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Org tutorials

orgmode.org

21–30 of 79 posts

Re: Org tutorials

#21

I hear so many people rave about orgmode on HN, all of them emacs users. This seems obvious since it is an emacs feature after all, but if orgmode is so good, has it not been implemented outside of emacs? Is there a standalone orgmode implementation that non-emacs users should look into?

1. it has, there's various mobile apps and a reimplementation for vim and vscode at least

2. it's very very good and having access to it is enough reason for some people to become emacs users, much like magit

Re: Org tutorials

#22
post #5

Orgmode got me through college, research, and at work, it really is the perfected markup language that can do a lot more than just being a markup language. The extensibility and out of the box export to other formats makes it immediately useful for at least 80% of common tasks. It has ingrained itself so deeply into my muscle memory that I built out a whole website builder [1] and extended the language to support all…

> As of 2025-02, there is no formal Org-mode syntax definition.

is very far away from perfection

Re: Org tutorials

#23

I hear so many people rave about orgmode on HN, all of them emacs users. This seems obvious since it is an emacs feature after all, but if orgmode is so good, has it not been implemented outside of emacs? Is there a standalone orgmode implementation that non-emacs users should look into?

Standalone orgmode implementation is called emacs with org mode. I'm that person that uses emacs solely for orgmode and write code in other editors (vscode/zed/cursor), we also exist

Re: Org tutorials

#24

I hear so many people rave about orgmode on HN, all of them emacs users. This seems obvious since it is an emacs feature after all, but if orgmode is so good, has it not been implemented outside of emacs? Is there a standalone orgmode implementation that non-emacs users should look into?

> if orgmode is so good, has it not been implemented outside of emacs

Org Mode is that good, but part of its goodness is due to being in Emacs.

Emacs is not really an editor: it’s an easily user-extensible operating environment with a remarkably shallow learning curve (seriously: one can go years just setting variables before moving up to simple functions and then starting to explore). Having all that power so easily accessible is a part of what makes Org Mode great. It’s what means that each Org Mode user can mold his experience to his needs.

Re: Org tutorials

#25

I hear so many people rave about orgmode on HN, all of them emacs users. This seems obvious since it is an emacs feature after all, but if orgmode is so good, has it not been implemented outside of emacs? Is there a standalone orgmode implementation that non-emacs users should look into?

There is an implementation for neovim, and some "viewer" applicatrions for android, etc: https://orgmode.org/tools.html Basics are easy to replicate, but one of the reasons why org is so useful is because it is tied into the emacs ecosystem, so you can write extensions/configuration tweaks in lisp. You can hookup agenda (calendars), etc, etc, and those things don't really translate so well to external tools. If you h…

> You can hookup agenda (calendars), etc, etc, and those things don't really translate so well to external tools.

Sounds like a replication of Unix inside an editor if you ask me.

Re: Org tutorials

#26
post #2

i like logseq as somewhat modern iteration of org-mode

What lead you to choose that over say obsidian, notion, Joplin, and the many others that pretty much do the same thing?

They do not do the same thing.

Logseq is an outliner (though it does have a document mode), which means a deep interaction with the document‘s hierarchy: You can zoom into blocks, collapse them (not ephemerally, it’s saved in the document) and link to them.

I’d probably use Obsidian if it had those features (since Logseq is still as buggy as it was years ago), but the last time I checked it did not.

Re: Org tutorials

#27
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an implementation for neovim, and some "viewer" applicatrions for android, etc: https://orgmode.org/tools.html Basics are easy to replicate, but one of the reasons why org is so useful is because it is tied into the emacs ecosystem, so you can write extensions/configuration tweaks in lisp. You can hookup agenda (calendars), etc, etc, and those things don't really translate so well to external tools. If you h…

> You can hookup agenda (calendars), etc, etc, and those things don't really translate so well to external tools. Sounds like a replication of Unix inside an editor if you ask me.

Well, yes. I'd say that's what emacs is. A framework for, mostly, text based applications in lisp. The advantage is its "unified interface".

Everything is configured in the same language, uses mostly the same keybinds, and can easily be integrated with other apps of the framework.

Re: Org tutorials

#28
post #16

Org-Mode with Hyperbole it's like doing computing in 2070, but without bullshit AI LLM's. Try it and you'll understand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFdgpb0TeQo If you are a Lisp programmer, you can OFC use ob-lisp with it (and maybe there's ob-elisp to learn Elisp in a literate way). This is like a Jupyter netbook, with steroids. Org Babel: https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/ Supported languages: https://…

Hyperbole is the weirdest thing ever (in a good way), I can't exactly describe it to people either because it's a monolithic package that is made up of a number of packages (like the one for window control) but once you start using it and adopting it gradually you reach an epiphany. At that point the usefulness of Hyperbole is evident but until then nada, it seems more hassle than it's worth (though there are moments when it has bugs relating to other packages, like org, but those are quickly fixed by the maintainers in my experience).

Though a downside is that you end up curating a workflow that is so tailored to you that it seems weird from the outside, if it ever leaks, i.e. weird notation in git commit messages. That's due to sprinkling implicit and explicit "buttons" (pieces of text roughtly) throughout text (source code or otherwise).

Re: Org tutorials

#29
post #6

To people using org mode, how does it help you more than Markdown? Genuinely curious because I tried at some point and it felt too heavy. Maybe because I am a vim user instead of eMacs?

Orgmode has standardized primitives for the things which exist in some markdown note taking implementations but differ from implementation to implementation.

Markdown doesn't have a built in concept of todo or tag or scheduled event, for instance. It wasn't built for that.

I hate emacs but orgmode is still the file format which contains all of the primitives I need for my notes which looks like it will have the most staying power. I hope to be able to edit the same files in 2035 using whatever brain-connection device everybody is using in the future that I used in 2015 running on a netbook with 1GB of RAM.

Markdown files from the note taking flavor of today will have to be migrated somehow.

Re: Org tutorials

#30
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the point? Without emacs all you're left with is another markup language.

What makes org mode tied to emacs ? I really need to try org mode to understand it. If only I had time...

Elisp, but not really elisp, more the environment of elisp. It's a LISP machine. Hard to explain, it's a different way of computing. Another living instance of this model of computing is a Smalltalk image. Others have written about how LISPing makes you a better coder much better than I could. Try it out!
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