a million monkeys typing

The SVG Planner

Posted June 15th, 2005 at 01:36pm

I love the DIY spirit. People have been taking the classic and Hipster PDA versions of the D*I*Y Planner sets and doing some amazing things with them. For example, I’ve heard of some people using the graphics versions of the card to produce pages for pocket size planners (among other sizes), some have been colour-coding their pages, some have added dates and pictures to their calendars, others have been translating the PDFs into other languages, and then there’s this: SVG Planner - D*I*Y Planner cards you can tweak yourself. It uses the ‘Planner look and feel, but the cards are redone in SVG format. SVG is an open graphics format that uses XML for “describing” the shapes and contents. Theoretically, that means that one can use a simple text editor (or a not-so-simple one: Chris uses Emacs) to edit the file, modify things, or add one’s own content. This is brilliant, in my opinion. If you have your actions or calendar events in an electronic format, they could (eventually) be imported into the cards for easy printing. It might make an ideal bridge over the paper and digital divide. Right now you have to be a techie to do much with them, but that will soon change, it seems.

Says Chris:

I’ve taken the step of reimplementing a few of the D*I*Y Planner cards in a 3×5 SVG format. This allows those with a little knowledge of SVG to be able to endlessly tweak the formatting of your printed index cards to your liking.

Future plans include more cards, and a web application to produce PNG cards from SVG automatically, allowing you to specify the exact dimensions, colours and proportions you want from a web form. Ultimately I want to include the ability to add a list of tasks and appointments to be included in the printout…

I should mention that his project is a “licensed derivative” under the Creative Commons license chosen for the D*I*Y Planner, and so has my continued support and enthusiasm. The SVG Planner has a lot of potential, and I wish Chris all the best in his efforts.

He redesigned some cards using only Emacs? Incredible!