11 ms·

Org mode 9.0 released

285 points by Philipp__ 10y ago

kozikow 10y ago
Curiously to try it! > New option org-attach-commit > When non-nil, commit attachments with git, assuming the document is in a git repository. Anyone knows if it would work with org-store-link in magit? That would be handy.
superflit 10y ago
I really recommend everyone to try it. The power of org mode lies in its simplicity. No fancy gui, not too many features but allows creating and extending. When you need to be productive you need a simple tool so you do not spend your time being busy instead of working
- berntb 10y ago
  "Simplicity"?! <Cough> It took me quite a few hours to learn. :-) At first, I was a bit frustrated and thought "Because of recommendations, I just spent X hours learning a tool where the GUI applications can be learned in minutes?! Was this a good use of my life?" Then I realized the usability I had -- and that it was the closest thing I ever got to paper and pencil with a keyboard; I didn't need to think so it was not in the way when I wrote down notes. Still use it.
  - mikekchar 10y ago
    Yes, another classic case of "ease of use" vs "ease of learning". It's easy to conflate the terms (and most people usually mean "ease of learning" when they say "ease of use"). I'm with you, though. I wouldn't call it simple, but man is it easy to use.
    - wodenokoto 10y ago
      This reminds me of something a guitar playing friend of mine once said, when asked to play something difficult: "Nothing is difficult if you practice it enough"
      - berntb 10y ago
        What the GP was referencing was the old argument of us Emacs users: "There is a difference with efficiency of easy learning and efficiency when using". It implies that the cost of learning Emacs is small, per year of bliss using it. (Why would you downgrade to something else if you know Emacs?) I guess, something like this for a musician: "This was a hard piece of music to learn, but it is sure to get me laid many times." :-) (Sorry about the preconceived opinion about why people learn to play an instrument, it is obviously jealousy since I can't even clap hands to most of my favorite music. :-) )
        jeremiep 10y ago
        Learning to play an instrument "to get laid" is a guaranteed way to be mediocre at said instrument :) Practicing for the wrong reasons is pretty much bad practice.
        berntb 10y ago
        Only joking, I know enough music people to get that a lot of musicians are nerdier than I am. But the music people I know would still have appreciated that joke, so either drink more coffee or sleep more? :-) (You could counter with "If those people knows you, then they obviously don't have much of a sense of humour anyway -- which is another proof of the heterogeneity of musicians backgrounds." :-) )
  - BeetleB 10y ago
    >"Simplicity"?! <Cough> It took me quite a few hours to learn. :-) For me, 7 years ago, it was literally: "Watch a 45 minute talk on it on Youtube, and I'm good to go" The learning curve is very shallow. You can do useful stuff with minimal learning. Once you start customizing, though, it takes more effort. Even that, initially, was just reading people's posts on how they customized it and tweaking that. Definitely not difficult to get into. Just don't do it by reading the manual. All Emacs manuals are written as references, not as manuals.
- _pmf_ 10y ago
  The export function is stellar (although I had to hack the OOo support to work on Windows); HTML exports look great (well, after using the right stylesheet). It's a really great way of bootstrapping/seeding presentations.
- CJefferson 10y ago
  While I agree with people trying it, I also just want to give the other side. I tried it for a few weeks, and stopped. For some people it is perfect, but I found it didn't integrate well with anything else. Like much of Emacs, it assumes you want to spend your whole life in org-mode. If that's not compatible with your life (and for me it's not. Sometimes I'm on another computer, sometimes an android device, sometimes in Eclipse), then org-mode will fight you constantly.
- peatmoss 10y ago
  I absolutely agree with this. And as reformed vi user and current emacs acolyte, everyone should use emacs for everything always. But... I really wish someone would spend some time building some first class alternative implementations of org-mode. I say this not because I want to escape emacs (I'll never go!), but because I wish org-mode would replace Markdown. It's a better format. People outside the emacs world just think I'm weird for using it. If Vim/Atom/Sublime/Eclipse/Netbeans/Etc all supported org as a format, then I wouldn't have to use anything else.
biomene 10y ago
I've tried to use org mode several times. Its functionality is truly great, but having to use emacs to use it is too much of a hurdle for me. I struggle to remember all the emacs key combinations, so in the end I just give up and revert to text files. It would be great if someone ported org mode out of emacs. I've tried the Sublime Text org mode package[0] but it's still too bare to be useful. Does anyone know of an alternative way to use it? [0]: https://github.com/danielmagnussons/orgmode https://github.com/danielmagnussons/orgmode
- Johnny_Brahms 10y ago
  Are you more of a vim person? If so, spacemacs might be something to use. Sure, it is slow and buggy in some rarely-used layers, but other than that it is a really neat experience. The org mode layer sees quite some love, and works well.
  - CJefferson 10y ago
    I tried spacemacs for a month, but the problem is reading vim guides doesn't quite work, reading emacs guides doesn't quite work, and there isn't good enough spacemacs documentation.
    - ane 10y ago
      You can try evil-mode which is just the vi interface, Spacemacs is more of a packaged solution that happens to include the vi interface. Having used vi interfaces in other editors (VS, IntelliJ, Eclipse, NetBeans, Atom, Sublime, VSCode, etc.), based on my experiences, evil gives the most accurate vim experience.
