain-text" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://ellanew.com/2025/11/17/ptpl-182-why-keep-html-email-not-plain-text</a>

musicmatze :rust: :nixos:Now THAT looks like a tutorial I wanted to have: <a href="https://blog.gnoack.org/post/lei/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://blog.gnoack.org/post/lei/</a><a href="https://social.linux.pizza/tags/publicinbox" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#publicinbox</a> <a href="https://social.linux.pizza/tags/lkml" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#lkml</a> <a href="https://social.linux.pizza/tags/plaintextemail" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plaintextemail</a> <a href="https://social.linux.pizza/tags/plaintext" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plaintext</a> <a href="https://social.linux.pizza/tags/email" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#email</a> <a href="https://social.linux.pizza/tags/gitsendemail" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#gitsendemail</a>

Ellane<a href="https://mastodon.art/@RussSharek" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@RussSharek</a> Yay! High-5, fellow human plain texter with proprietary app trust issues!!Other than your self-proclaimed penchant for sprinkling expletives, I'd say we are very much on the same page. I have made a note of your interview with my first plain text mentor, Scott Nesbitt, and plan to feature it on my website in the next few weeks.<a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plainText</a>

EllaneCreative task avoidance can look like productivity. This week I look at how to spot it, and give a sneak peek of my new Obsidian plain text task dashboard — the crafting of which was *totally not* an avoidance mechanism! I hope!!<a href="https://pkm.social/tags/productivity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#productivity</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/obsidian" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#obsidian</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plainText</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/PTPL" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PTPL</a>Medium <a href="https://miscellaneplans.medium.com/my-new-task-dashboard-passes-the-most-important-test-82526bc1ae25" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://miscellaneplans.medium.com/my-new-task-dashboard-passes-the-most-important-test-82526bc1ae25</a> Blog <a href="https://ellanew.com/2025/11/03/ptpl-180-new-task-dashboard-passes-the-test" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://ellanew.com/2025/11/03/ptpl-180-new-task-dashboard-passes-the-test</a>

Álvaro R.Journelly's first iOS widget coming<a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/plaintext" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plaintext</a> <a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/privacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#privacy</a> <a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/orgmode" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#orgmode</a> <a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/emacs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#emacs</a> <a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/vim" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#vim</a> <a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/swift" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#swift</a> <a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/swiftui" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#swiftui</a> <a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/ios" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ios</a> <a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/iphone" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#iphone</a> <a href="https://indieweb.social/tags/journelly" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#journelly</a>

EllaneThis week: Organising plain text tasks with time sectors instead of dates. This hands-on approach has solved my trust issues with automated systems! I love the ritual of checking in with what past-me planned, and consciously agreeing, or not. It's essentially the todo.txt system, with some tweaks, in Obsidian.<a href="https://pkm.social/tags/ptpl" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ptpl</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/productivity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#productivity</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plainText</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/obsidian" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#obsidian</a> Medium <a href="https://medium.com/@miscellaneplans/time-sectors-keep-my-plain-text-tasks-relevant-and-my-mind-clear-d8cc8ebdfb6f" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://medium.com/@miscellaneplans/time-sectors-keep-my-plain-text-tasks-relevant-and-my-mind-clear-d8cc8ebdfb6f</a> Blog <a href="https://ellanew.com/2025/10/27/ptpl-179-time-sectors-keep-tasks-relevant" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://ellanew.com/2025/10/27/ptpl-179-time-sectors-keep-tasks-relevant</a>

Robert KingettI killed all newsletters by switching my email client to display messages in plain text. Best decision I ever made.Also, best accessibility decision I ever made too, but I actually really enjoy seeing the below message.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This email newsletter was sent to you in graphical HTML format. If you're seeing this version, your email program prefers plain text emails. You can read the original version online:<a href="https://caneandable.social/tags/Email" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Email</a> <a href="https://caneandable.social/tags/PlainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PlainText</a>

EllaneSometimes, even when <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plainText</a> solutions exist, they aren’t the right tool for the job. I worked with abc music notation, then Lilypond, spending hours trying to bend them into shape. No more. MuseScore looks like a better solution for my current freelance project. Love that it’s free, and that this job isn’t complex enough to require paying for Sibelius!

