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Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

karl-voit.at

61–70 of 221 posts

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#61
post #50

And yet an accessible ecosystem of 3rd party non-emacs tooling has not been developed. I would pay big bucks for an obsidian-styled org-mode clone that had a no-frills GUI interface. I find org-modes task tracking, calendar, and agenda views top tier.

What do you think about my orgmode obsidian plugin?

https://github.com/BBazard/obsidian-orgmode-cm6

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markdown can be trivially embedded in org-mode, so no need to even miss out on that which "won sufficient share": * Org with md block #+begin_src markdown ..... #+end_src Markdown may be a winner, but preferring it when org-mode exists is like tying both arms behind my back and trying to do serious things with my feet.

So like, ```org-mode * this is org ``` ?

Yep. I wouldn't like to see the result of embedding any org of reasonable complexity in md though, while I've embedded pretty complex md in org. And performed various operations on the whole thing, but now we're going from syntax to (Emacs) features.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#63
post #43

AFAICT org-mode has no spec. Still. Decades later. The only spec is a single implementation. Which is probably why approximately nothing else supports it. CommonMark on the other hand is very widely supported and all of them work great together. I'll stick to CommonMark.

Ah. Well that sure shuts down the "you don't have to use Emacs" argument.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#64
post #59
post #43

AFAICT org-mode has no spec. Still. Decades later. The only spec is a single implementation. Which is probably why approximately nothing else supports it. CommonMark on the other hand is very widely supported and all of them work great together. I'll stick to CommonMark.

Honestly, "no spec" feels like more of a feature than a bug -- or more specifically, "proof of quality." If it's gotten this far WITHOUT a spec, there's something inherently good going on that lets it keep going.

Would you say the same about markdown?

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#65
post #43

AFAICT org-mode has no spec. Still. Decades later. The only spec is a single implementation. Which is probably why approximately nothing else supports it. CommonMark on the other hand is very widely supported and all of them work great together. I'll stick to CommonMark.

Codeberg supports Org for READMEs! I think some other Git forge does too, but the name escapes me ;)

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think you'll ever want to use third-party tools to process that markup, or if some of your private files will transform into public files at some point, then yes, considering popularity makes a lot of sense. If they're just text files you edit raw that will never interact with anything else but your text editor, then of course popularity doesn't matter at all. But in my experience, my use cases tend to expand…

OP here. I stuck with orgmode all these years /because/ of the interoperability. If I'm writing in Org, I can tangle / detangle between other plaintext sources, including source code. As well as export to collaborate. The proposition is "yes, and", not "either / or". It's /fine/ to switch to the popular "team" standard and stay there when needed. Several of my workplace documents, including wiki entries start off as…

Sure, but I think it's safe to say Markdown has more interoperability, no?

Yes you can always use pandoc, but conversion usually brings quirks of its own. And more generally, the less conversion steps you need, the better.

If you just stick to vanilla markup, you don't encounter incompatibilities. The "many kinds of markdown" isn't an issue if you're not using platform-specific extensions in the first place. Which, usually, you're not, unless you need to do something very specific to that application.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#67
post #43

AFAICT org-mode has no spec. Still. Decades later. The only spec is a single implementation. Which is probably why approximately nothing else supports it. CommonMark on the other hand is very widely supported and all of them work great together. I'll stick to CommonMark.

I don't think the lack of spec is holding Org back. Markdown came out in 2004; CommonMark came out in 2014. I think Markdown was already very popular by the time CommonMark came out.

The more obvious reasons are that Markdown was dead simple, unlike Org, and integrated into many popular products, unlike Org.

(Tangent: To be honest, I'm not sure why websites like Reddit opted for Markdown rather than text formatting buttons. It's a good thing, and I'm not complaining, but adding the standard rich text buttons (like the ones Reddit has now) seems like it would've been the more obvious move.)

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#68
post #53

I discovered and started using org-mode (and, as a result, Emacs) when I migrated from Evernote in '16. Today I use it for all my project, task and knowledge management needs, with some files going over 15MB in size. And I'm still loving it. Started out with headers only, and every time I wanted something more, it was always just there for the taking. Easy to use, and also crazy powerful. Can't think of anything else…

How do you handle PDFs, images, HTML/rich text snippets? Asking because Evernote supported all of those. It’s what keeps me using that app, even though I cringe every time I open it.

OP here... I do all of these from Emacs orgmode, and more.

Ref. a presentation I did last year: https://github.com/adityaathalye/slideware/

- The org plaintext: `clojure-web-app-workshop-functional-conf-2025.org` (see the raw source for formatting directives and structure.)

- Live coding presentation delivered straight from my org source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEHVEId-utY

- The RevealJS handout presentation compiled directly from the same source (self-hosted, with images, text snippets, quotes, code snippets): https://www.evalapply.org/posts/clojure-web-app-from-scratch...

- The extended blog post for the same (I start off all presentations as longform thinking in org plaintext): https://www.evalapply.org/posts/clojure-web-app-from-scratch...

- I can also do LaTeX PDF and raw tex, for undergrad student "professor points" :D (See examples in the github repo --- the "n Ways to FizzBuzz in Clojure" presentation. Which also was a live coding demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTouODWov-A ... "demo live, or die trying", I say :D)

And... I mentioned my site... This is the build step, no Emacs needed :)

  __shite_templating_compile_source_to_html() {
      # If content has front matter metadata, it is presumed to be in a format
      # that the content compiler can safely process and elide or ignore.
      local file_type=${1:?"Fail. We expect file type of content like html, org, md etc."}
  
      case ${file_type} in
          html )
              cat -
              ;;
          md )
              pandoc -f markdown -t html
              ;;
          org )
              pandoc -f org -t html
              ;;
      esac
  }

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#69
post #11

For me the thing keeping me on markdown is Obsidian on mobile - no other note taking app comes close. If they made an actual Emacs for mobile (actual emacs complete with elisp support, not the existing org mode apps) that was a pleasure to use, I would likely switch to that. As it is, the * vs # for headings makes switching between the two uncomfortable.

I’ve built a handful of org based iOS apps.

While my initial intention was to bring as much org support to iOS as possible (https://plainorg.com), my thinking evolved over time and I gravitated towards a different kind of mobile-optimised experience, and so https://journelly.com was born. I’ve recently added Markdown support too https://xenodium.com/journelly-1-3-released

I use Journelly the most and is also my most popular app.

I have an org scratch pad and also a habit tracking app https://flathabits.com.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#70

I discovered and started using org-mode (and, as a result, Emacs) when I migrated from Evernote in '16. Today I use it for all my project, task and knowledge management needs, with some files going over 15MB in size. And I'm still loving it. Started out with headers only, and every time I wanted something more, it was always just there for the taking. Easy to use, and also crazy powerful. Can't think of anything else…

I've started using org-mode couple of years ago, and write documents using the basic features like headers and formatting, links between docs, and code sections, but still haven't figured out which power features are the ones worth investing time into, and would be the most useful. Which further features would you recommend digging into, based on your experience?

I consider myself little above basics even after all this time. The features I use depend on what I'm doing at the time, and so I take a JIT approach to learning org-mode. I'd say just keep the main resources close by as they're very detailed, and search them whenever you're thinking of doing X thing.
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