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How to take smart notes with Org mode

blog.jethro.dev

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Re: How to take smart notes with Org mode

#31

Post by rgoulter »

ggm wrote: post #23

I wish orgmode would apply Todo to simple bullet or number lists and not only * * (.. ) form. I wish orgmode used space)tab indents not / * * /* * * stacking

> Tab intends and not * stacking

The org-hide-leading-stars variable visually hides the leading stars, which sounds like it might suit your preference. https://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-appearance.html

> TODO to simple bullet or numbered lists

Org-mode lists can have checkboxes (like markdown has on GitHub). https://orgmode.org/manual/Checkboxes.html

But I feel this is exasperated by org-headings not having a 'closing' syntax (like XML elements). Since you can't "close" a heading, you can't easily just continue the content of a heading after the content of its sub-headings; so to have a 'TODO' list within the contents of a heading, subheadings aren't an option.

Re: How to take smart notes with Org mode

#32

Post by bollockitis »

rushsteve1 wrote: post #7
ssivark wrote: post #2

Jethro Kuan’s earlier posts on Org mode for planning finally made the idea click for me (maybe just the last straw on the camel’s back). I strongly recommend checking those out too. Btw, to Notion users — does anyone feel that it’s matched/surpassed Org mode in the breadth of workflows it supports?

I've actually been flip-flopping between Notion and Org-mode for months, and just the other day decided to finally organize myself all on Notion. I love Org-mode, and will likely continue to use it for various things, but I agree that Notion is the only thing that (to me) surpasses it.

I also moved from org to Notion and have mixed feelings about it. Notion is an amazing platform. In some ways, it’s revolutionary, but everything I store in Notion feels... haphazard. It’s easy to get lost in. Org feels more structured, less Notion is so flexible that it can be almost anything but I still don’t have the ability to extend it like I can with org. It’s also slow and, as is common with Electron apps, a resource hog that I frequently need to restart to keep its appetite under control. There is considerable lag when doing simple things and the keystroke latency is brutal. I don’t mind paying for it though. I prefer it, actually. I think I’m going to stick with it anyway. It’s so good in so many ways and I hope it will only improve with time.

Re: How to take smart notes with Org mode

#33

Post by jolmg »

geokon wrote: post #30

is asciidoc similarly powerful? I have everything in org/githubpages but I often get a bit frustrated with Emacs and its clunkiness. My issue is that orgmode has no spec and is so tightly coupled to Emacs - so ive ended up unintentionally married to the whole ecosystem.. I've been considering migrating away from org but I don't have any great alternative in mind

Asciidoc seems to be just a format.

For me, the main benefits of org-mode are the Emacs keybindings to handle the docs semantically, to e.g. move the headings around, nest a whole hierarchy, archive a heading, etc. Also, the agenda view is really useful.

I've been using org-mode mostly to keep day-by-day notes in files such as ~/org/diary/2020-02-15.org, which I create for a given day from a keybinding. I've been thinking of starting to make personal backlogs in the form of org-mode files, keeping the headings ordered by priority, and archiving each heading when I'm done with them. All the benefit of using org-mode here comes from the keybindings.

> My issue is that orgmode has no spec and is so tightly coupled to Emacs

The spec is the org-mode manual. What other programs do, like Orgzly on Android, is to just support what they can of the format. They don't need to have feature-parity with org-mode on Emacs to be useful.

Re: How to take smart notes with Org mode

#34

Post by rgoulter »

I've seen it suggested before that while 'tasks' need to be well-structured, reference/notes don't.

I like the idea of not trying to store notes in a hierarchy, but using search and/or tags to try and reference (or discover relations between) notes.

I like the article's emphasis on "how do I want to access this later?". TBH Sometimes I've looked up previous bookmarks or notes, and they didn't have the keywords or tags I was expecting. I'd suggest https://github.com/EFLS/zetteldeft as another project which more/less supports some of the workflow suggested in the article.

That said, yeah, I do prefer pen and paper for worklog notes.

Re: How to take smart notes with Org mode

#35

Post by nextos »

geokon wrote: post #30

is asciidoc similarly powerful? I have everything in org/githubpages but I often get a bit frustrated with Emacs and its clunkiness. My issue is that orgmode has no spec and is so tightly coupled to Emacs - so ive ended up unintentionally married to the whole ecosystem.. I've been considering migrating away from org but I don't have any great alternative in mind

What do you find clunky about org-mode within Emacs? For me it's the opposite, all other tools feel primitive compared to Org, which has really simple and powerful primitives. You can easily adapt it to implement any productivity and knowledge management methodology.

Re: How to take smart notes with Org mode

#36

Post by ggm »

rgoulter wrote: post #31
ggm wrote: post #23

I wish orgmode would apply Todo to simple bullet or number lists and not only * * (.. ) form. I wish orgmode used space)tab indents not / * * /* * * stacking

> Tab intends and not * stacking The org-hide-leading-stars variable visually hides the leading stars, which sounds like it might suit your preference. https://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-appearance.html > TODO to simple bullet or numbered lists Org-mode lists can have checkboxes (like markdown has on GitHub). https://orgmode.org/manual/Checkboxes.html But I feel this is exasperated by org-headings not having…

Thanks TIL

Re: How to take smart notes with Org mode

#37

Post by terminaljunkid »

I find org mode little complicated for my taste.

My note taking is some plain text files in hierarchy and vim. It works even on Android phone using termux. And I am pretty much used to it.

For todo, I have a shellscript that takes an argument and open text file of that name. Works reasonably well.

Plus, prefix your text files with .md and get all the formatting stuff.

Re: How to take smart notes with Org mode

#38

Post by samatman »

ggm wrote: post #23

I wish orgmode would apply Todo to simple bullet or number lists and not only * * (.. ) form. I wish orgmode used space)tab indents not / * * /* * * stacking

I'm actually working on a literate programming environment that's similar to Org-mode. One of the early design decisions was to use lists, not headers, for Todo-type functionality.

I haven't updated the github repo in awhile and it's under the radar for a few more months, but you can read a design document here https://github.com/mnemnion/orb/blob/master/orb/notes/orb.or...

Although it's easier to read the woken Markdown documentation, despite a couple errors: https://github.com/mnemnion/orb/blob/master/doc/md/notes/orb...

It's self-hosting as well.

Re: How to take smart notes with Org mode

#39

Post by samatman »

geokon wrote: post #30

is asciidoc similarly powerful? I have everything in org/githubpages but I often get a bit frustrated with Emacs and its clunkiness. My issue is that orgmode has no spec and is so tightly coupled to Emacs - so ive ended up unintentionally married to the whole ecosystem.. I've been considering migrating away from org but I don't have any great alternative in mind

I get annoyed when other people repeat messages on HN, so I won't do that here: I'm working on a format like orgmode but with an actual specification and standalone implementation. You can find links elsewhere in this thread.

It's not ready for primetime, but it's getting close; there's years of work ahead before it can do everything orgmode does, but as a literate programming environment, it works great.

As long as you stick to Lua. Making it work with Jupyter kernels is the next major phase of the project.

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