EllaneI just discovered there’s a Reddit community for <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/OBTF" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#OBTF</a>. These people are hard core! And there aren’t too many of them, but enough to show that there’s a desire for simplifying out there coupled with a need to keep control of where and how data is stored. It’s really good to know I’m not alone. <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plainText</a><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/OneBigTextFile/s/boTK5R46Ue" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.reddit.com/r/OneBigTextFile/s/boTK5R46Ue</a>

Rachel Simone Weil"Recutils, from GNU Project, is a free command-line toolset for performing basic relational database operations on plain text files – including field typing, auto-increment, and join." (Wikipedia)I recently published a recutils library for Go. It returns results as structured objects instead of printed strings so you can more easily work with recfile content. Have a look if you like! <a href="https://github.com/hxlnt/go-recutils" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://github.com/hxlnt/go-recutils</a><a href="https://merveilles.town/tags/plaintext" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plaintext</a>

Michael Downey 🧢Au contraire.<a href="https://floss.social/tags/HTMLEmail" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HTMLEmail</a> <a href="https://floss.social/tags/email" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#email</a> <a href="https://floss.social/tags/plainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plainText</a>

Russ SharekI can't speak to whether or not <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/typst" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#typst</a> is capable of replacing <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/LaTeX" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LaTeX</a>.That said, it's a pretty neat tool. After poking at the (excellent) documentation and walking through the tutorial, I was able to start building good looking documents without any hand holding.My use case is "using archaic tools like <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/groff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#groff</a> to avoid fighting with gui/web word processors". If yours is similar, you'll likely enjoy playing with it.<a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/TechnicalJiggeryPokery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#TechnicalJiggeryPokery</a> <a href="https://mastodon.art/tags/PlainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PlainText</a>

EllaneLearn calendar.txt, a simple plain text system for time management. Just add dates and events, no complex apps needed. The perfect companion to todo.txt. (h/t to <a href="https://mamot.fr/@ploum" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@ploum</a> for putting me onto it)(Also, I'm folding my One Page Notebook slightly differently now)<a href="https://pkm.social/tags/productivity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#productivity</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plainText</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/ptpl" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ptpl</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/calendar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#calendar</a>Medium <a href="https://medium.com/@miscellaneplans/calendar-txt-is-the-simplest-time-planning-system-you-will-ever-see-f95fe1cdec21" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://medium.com/@miscellaneplans/calendar-txt-is-the-simplest-time-planning-system-you-will-ever-see-f95fe1cdec21</a> Blog <a href="https://ellanew.com/2025/09/29/ptpl-175-calendar-txt-simplest-time-planning-system" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://ellanew.com/2025/09/29/ptpl-175-calendar-txt-simplest-time-planning-system</a>

Hyde 📷 🖋 :debian:<a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/OverUnder" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#OverUnder</a> 034! This week <a href="https://exquisite.social/@thorstenzoeller" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@thorstenzoeller</a> is my guest. If you love <a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/BSD" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BSD</a>, <a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/vi" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#vi</a> / <a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/vim" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#vim</a>, <a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/plaintext" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plaintext</a>, you should follow him!He was kind to reply to those topics: -<a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/SSG" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#SSG</a> -<a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/Linux" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Linux</a> -<a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/DerekSivers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#DerekSivers</a> -<a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/Gemini" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Gemini</a> -Eggplant<a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/blogging" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#blogging</a> <a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/blog" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#blog</a> <a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/fediverse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#fediverse</a> This is 91/100 post for the <a href="https://lazybear.social/tags/100DaysToOffload" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#100DaysToOffload</a> challenge.<a href="https://lazybea.rs/ovr-034" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://lazybea.rs/ovr-034</a>

