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Ask HN: Easiest way to build something I can use across devices?

5 points by rajlego ↗ HN
I want to build something pretty simple with python, all it needs to do is take a text file and based on some tags generate a queue each day.

What's the easiest, least painful way to do this such that I can use it across computers?

Ideally something that would still let it work offline too, if needed. If it works on my phone too, would be nice.

My python knowledge isn't that deep so can't do anything too complicated

9 comments

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vbsteven
Requirements are still a bit vague but I would probably start with a simple python script to process the text file and output the result. That can already be used on computers on the command line.

Then you could wrap it up in a website using django or another small web framework with an html form to upload the text file, process it using the same script and output the result as html. Then it becomes available on all devices with a web browser.

rajlego
okay, I can work on getting a local version working. Would it be all that much harder to have the text file already be on the site (since I'd be the only user?)
somtum
Not quite sure you mean by "generate a queue".

But if you mean message queue, you could create a python script that parses the text file using regex and place messages in a AWS SQS queue.

Simplest way to use across computers would be just to transfer the script to each computer you use.

slightwinder
Not really sure what you mean with queue, so I assume you mean some kind of todo-list?

The most simple way in this cade would be using an existing service with python-bindings. Todoist for example is a good service with a proper python-libary.

rajlego
Interesting, if todoist has tags then I could probably do it like this by just syncing the python script and having it do things via todoist API
slightwinder
Todoist has Tags. They call it labels. It's no even in the free-version available. Just write something with @word and the app offes you to create the label. Not sure whether this will work with the API automatically.
halefx
Just download Flutter and build an app with that. The primary tutorial is a To Do app, and it's easy to customize.
rajlego
does it get to how syncing would work in the tutorial itself?
rajlego
Sorry for poor explanation, basically I want to build an app for managing trigger action plans: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wJutA2czyFg6HbYoW/what-are-t.... The idea is that, when I'm first implementing one I'll want to review all the ones I've just made each morning till they're a certain level of automatic. After that, I'd want to make them less frequent, say every other day, and then continuously decreasing as I get better and better at doing them. Vaguely akin to spaced repetition.