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Worg, the Org-Mode Community

orgmode.org

11–20 of 63 posts

Re: Worg, the Org-Mode Community

#11
Genuine question: how does Org-Mode handle mindmap style information management? By "mindmap" I mean applications such as Freemind, Xmind, etc.?

I recently started to use Xmind after years of Vimoutliner. Both the upsides and downsides are huge for me. For text based approach such as Vim, it is great in fast input, text manipulations, complex searches, integrate with other tools, portability, etc.

But on the other hand in Xmind(or other mindmap applications), being able to see the nodes spreading out on the screen(with colors, icons and whatnot) , drag them around freely into various structures(trees, flow charts, fishbone diagrams, etc.) is really helpful to thinking and manipulation. Also you can attach a host of files(images, videos and stuff like that) to those nodes. I am torn between these two types of approaches, each with their respective advantages.

Re: Worg, the Org-Mode Community

#12
I regularly use org-mode, for all types of notes, including for work notes. One of the many advantages with org-mode is "time-stamping", and to have a reference to a particular item in your agenda (org-agenda). As e19293001 noted, time-clocking is also very nice, and the possibility to generate reports based on time spent on each item. Another very useful feature is the usage of internal or external links: links to local files, or to a external source such as a web links (e.g. through http, ftp, mailto, etc).

Re: Worg, the Org-Mode Community

#13
post #11

Genuine question: how does Org-Mode handle mindmap style information management? By "mindmap" I mean applications such as Freemind, Xmind, etc.? I recently started to use Xmind after years of Vimoutliner. Both the upsides and downsides are huge for me. For text based approach such as Vim, it is great in fast input, text manipulations, complex searches, integrate with other tools, portability, etc. But on the other ha…

You can export to and import from freemind and there are some ideas here, afaics: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18341590/org-mode-mindmap...

Re: Worg, the Org-Mode Community

#15
post #6
post #2

One of pains is that the mobile-org doesn't work. I cannot even view my org file on iPhone.

Truly, the difficulty of getting your Agenda on the phone is one of the great frustrations of Org. I have an Android phone, and while it's useful for some things (making phone calls, wechat), its utility would easily be doubled by having my Org information on the phone. I think the problem arises because most Org hackers are Emacs hackers, but writing apps is a totally different domain. I went at it once, full of bea…

I used to use https://github.com/dengste/org-caldav to export my agenda to owncloud, which at least gave me a low-effort read-only calendar of my agenda, but with recent versions of orgmode they changed the whole export engine which made my configuration not work (and I haven't had the energy to try again).

Re: Worg, the Org-Mode Community

#17

Here[0] is a demonstration of a good set-up in org-mode. This was written in org-mode and generated the html file. You can tangle the source code[1] and try it. This had greatly helped me to get started in organizing everything. One of the feature I like is time clocking[2] where in you time all everything that you do (including sleep![3]) and eventually review after a week/month/year, you can generate some analysis…

Doesn't have to be that complicated, though. I recommend starting with a simple workflow.

As a former Vim user, I can recommend evil-mode and the SpaceMacs project:

https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs

https://bitbucket.org/lyro/evil/wiki/Home

> An Emacs distribution - The best editor is neither Emacs nor Vim, it's Emacs and Vim!

Evil is a very, very complete Vim emulation in Emacs. I have yet to find a feature which is missing. Some features work better than the original.

Re: Worg, the Org-Mode Community

#18
post #2

One of pains is that the mobile-org doesn't work. I cannot even view my org file on iPhone.

Was frustrated by this, until I realized that I actually do not need my agenda on my phone. Still nice to have, but not a deal breaker.

And Google Keep is fine for shopping lists.

Re: Worg, the Org-Mode Community

#19

As a Vim user, I wish I could have something like what I have heard of Org-Mode for Vim / Neovim. At the moment I just have a folder of Markdown files that I compile with gitit, it doesn't seem as nice though.

You can have it in a way... Emacs + EVIL mode make for a pretty good Vim, and with some effort almost all Vim plugins can be replaced on emacs.

You'll still miss some things if you are a hardcore user of a very customized Vim, ofc. I'm ok with using Vim for almost everything and a kind-of-weird-Vim-that-is-actually-Emacs for Org.

Re: Worg, the Org-Mode Community

#20
I use org-mode almost every day, and I think it's great, but I also think it's fair to point out what I see as its biggest disadvantage. It changes. And by that I mean the developers don't care at all about breakage. This has caused countless problems for me over the years in two ways:

i. You better be using exactly the same org-mode version on all of your computers, because there is no concept of backward compatibility. Making matters worse, there is no restriction that changes have to be documented before the release. I got burned with some presentations when they made major changes to the exporters. The documentation consisted of a statement that they were working on the documentation.

ii. The documentation you find may or may not work. Google is hit or miss because in most cases your search will return an answer for a different version from the one you're using.

This is not to say you shouldn't use org-mode. As I stated at the top of my comment, I use it on a daily basis, so there are a lot of benefits. Nonetheless, org-mode discussions paint a rosy picture, when there are in reality issues that you have to be prepared for.

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