Tim ChaseMy love for <a href="https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/tags/plaintext" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plaintext</a> and <a href="https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/tags/awk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#awk</a> (as well as other Unix text-processing tools) was rejuvenated by a recent nerdsnipe¹ problem someone shared.They had a WordGrinder² file which is a container-type format that can hold multiple documents (such as multiple individual chapters of a book) in the same document file. As far as we could tell, there's no native way to flatten all those sub-documents into a flat single file, and there was no way to export them into a multipart output document.Fortunately, that WordGrinder file format is just plaintext. It didn't take more than ~10 minutes to reverse-engineer the basics of the file-format and then cobble together an awk(1) one-liner to do the flattening. Worked perfectly on the first try.⸻ ¹ <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/commandline/comments/1nkxz4t/is_there_any_way_to_massexport_a_document_set_in/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.reddit.com/r/commandline/comments/1nkxz4t/is_there_any_way_to_massexport_a_document_set_in/</a>² <a href="http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/index.html" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/index.html</a>

EllaneThis week: the plain text enthusiasts and simple tool users who inspired my productivity journey, plus thoughts on what makes a tool stack work.“Good tools support and augment existing skills, they don't create them. The way you use your tools is much more important than the tools themselves.”<a href="https://hachyderm.io/@johnnydecimal" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@johnnydecimal</a> <a href="https://graz.social/@publicvoit" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@publicvoit</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/productivity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#productivity</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/Mac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Mac</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/design" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#design</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/app" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#app</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/obsidian" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#obsidian</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/plainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plainText</a> <a href="https://pkm.social/tags/ptpl" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ptpl</a>Medium <a href="https://medium.com/@miscellaneplans/tool-stack-inspiration-the-people-and-apps-that-shaped-my-path-b94e87ee0fa0" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://medium.com/@miscellaneplans/tool-stack-inspiration-the-people-and-apps-that-shaped-my-path-b94e87ee0fa0</a> Blog <a href="https://ellanew.com/2025/09/15/ptpl-173-tool-stack-inspiration-people-and-apps" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://ellanew.com/2025/09/15/ptpl-173-tool-stack-inspiration-people-and-apps</a>

Thorsten Zöller<a href="https://mamot.fr/@ploum" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@ploum</a> Thanks for sharing, I didn't know about calendar.txt.I had been looking for quite some time for a suitable <a href="https://exquisite.social/tags/plaintext" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plaintext</a> calendar in the past. With respect to programs, I used "Remind" for a while (on-and-off over the years), but it offers way too many features for me, while at the same time I could not get it to do certain things I wanted it to do. Then, there is the standard Unix "calendar" program, but that is a bit too simplistic.One alternative, then, is to use a simple text file as a calendar, where each entry is entered manually instead of being automatically generated by some program - like calendar.txt.I have actually used a similar (although even simpler) format for a text-file-based calendar in the last couple of months after I had read about it in some pretty old article which I cannot find any more, but the calendar.txt format looks better indeed.(1/2)

Tim Chase<a href="https://c.im/@jake4480" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@jake4480</a> Oh, and tangentially, if <a href="https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/tags/plaintext" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plaintext</a> is your jam, you might also be interested in <a href="https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/tags/plaintextaccounting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#plaintextaccounting</a><a href="https://plaintextaccounting.org/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://plaintextaccounting.org/</a>I use ledger(1) and sometimes hledger(1) but Beancount is also a popular choice.

Jake in the desertCalendar.txt by Tero Karvinen is a plain text file calendar that's versionable, supports all operating systems, is future-proof, easily syncs with Android, etc: <a href="https://terokarvinen.com/2021/calendar-txt" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://terokarvinen.com/2021/calendar-txt</a><a href="https://c.im/tags/TextFiles" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#TextFiles</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/PlainText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PlainText</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/PlainTextFiles" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PlainTextFiles</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/calendar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#calendar</a>

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