Live data from Hacker News

Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

nhigham.com

11–20 of 73 posts

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#11
post #3

Mass availability of LLMs has made it much easier to adopt EMACS and Org Mode because you no longer need to read the docs to be a power user. I can ask an LLM how to do literally anything in EMACS and it will either tell me an existing function or show me how to write a new one. This is a feature that I haven’t seen still in the most popular editors. What would be most powerful is something like Cursor but applied to…

LLMs are so damn useful for small languages in general. Imperfect, but the tradeoffs are much better that in large languages with loads of easy access material.

I also cut my teeth on Elisp when ChatGPT was new, and it was very helpful.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#12
post #5
post #2

If there is one tool (if I can call it that) that changed my life, it is Org Mode. I was a Vim guy who in a desperate attempt to get digitally organised was forced to give Org Mode a try and got sucked into Emacs. I now live better organised, with far less anxiety and remain unfazed at the multi-tasking demands of the corporate world, all thanks to this major mode.

I keep hearing anecdotes like this and truly want to give Emacs a shot. Do you use it exclusively on a PC? My big blocker is that a significant portion of my time is on a phone rather than a computer these days and I have to think that all the chording with Emacs would get impossibly cumbersome. Anyone here have a good way to leverage Emacs on the go?

Personally I use the emacs android port with org-roam, with syncthing for sync to back home. I've got ctrl and meta mapped to volume up and down. I don't know that I'd call it a good way, but it works well enough for me :).

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#13
I like the idea of OBTF and org mode but I find the syntax quite inconvenient. I do not like Markdown also. I'm currently taking inspiration from bujo, obtf, org mode and markdown for making my own thing based on characters I'm ok to type both on mobile and desktop and which can make it easy to find information back in a huge file both for humans and programs.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#14
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing anecdotes like this and truly want to give Emacs a shot. Do you use it exclusively on a PC? My big blocker is that a significant portion of my time is on a phone rather than a computer these days and I have to think that all the chording with Emacs would get impossibly cumbersome. Anyone here have a good way to leverage Emacs on the go?

I faced this problem too. I am a Linux user personally, but use Windows at work. I am not a phone person, but do use it regularly. I sync org files to phone (using Syncthing) and use Orgzly to access these from Android. Although it is possible to install Emacs in Android as a terminal tool in Termux or even as a GUI tool, you need to connect a keyboard to do something sensible. Long story short, if your phone is your…

I have managed to get org mode working with emacs android port. big help was keyboard designer keyboard. I was able to set C-x and M-x for single touch. And added some keys as per requirements. https://www.keyboarddesigner.com/index.php?page=24

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#15
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing anecdotes like this and truly want to give Emacs a shot. Do you use it exclusively on a PC? My big blocker is that a significant portion of my time is on a phone rather than a computer these days and I have to think that all the chording with Emacs would get impossibly cumbersome. Anyone here have a good way to leverage Emacs on the go?

Leader keys + Evil mode make the keybindings pretty much non-issue on mobile. Emacs also has native Android port now, I've found it work quite well. There are apps like orgro[0] that make dealing with org files a pleasure on mobile. That being said, it is not perfect. My ultimate (and imperfect) solution was to acquire a GPD Micro[1]. Now that thing makes up for all shortcomings of mobile devices, not just Emacs :) […

What sort of software setup do you use on the micro?

I have one, but coming from a tiling wm, and Vim I have a hard time imagining using it productively. It is in my sell pile.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a recent convert to emacs, the experience with clojure is just so much better. The best experience I’ve ever had programming with a tool honestly. Org mode is a bit of a mystery to me thus far, collapsible sections are great but could you expand on what is so helpful to you and how you use it?

Keep track of all TODOs in one's life. You can create TODO items and schedule them. You tag them (similar to hashtags) too. Now, if I want to see the list to things to be done today (or any day for that matter), Org Mode will generate the agenda for you. You can filter your agenda/TODOs - for example, if you are getting into a call with Team X, you can filter with "teamx" to get the list of items marked against the t…

Good summary. One thing to note about org is it's not opinionated. Even the word "Todo" is up to you, in fact you can just tell it a bunch of "not done" keywords and a bunch of "done" ones. Over the years I've tweaked these. For example I use STARTED for tasks that I've begun but not yet finished, because I hate starting things but but not finishing them. I've set my agenda views to display these right at the top. Similarly I've added more resolutions like DELEGATED.

