I did a lot of time logging for orgmode. It was great if ones task are all done on a single computer. I found trying to synchronise across devices tedious and made me stop logging.
I just keep my files in Dropbox and haven't had a problem yet.
I use Org Mode for personal logging/journalling
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Re: I use Org Mode for personal logging/journalling
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does your tool do that Org Mode doesn't? I.e. what are those limitations you ran into?
E.g. more typing, or you have to look to the screen when navigating; in Crossline - even more than in Ecco Pro - I can operate with shortcuts, but shortcuts optimized for an outliner, not just an editor with structured formating; Crossline allows me to look at the people I discuss with during the meeting and take structured notes at the same time without taking my hands off the keyboard and without looking to my lapt…
I'm also a huge Ecco fan and definitely understand your motivation for creating Crossline, but the particular features you mention aren't really ones where org-mode is currently lacking, especially given org-roam.
Where I think org-mode is still somewhat lacking compared to Ecco is in being able to display the same item in multiple places in an outline and be able to edit any one of them (as well as the whole column UI for setting that up easily). But there are solid moves in that direction, e.g., the org-transclusion package is now pretty decent. There's also another more recent one whose name escapes me.
Re: I use Org Mode for personal logging/journalling
#23Interesting to see habits tracked using an org property drawer. I hadn't considered this before. Org itself has habit-tracking support https://orgmode.org/manual/Tracking-your-habits.html using :STYLE: habit. I'm head-in org land. For habit-tracking, I found removing friction from the tracking process itself absolutely fundmental for longer term success (Atomic Habits, the book, corroborates). Like the author, I also…
Your work is contributing to the org-mode renaissance; users of the world appreciate you! Now if I could just get multi-platform sync working correctly (iCloud doesn't play nice with Linux)...
WebDAV is the fuuuuuuture.
Re: I use Org Mode for personal logging/journalling
#24Org Mode tries to be an outliner. Outliners are the right tool for the job from my experience (> 30 years) since you can create and use context to reduce redundancy and makes it easier to find and to understand things again retrospectively. I had a look at Org Mode many years ago when switching from Windows to a Linux laptop which meant that I needed an alternative for Ecco Pro. But I quickly reached the limits with…
I, too, was a fan of Ecco in the 90s, but it was discontinued in 1997. OrgMode wasn't even born until 2003, so my guess is that you made your choice about Org very, very early on. I cautiously suggest that maybe Org does more now than you realize. Your tool seems . . . well, very dated-looking to start.
No, I worked with Ecco until about 2010 and then migrated all databases to Crossline; even though the original company didn't continue development of Ecco Pro there were (and still are) free installers on the Web and even people providing patches. My evaluation of Ecco Pro alternatives had it's peak in 2009 as far as I remember. Org-mode was already established. Of course I was biased as a long-time Ecco Pro user and looked for something with similar or even better features; Crossline can do things I missed in Ecco Pro and doesn't do things I rarely or never used in Ecco Pro; and I didn't spend a second in making it fancy looking, but a lot of time in making it as efficient, usable and powerful as possible; and it's definitely not suited for mobile devices, which is no problem for me since I need a laptop with a track-point to be able to work efficiently.
Re: I use Org Mode for personal logging/journalling
#25There's a school of throught, prevalent at the last Emacs conference (See Karl Voit's talk), that Org is also a notation/markup. So-called "org-down" has been put forward with foundational semantics, headings, lists, emphasis and other basics. https://karl-voit.at/2021/11/27/orgdown/ I'd actually love to see Gemini and HN adopt orgdown. Just sayin... :)
Thats the cool thing about org, its not just a great outliner tool and the best markdown, it also covers the full gamut of productivity and personal knowledge management functions (todos, calendaring, linking etc).
That said, what would it mean for HN to adopt orgdown?
