TaskPaper 2-style theming was superior and should be returned, if possible

TaskPaper
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Not only is it annoying to have to remember all the changes you make and why you make them every time there’s an update which obviously comes with an updated style sheet, but after much twiddling this morning I realized:

(1) TaskPaper 2 style tweaking just let me get the results I wanted and got out of the way; I currently spend as much time trying to tweak the “look and feel” of TaskPaper 3 as I do actually … well, “using” TaskPaper 3

(2) It is becoming cumbersome trying to maintain all the tweaks I like manually only to have to re-enter them each and overtime there is an update

(3) Updates sometimes have syntax or order changes which in turn render changes I successfully made before no longer function as intended/expected, or, even worse, sometimes not function at all.

Basically I don’t want to spend so much of my time trying to lookup why something that worked fine yesterday no longer works the same after a small update because of some format change in the style sheet.

I feel as if this aspect of TaskPaper is anti-yield and unfortunately counter-acts the pro-yield nature of
TaskPaper itself; basically I don’t want to spend 45 minutes looking up style sheet logic and why a line which made my tags a certain color or weight or whatever no longer seem to work because of some esoteric and non-intuitive reason caused by a change in an update.

It kills the very productivity TaskPaper otherwise enables.

If there is ANY way to revert to the “old style” of theme changing I am all for it and suspect a lot of people would be to.

I really don’t see the benefit to approaching format changes in an editor as opposed to the preferences panel which was quicker, more intuitive, and stuck despite updates whereas now every minor update throws off some, or all of my changes and makes me spend time trying to figure out why.

Edit: This post might sound cranky but it comes from a place where a TaskPaper user who loves TaskPaper and wants to use it more smoothly just wants his TaskPaper to be an extension of his mind and not an invitation to learn the nuances of stylesheets.

Thank you for an otherwise wonderful app.

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I’m sorry if it’s proven frustrating, but this underlying stylesheet system is much superior to the underlying engine that was in TaskPaper 2. I think there are 3 issue that you are running into:

  1. Most important you are running the TaskPaper Preview version. It’s by definition an undocumented moving target. If you just stick with the official releases there’s much less churn and the documentation should be in sync.

  2. It seems you are talking about TaskPaper 2’s stylesheet UI, not really the same as the underlying style system that it was using. A UI will be much simpler to use for sure, and I hope to add one eventually. But adding a UI is a separate issue I think, not the same as the underlying stylesheet system.

  3. And don’t forget the note at the start of Customizing TaskPaper. Generally the default styles should work fine … if there’s something specific in your custom styles that really adds to the general function of the program let me know and maybe I will add that to the default styling.

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It would be great if, once 3.5 is released, you could post a detailed list of changes, or even just some diff-like comparison of a 3.3 and 3.5 style file.

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