stfjson

This code will attempt to parse the STF format that Lotus Agenda can export to, and convert it into modern JSON. Lotus Agenda is an old PIM for MS-DOS, it's unlikely anyone will ever use this code except for me 😂

The intention is to allow you to import Lotus Agenda data into other tools, and a modern format like JSON has the tools to allow that.

The STF format is (partially) documented in the Lotus manual, "Working with Definition Files", but a lot of the format is undocumented.

Building

You need libjson-c, then just type make

Usage

Exporting Agenda Data to STF

In Lotus Agenda, you can either export an agenda file to STF manually:

F10 (menu) -> File -> Transfer -> Export

Or you can use automatic actions, so that when a new item is assigned to a category it is automatically exported.

F9 (Category manager) -> F6 (Properties) -> Special actions -> Export item

Parsing STF

Now that you have an STF file, you can use a tool like jq to query it, and then import the data to something else.

• Print a list of all items $ ./stfjson < transfer.stf | jq '.[].items[].text'

• Show all items with a due date $ ./stfjson < transfer.stf | jq '.[].items[] | select(.categories[].name=="\\When")'

• Show all items with a due date in the future ./stfjson < transfer.stf | jq '.[].items[] | { text: .text, due: (.categories[] | select(.name=="\\When") | .value | fromdate) } | select(.due > now)'

Once you've extracted the data you need from jq, you can pipe it into another application, like TaskWarrior, todo.sh, mailx, or whatever else.

Bugs

In the highly unlikely event another human uses this, and you find it doesn't parse an STF file created by Lotus Agenda correctly, please create an issue.