This flexibility means you can bend it to rather odd requirements. For example, in my current job I'm required to track time against project codes, but I have to scale the proportion against the hours I'm contracted for (it's a tax thing, I'm told). Org supports clocking in/out of things. It doesn't know what those things are, they are just items in the outline. So I structure my todos under the project codes then track time against those tasks or just directly to the project. Then I have an agenda view which shows me totals for each project and a column scaling the proportions to the total contracted hours over the period.

But you might have completely different requirements. You might want a flat backlog and to "refile" tasks into "sprints" when they get properly defined then set a deadline on the whole sprint. Org supports it all because it doesn't really care that much. Seeing people struggle with the likes of Jira becomes rather comical.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#17
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing anecdotes like this and truly want to give Emacs a shot. Do you use it exclusively on a PC? My big blocker is that a significant portion of my time is on a phone rather than a computer these days and I have to think that all the chording with Emacs would get impossibly cumbersome. Anyone here have a good way to leverage Emacs on the go?

I faced this problem too. I am a Linux user personally, but use Windows at work. I am not a phone person, but do use it regularly. I sync org files to phone (using Syncthing) and use Orgzly to access these from Android. Although it is possible to install Emacs in Android as a terminal tool in Termux or even as a GUI tool, you need to connect a keyboard to do something sensible. Long story short, if your phone is your…

I moved from Orgzly to Orgro. Now updating the files on the phone is exactly like any other note-taking phone application (for better or worse). It's not as good as experience as the Emacs desktop, but no worse than anything else on the phone.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#18

I like the idea of OBTF and org mode but I find the syntax quite inconvenient. I do not like Markdown also. I'm currently taking inspiration from bujo, obtf, org mode and markdown for making my own thing based on characters I'm ok to type both on mobile and desktop and which can make it easy to find information back in a huge file both for humans and programs.

Good luck!

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#19
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leader keys + Evil mode make the keybindings pretty much non-issue on mobile. Emacs also has native Android port now, I've found it work quite well. There are apps like orgro[0] that make dealing with org files a pleasure on mobile. That being said, it is not perfect. My ultimate (and imperfect) solution was to acquire a GPD Micro[1]. Now that thing makes up for all shortcomings of mobile devices, not just Emacs :) […

What sort of software setup do you use on the micro? I have one, but coming from a tiling wm, and Vim I have a hard time imagining using it productively. It is in my sell pile.

Same thing as my main laptop: NixOS + Plasma desktop.

I barely see the desktop TBH. It is there just so I have convenient control of peripherals. 99% of my time is in Web browser or Emacsclient or Terminal. On GPD I use the browser even less, because its purpose is to be a lightweight mobile terminal. Graphical Emacs is just superset of terminal one, so it is preferred is all.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#20
post #5
post #2

If there is one tool (if I can call it that) that changed my life, it is Org Mode. I was a Vim guy who in a desperate attempt to get digitally organised was forced to give Org Mode a try and got sucked into Emacs. I now live better organised, with far less anxiety and remain unfazed at the multi-tasking demands of the corporate world, all thanks to this major mode.

I keep hearing anecdotes like this and truly want to give Emacs a shot. Do you use it exclusively on a PC? My big blocker is that a significant portion of my time is on a phone rather than a computer these days and I have to think that all the chording with Emacs would get impossibly cumbersome. Anyone here have a good way to leverage Emacs on the go?

Emacs org-mode is one of the better organization tools with batteries included.

For someone who is disciplined, organized and feels limited by their current tooling, Emacs will probably work great like these anecdotes. If having the discipline itself is a problem then Emacs is probably not the right choice to start with because of the learning curve and the friction due to sub-optimal experience on phone.

That said, I do recommend to give it a go. On Android, Orgzly + Syncthing is good enough to get started.

Post reply on HN