Re: I use Org Mode for personal logging/journalling
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
E.g. more typing, or you have to look to the screen when navigating; in Crossline - even more than in Ecco Pro - I can operate with shortcuts, but shortcuts optimized for an outliner, not just an editor with structured formating; Crossline allows me to look at the people I discuss with during the meeting and take structured notes at the same time without taking my hands off the keyboard and without looking to my lapt…
I'm also a huge Ecco fan and definitely understand your motivation for creating Crossline, but the particular features you mention aren't really ones where org-mode is currently lacking, especially given org-roam. Where I think org-mode is still somewhat lacking compared to Ecco is in being able to display the same item in multiple places in an outline and be able to edit any one of them (as well as the whole column…
Crossline supports true "transclusion" links, so you can e.g. compose outlines from existing outline items with navigable forward and backward references; this is very useful e.g. for specification authoring.
Re: I use Org Mode for personal logging/journalling
#27There's a school of throught, prevalent at the last Emacs conference (See Karl Voit's talk), that Org is also a notation/markup. So-called "org-down" has been put forward with foundational semantics, headings, lists, emphasis and other basics. https://karl-voit.at/2021/11/27/orgdown/ I'd actually love to see Gemini and HN adopt orgdown. Just sayin... :)
It is. You can use org mode to write a scientific paper, personal wiki, blog posts, do literate programming, etc. I used to use Rmarkdown but I prefer using org now. It has better support for tables which is handy for printing out data frames.
I found out recentishly that GitHub supports org mode too.
Re: I use Org Mode for personal logging/journalling
#28I'm a huge Emacs user but I totally suck at org-mode. Now I do use it but mostly for the outlining functionality: I love it that I can quickly collapse/expand by "x levels" (for example only level 1 titles, up to level 2 titles, etc.). But most of all I "search don't sort": it's very common that I "ripgrep" (from Emacs of course) inside my .org files. Even only using like that, without knowing much about it, it's still very useful.
I do version everything under Git so when I switch machines/countries my latest notes are one (ma)git command away.
Re: I use Org Mode for personal logging/journalling
#29Org Mode is amazing! As an attorney I spend a lot of my time taking notes, tracking moving parts, and working with voluminous PDFs. I've tried a lot of different tools over the years (OneNote, etc.) for this purpose, but they all have serious shortcomings. I used to use Emacs in my previous life as a programmer, but had never used Org Mode before. I've got the following workflow:
- Org Mode (with org-superstar) for taking notes. Everything gets saved into a Microsoft OneDrive for sync between my laptop and desktop machine.
- Org tasks and org-agenda for project planning. Far less disruptive to your train of thought than busting out Microsoft Planner to remind yourself to follow-up on some line of research or whatever.
- pdf-tools for viewing PDFs. It's a bit kludgy (it renders PDF pages to PNGs on the fly because that's what Emacs can display), but it's somehow still less CPU-intensive than Acrobat DC or anything based on PDF.js. PDF-tools has fast incremental search, and a fast occurs mode for finding and highlighting all hits in the file.
- pdfgrep and pdfgrep-mode for searching across PDFs. Hits show up in a grep-mode buffer and you can click to jump to the exact hit. (It uses libpoppler under the hood to confine the search to the PDF text layer and show hits in logical page order rather than PDF file order, which can be arbitrary.)
- org-pdftools for creating links to specific pages of specific PDFs in Org Notes (e.g. noting that the testimony for a particular witness starts on page 758 of some 2,000-page trial transcript).
- Built-in Emacs features (windows, frames, buffers) make it easy to juggle between documents and compare them side-by-side. Emacs Bookmarks make it easy to save your place and jump back to where you left off. It's shocking how many notes tools get this wrong and only let you see one document or attachment at a time.
I'm kicking myself for not having discovered this earlier!
Re: I use Org Mode for personal logging/journalling
#30Org Mode is amazing! As an attorney I spend a lot of my time taking notes, tracking moving parts, and working with voluminous PDFs. I've tried a lot of different tools over the years (OneNote, etc.) for this purpose, but they all have serious shortcomings. I used to use Emacs in my previous life as a programmer, but had never used Org Mode before. I've got the following workflow: - Org Mode (with org-superstar) for t…
Do you have smooth scrolling in Emacs? How do you sync your work with your smartphone?