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Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

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Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#101

Post by soraminazuki »

birracerveza wrote: post #3

Org Mode keeps being pushed again and again, but honestly this title is one of the boldest claims I've seen about it. Just look at the document. It's a 400+kb HTML page of Emacs configurations, keybindings and other stuff that makes absolutely no sense unless you've been an avid Emacs user for years. Where is the Plain Text here? I see nothing of the sort. Sure, the output might resemble Plain Text, but it's clearly…

The document is just plain markup exported to HTML, no fancy data formats involved here. It just happens to explain emacs and org mode, so naturally there's a lot of writing and code blocks that "makes absolutely no sense unless you've been an avid Emacs user for years." But this is the property of the document, not the org mode markup itself.

That being said, there are many tools built on the org mode format to help with things like todo management and interactive execution of code blocks, but it doesn't make it any less plain text.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#102

Post by na85 »

CJefferson wrote: post #96
madballster wrote: post #49

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Trello or Todoist etc. What some are missing is the fact that low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage. After (!) one has sunk thousands of hours into them. I used to keep my academic notes in Evernote and it turned into hell…

Here were my "sunk costs" of org-mode. 1) org-mode makes a bad spreadsheet 2) No good Android interface, Orgzly is OK, but doesn't do advanced features and often crashed for me. 3) Despite lots of trying, I couldn't get "into" using the Emacs shortcut keys, which are different to every other application on Windows. 4) I like variable width fonts, and variable width fonts don't seem to work with various bits of org mo…

There are packages you can install to make the copy/cut/paste keys and a few others more Windows-like.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#103

Post by slothtrop »

truncate wrote: post #19
spaniard89277 wrote: post #2

It looks like some people want to spend more time organizing their life than living their life. IDK man, I already need some willpower to use Trello and looks far easier.

Hah, as much as I wanted org-mode to work for me, I realized I'm spending more time on building a framework for organizing my time than probably actually organizing my time. And it's never over. Sync all my calendars, OS notifications (considering the time it would take me to walk/drive), sync all this in mobile/iPad and be able to edit effectively there, and the list goes on. Laptop/Mobile notifications are the bigg…

I imagine the difference is that tinkering is the appeal, for some. I like optimization as a hobby within reason but if you aren't getting anywhere quickly it hardly feels optimal. That said, I've yet to try org mode, just emacs.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#104

Post by bachmeier »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #79
birracerveza wrote: post #3

Org Mode keeps being pushed again and again, but honestly this title is one of the boldest claims I've seen about it. Just look at the document. It's a 400+kb HTML page of Emacs configurations, keybindings and other stuff that makes absolutely no sense unless you've been an avid Emacs user for years. Where is the Plain Text here? I see nothing of the sort. Sure, the output might resemble Plain Text, but it's clearly…

A few simple observations: - the venn diagram of people using emacs and using org-mode seems to largely overlap. That makes it impractical in non emacs heavy environments (aka. the wider industry). - tooling outside of emacs is mostly not there. - org mode is a basically similar to other wiki dialects with similar syntax, limitations, tooling, etc. Other than the (emacs) tooling, I don't see a strong reason for prefe…

Honestly, even though it's not sold that way (it's usually promoted with links to encyclopedias like this) I think the vast majority of computer users could easily use org-mode productively without knowing anything about Emacs.

1. org-mode is already installed in Emacs. Open a .org file in Emacs and you have everything you need ready and waiting.

2. You can make an outline by putting * for first-level heading, two * for second-level, and so on.

3. You can add notes below a heading simply by typing.

4. You can link wiki-style to other documents with the shortcut C-c C-l and entering the filename. Remember to include the path as in ./filename.org. The same shortcut works to edit the link. You can click on the link to open it and then start typing.

5. You can move headings and the full subtree below them using the Alt key plus arrows. This outlining capability is very nice if you're used to it from Workflowy or Dynalist.

There are lots of other things you can do with org-mode, but as a basic way to organize your information, it's very simple even if you've never used Emacs.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#106

Post by monsieurbanana »

slightwinder wrote: post #95
monsieurbanana wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes getting emacs to do what you want can take a ridiculous amount of time. However, if there's something you really cannot do in emacs, my advice would be to try praying, because at that point nothing else can help you.

Or just start a rich environment, like a browser, or excel. Interface-wise there are many things that emacs can't do. Feature-wise there is even more missing because of lacking manpower. But that's okay. Every job it's right tool.

https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm

Chrome in emacs? No problem. Excel on linux on emacs? No problem, just run Excel on Windows on VirtualBox on emacs.

(in case you missed it from my first comment, I'm being facetious)

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#107

Post by michael-ax »

crimsonalucard1 wrote: post #86
madballster wrote: post #49

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Trello or Todoist etc. What some are missing is the fact that low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage. After (!) one has sunk thousands of hours into them. I used to keep my academic notes in Evernote and it turned into hell…

That's great but is there anything that has the best of all worlds? Low barrier to entry and maintenance of a fast workflow after years of notes?

i have >5yr years of daily/weekly org'd notes, several dozen files i refile into (made easy by using symbols as first letter in categories and a catg naming convention that grew up along with the setup) and some days i totally forget that i'm 'in a program', because its easy. sure i get lost cause i forget i wrote some code here or there, but it just works.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#108

Post by sparkie »

na85 wrote: post #102
CJefferson wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here were my "sunk costs" of org-mode. 1) org-mode makes a bad spreadsheet 2) No good Android interface, Orgzly is OK, but doesn't do advanced features and often crashed for me. 3) Despite lots of trying, I couldn't get "into" using the Emacs shortcut keys, which are different to every other application on Windows. 4) I like variable width fonts, and variable width fonts don't seem to work with various bits of org mo…

There are packages you can install to make the copy/cut/paste keys and a few others more Windows-like.

M-x cua-mode should work out of the box

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#110

Post by slightwinder »

monsieurbanana wrote: post #106
slightwinder wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just start a rich environment, like a browser, or excel. Interface-wise there are many things that emacs can't do. Feature-wise there is even more missing because of lacking manpower. But that's okay. Every job it's right tool.

https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm Chrome in emacs? No problem. Excel on linux on emacs? No problem, just run Excel on Windows on VirtualBox on emacs. (in case you missed it from my first comment, I'm being facetious)

That's not "in emacs". Still seperate process and environment and limited to no integration into emacs.

If you do stuff like this, at least use https://github.com/manateelazycat/emacs-application-framewor... for some better level of integration. Though, still seperate and limited.

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