Grokking Org-mode and putting it in charge | Hacker News Reader

Grokking Org-mode and putting it in charge

old.blog.sean.whitton.me

48 pointscodeup21 comments

I basically live my life inside org-mode and I love reading well written stuff about how others use org-mode since I always find new ways of doing things, and new stuff that can be done in org-mode.

The slogan of the good old board game othello comes to mind; A minute to learn. A lifetime to master.

So far the most advanced thing I do is my org-mode-blog: I create a blog entry directly in emacs, or from conkeror including the URL of the page I'm on. I write it in org-mode. It gets git-ed to my server that has a submit hook that publishes it directly to my blog through jekyll.

So thanks for the submission. I skimmed through it, but I will read it again on the bus home this evening.

I keep seeing long articles about org-mode, but nothing very helpful to use it.

It tried downloading it once and it didn't seem to come with any useful documentation, and as a non-emacs users, couldn't really even make it "start", never mind do anything useful.

As a non-emacs, non-lisp users, is this really worth trying to learn? And if so, how can I get started with something small and useful?

Try this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4940680/i-want-to-try-org...

> As a non-emacs, non-lisp users, is this really worth trying to learn?

I've been using org for about 2 years to take notes... I've taken several hundred pages worth of notes using it by now. I've been using it for about a month as my task / appointment manager, and I'm impressed by its flexibility.

I was in the same spot when I started because there's a lot of things that Org is capable of. I used the following resources when I was learning Org. You might find them helpful:

1. Carsten Dominick (lead dev of Org-Mode) talks about Org at Google: http://orgmode.org/talks/index.html#sec-1

2. "Power users describe their setup" section on the worg tutorial list: http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/index.html

By this point, you'll have atleast some idea about how org can be used. If you decide to delve in further:

3. Sacha Chua's blog posts on Org-Mode: http://sachachua.com/blog/

4. Org compact guide: http://orgmode.org/guide/index.html

If you happen to be a Vim user, and in the mood to try a bleeding-edge project, you might find this nascent Org-mode clone interesting:

https://github.com/hsitz/VimOrganizer http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3342

Or you could use the Viper and Vimpulse packages to enable Vi style emulation in Emacs.

Would I notice any differences? Does it still feel like vim?

I tried this for a while and there were little things that drove me crazy. I can't remember the exact issues I had, but I'm sure other long time Vimmers would have some problems. I just found myself having to look up "why is this command xyz not doing what I expect in Viper mode" all the time. YMMV

Emacs could be a stumbling block, but you don't need to learn lisp to use org mode. I initially ran into the same problem of getting to the point where I could follow a tutorial, so here's a 2 minute quick start. The next paragraph guides you through making your first org outline, and should leave you with the tip of the iceberg and a snorkel.

Once you have org installed, hit "Control-x f" to open/create a file, and name one "orgtest.org". Type "* first header" -- if it doesn't turn blue, type "alt-x org-mode" to turn on org-mode. Now type "alt-enter", then hit tab a few times -- it should change the number of stars (level of indentation). Leave it with two stars. Type "take dog to park" on that line, now hit "control-c control-t" several times. It should cycle through a todo/done tag. Hit a regular enter this time, and type "remember your frisbee". Type "control-c control-s"; a calender should pop up, click on tomorrow's date. Now type shift-tab a few times and watch the outline fold/unfold.

Note that the date line and TODO tag are plain text, as is the entire .org file. It could be helpful to think of org-mode as a code editor and interpreter for org markup.

I believe the above should take you to the point where you can follow org-mode tutorials and reference material, although if you decide to really dive in you should probably take some time to learn emacs as well.

It's funny. I've been using Emacs as my sole editor for about 8 months now, but I still haven't been able to reach enlightenment with org-mode. I have it installed, and I occasionally use it for todo lists, but I guess I'm just not good enough with it to see its value.

I think the main stumbling block is the documentation (as with most things Emacs). There needs to be some use cases or something. Even the enthusiastic bloggers never seen to give concrete examples. The best advertisement for org-mode I've seen is this long Google Tech Talk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJTwQvgfgMM&hd=1

I've been using Emacs as my editor for 8 years, and I don't get org-mode.

M-x org-mode and just start typing. Hyperlinks are clickable. Add a check lists.

- [ ] Read Hacker News; C-c C-c when complete

- [ ] Write blog

* More readable links

[[http://news.ycombinator.com][Hacker News]]

* Level I

* * Level II -- There are two asterisks with no space.

- [x] Write lesson one.

What I don't get is why it uses multiple asterisks for levels (and an ugly font-lock hack to hide all but the last):

    *    header
    **   second level
    ***  third level
    **** fourth level
    etc.

when it's feasible to set outline-regexp to

    " *[*+.-]"    ; broken out due to HN's formatting

and then just use spaces and asterisks (and dots, pluses, minuses, etc.) directly:

    *    header
     *   second
      *  third
       * fourth

org-mode is really powerful, but does so much that it's hard to learn upfront. I've used Emacs heavily for several years, but never quite gotten into it. I have my own variant (a thin extension to outline-mode), which uses the 10% of org-mode's functionality that I actually care about.

Lines with multiple asterisks mean something different from outlines marked with spaces and asterisks (or hyphens, or numbers). You can only put a TODO, a priority, or a tag on a line with multiple asterisks. The spaces-plus-whatever lines are not meant for top-level tasks, but for little sublists.

I'm inclined to agree that it's a bit unsightly, but the font-lock hack works well enough for me, and I use the distinction in my outlines all the time.

I think that is a legacy of outline mode.

But not an inescapable one!

Haha, I get that part. I guess I don't understand the upside of keeping notes and todo lists on the computer.

I have flat lists of things in text files that I manage with Emacs, but it's stuff I only look at occasionally. I tried using org-mode, but I didn't see the big advantage over text files.

All the right now in-the-moment ideas and todos I write on paper, partly because I like to draw arrows between things.

This definitely rings true:

"...I tend to be rather cynical (wow! what a surprise!) about it all myself because it’s wonderfully easy to read about this stuff and feel better about yourself rather than actually do whatever it is you need to do."

This article is a bit long and waxes too philosophical for my tastes. But, from the author's screenshots, he spent a lot of time customizing it to do exactly what he needs — and that's great.

org-mode is awesome because it can be whatever you want it to be. I didn't write a single line of Elisp to customize it (except for a few small keybinding tweaks in my .emacs.d/init.el file). Even so, it serves perfectly as my personal, simple task list. I also share org-mode files, through Dropbox, with other people, and it works beautifully as a project documentation system, a shared task list, and a bug tracker. It saves a lot of time and trouble: no third-party paid services (other than Dropbox), almost no learning curve, no maintenance, no user management overhead, no vendor lock-in, and no proprietary file formats.

The great thing about org-mode being text based and easy to structure is that you can put anything and everything into it. As I get older and more forgetful I get better at recording all the details of projects so hopefully in a few years I will have my project context-switching time down to zero.

http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html is definitely the best introduction I've seen. I still don't use it as much as I'd like, but I'm slowly getting there.

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