Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

nhigham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 73 posts

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#41

Post by tetris11 »

agumonkey wrote: post #32
canistel wrote: 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 use org mode as simple outline or table but so far the organization part still evades me.. I guess I'm too chaotic still to understand how to make real good use of it.

I've been using Org-Mode for over 10 years. There is no one way.

You start off first writing simple outlines, and then you start creating todos, and then maybe you start to look at agendas to organize your todos (note: I rarely do this).

The biggest game changer for me was org-roam. It's essentially a database of all my files where I can add snippets or link to other files, or whatnot.

The TODO stuff I use a rough general guide of where I am, but I do not strictly adhere to it.

Essentially: Make Org-Mode work for you and your mindset, don't feel the need to bend to it.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#42

Post by natrys »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #35
natrys wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you don't do that, you would only have a lowest common denominator system with none of the advanced features, and the world has enough of those. If I wanted to emulate a fraction of org-mode features I use daily in markdown, I would have to use Obsidian with a bunch of plugins, and we would end up in same boat. I don't know the exact spec situation, but I know that comprehensive parsing libraries in modern no…

The format/spec isn't really the problem. It's just that parsing and rendering Org Mode files is like parsing and rendering .PSD files - getting your app to open and write PSDs alone does not turn your app into Photoshop; you're still missing 99% of the features.

Right but if you implement the rest of the features, you become an org-mode IDE anyway. I don't mean that's a bad thing, syntax is just bare minimum, most usefulness comes from interactive developer experience anyway. I was just addressing the point parent raised that marrying markup with IDE is a bad idea, and that when it comes to syntax org-mode is hardly underspecified compared to other markup languages.

Would it be neat to have an alternate complete implementation of org-mode elsewhere? Sure. But unlike say Photoshop, Emacs is already open and extremely hackable. That mitigates most of the reasons you would want to.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#43

Post by TeMPOraL »

canistel wrote: post #7
wild_egg wrote: 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…

> Although it is possible to install Emacs in Android as a terminal tool in Termux or even as a GUI tool

FWIW, it seems Emacs can now be built for Android natively - there seem to be related files and documentation in the main Emacs repo, though I haven't actually built it myself, so I don't know how well it works.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#44

Post by f1shy »

geokon wrote: post #22

I used Orgmode for years, but I think fundamentally tieing your markup to your editor is kind of a bad sign... I'd be curious to hear counterarguments though. I think the primary reason it's tied is because you sort of can't make standalone ELisp apps (or at least nobody does). Otherwise you'd just have an `org2html` and `org2pdf` application at the command line. Alternatives like Asciidoc are not perfect, esp for li…

I did many applications, I just did not publish them. It is great when the applications need to generate reports, for that I used org mode and then exported in LaTeX, generating a PDF at the end.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#45

Post by JNRowe »

hitchdev wrote: post #26
geokon wrote: post #22

I used Orgmode for years, but I think fundamentally tieing your markup to your editor is kind of a bad sign... I'd be curious to hear counterarguments though. I think the primary reason it's tied is because you sort of can't make standalone ELisp apps (or at least nobody does). Otherwise you'd just have an `org2html` and `org2pdf` application at the command line. Alternatives like Asciidoc are not perfect, esp for li…

>you sort of can't make standalone ELisp apps (or at least nobody does). Otherwise you'd just have an `org2html` and `org2pdf` application at the command line. Because I don't like emacs and I wanted to lean on command line apps for getting data into and out of my orgzly org-mode electronic brain, I've been doing this by combining orgmode with jinja2 (I do this with a cli app I wrote called 'orji'). I think it's a ve…

A link to the documentation¹ and repo² to save others a few steps. Examples are helpfully linked toward the end of the page and its source in the README.

¹ https://hitchdev.com/orji/

² https://github.com/crdoconnor/orji

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#46

Post by agumonkey »

bananapub wrote: post #37
agumonkey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use org mode as simple outline or table but so far the organization part still evades me.. I guess I'm too chaotic still to understand how to make real good use of it.

it's not very complicated - it's an outliner mashed into an ad-hoc wiki in your editor, and also lets you mark up things as "tasks" with optional "scheduling". you can just outline things in to it, then when an item congeals enough to become a task, on it to add a TODO tag and now org mode can be an organiser - put it in the agenda agenda, specify a workflow (TODO->PENDING->DONE; TODO->ABANDONED, etc), schedule it, e…

Oh I've tuned the hell out of it, the issue lies above I guess, cause I keep accumulating tasks in various states, sometimes clocked or not.. and then it's hell to manage cleaning what's what.

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#47

Post by agumonkey »

tetris11 wrote: post #41
agumonkey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use org mode as simple outline or table but so far the organization part still evades me.. I guess I'm too chaotic still to understand how to make real good use of it.

I've been using Org-Mode for over 10 years. There is no one way. You start off first writing simple outlines, and then you start creating todos, and then maybe you start to look at agendas to organize your todos (note: I rarely do this). The biggest game changer for me was org-roam. It's essentially a database of all my files where I can add snippets or link to other files, or whatnot. The TODO stuff I use a rough ge…

I should try roam, it might help with my scattered brain (or maybe it will make it worse :)

do you know good videos of people demonstrating their workflow habits ?

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#48

Post by setopt »

nanna wrote: post #24

An org mode syntax I use heavily that I rarely see mentioned, including in this cheat sheet, is the obscurely named Radio Targets. Enclose any term or phrase in >>, hit C-c C-c on it, and then any previous or further instance of it in the same buffer will be automatically linked to it from then on. Incredibly useful when you're wroting notes on a long book for example and want to keep track of the instance when a ter…

If you’re into this, you might also want to look at Howm-mode which offers such “comefrom links” also between files and it works well with Org-mode: https://github.com/kaorahi/howm

Re: Org Mode Syntax Cheat Sheet (2017)

#49

Post by nanna »

budzynski wrote: post #38
nanna wrote: post #24

An org mode syntax I use heavily that I rarely see mentioned, including in this cheat sheet, is the obscurely named Radio Targets. Enclose any term or phrase in >>, hit C-c C-c on it, and then any previous or further instance of it in the same buffer will be automatically linked to it from then on. Incredibly useful when you're wroting notes on a long book for example and want to keep track of the instance when a ter…

Hi, the docs are quite brief about this. Would ratio targets allow you to create a link to a website to the word >> would always lead to a corresponding link? Do you have an example of radio targets?

No, that wouldn't work. Radio Targets are intended for the precise repetitions of the same characters. If you surround a regular org link in three angle brackets, eg https://www.bbc.com][bbc]]>>>, then the Radio link will clobber the web link on the target itself (ie C-c C-o won't take you anywhere), and it will only highlight repetitions of [[https://www.bbc.com][bbc]] rather than just bbc.

For something similar to what you're asking, I would just go for something like...

The >> ([[https://www.bbc.com][site]]) is the UK's state broadcasting company. Now when I write bbc (or BBC) these will be highlighted as links and will take you back to the Radio Target in the first sentence and I can then click on the link

Also note that you can mark a word or region and then hit C-c n r (org-insert-radio-target-brackets) to surround it in angle brackets and enable it as a radio target.

Post reply on HN