      - flukus 10y ago
        The other editors don't have modes in the same way the emacs does though. What I find frustrating is if your in the package manager mode for example, then your keybindings break. Spacemacs improves this for some modes, but it still won't allow custom bindings in any/most of them.
jiehong 10y ago
The page doesn't show the changes for 9.0 for me yet. Here is a link to the git repository of the org-file containing those changes: http://orgmode.org/cgit.cgi/org-mode.git/plain/etc/ORG-NEWS http://orgmode.org/cgit.cgi/org-mode.git/plain/etc/ORG-NEWS
Wonnk13 10y ago
anyone have any good introduction tutorials for 1. org agenda integration into their todo lists 2. babel mode? i'd love to integrate code into some of study guides for interviews love emacs, but i never feel like im using more than 1% of org mode's potential.
- mcshicks 10y ago
  I like this one. You don't have to do the whole thing just start taking pieces of his init file and adding them as you want to try things. http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html
- mjhoy 10y ago
  For 1: I think the best way to start is to simply schedule your important TODOs (C-c C-s), so that you see them on the weekly agenda view. This is how I started, and then I slowly started to incorporate things like tags when I realized I needed some more organization. (And make sure to add your org files to `org-agenda-files`.)
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages.html http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages.html That's a mostly up-to-date list of supported languages, with links to example usage. Technically, org-babel will support any language, but some have more interoperability with the overall system than others. At the simplest, you'll get syntax highlighting, tangle, and noweb support. At the most complex, you can execute them inside emacs/org and get the results, feed those into more blocks, etc. (making it very much like a python notebook or similar concept, but for any supported language). You can even see the org file generating each of those pages.
bachmeier 10y ago
Reading through the list of changes, I am very happy that I moved away from org mode. - New syntax for export blocks - org-file-apps no longer accepts S-expressions as commands - Preparation and completion functions in publishing projects change signature - Old Babel header properties are no longer supported So in other words, for the classes I teach every two years, I can forget about being able to open up my previous files and have them just work. This was a constant battle and is pretty much unique to org mode.
- Veen 10y ago
  What do you use instead of org mode?
  - bachmeier 10y ago
    For lecture notes/papers/website documents, a system of Pandoc and scripts does all that I need (usually Pandoc is sufficient). For my calendar, first I moved to the system that came with my email, then eventually to a small script I wrote so I could have things the way I like.
    - tmalsburg2 10y ago
      Org supports literate programming and that's what makes it so attractive for writing teaching materials. Pandoc only gives me static documents.
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    All though not a direct replacement I use use a program called CherryTree which is amazing, it does all the usual stuff (hierarchical notes) etc, what I really like is you can do everything from the keyboard and it allows you to embed code and stuff as well. Don't be put off by the website the product is much better than the site would imply. http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/ http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/ One of the things I like is that you can store notes in an SQLite DB and that makes syncing easy via Dropbox, if you pass it the path to the storage file on the CLI it will open that as well so I have it bound to a hotkey combination which lets me quickly open it, edit and close so it stays out the way when I don't need it and is there when I do.
_asummers 10y ago
Anyone have any org-mode config settings that they've found invaluable? I finally have my normal emacs config mostly working how I want it, so why not go in and add more stuff to it with org-mode!
- nextos 10y ago
  I use org-mode's agenda as kanban board, so adding a global shortcut for agenda is invaluable. Also more states. And I typically use a blank line between tree branches. Without altering org-cycle-separator-lines, it will be eaten up by last leaf of previous branch which I found annoying. Apart from that their defaults are pretty good. (use-package org :bind ("C-c a" . org-agenda) :config (progn (setq org-agenda-files '("~/org")) (setq org-cycle-separator-lines 1) (setq org-todo-keywords '((type "TODO" "PROG" "WAIT" "|" "DONE"))) (setq org-todo-keyword-faces '(("TODO" . "brightblack") ("WAIT" . "yellow")))))
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Excerpts from my org-mode configuration: https://gist.github.com/TeMPOraL/a25fbf499e295537fa80e525fcceebf3 https://gist.github.com/TeMPOraL/a25fbf499e295537fa80e525fcc... As you can tell, I'm a huge user of agenda and org-capture, and also keep my org files synced via Dropbox. I don't document my configs much, so friendly reminder for readers of mine (and others) - you can find documentation for any variable from within Emacs, by pressing C-h v (or M-x describe-variable), and for any function by pressing C-h f (or M-x describe-function). try-load-and-configure-library is a small macro I wrote long before I found out about use-package. (defmacro try-load-and-configure-library (lib &rest configuration) (declare (indent defun)) `(when (locate-library (symbol-name ,lib)) (require ,lib) ,@configuration))
- shoover 10y ago
  There are many, but here are a few. In the org files, to collapse and clean up the outline visuals: #+STARTUP: hidestars indent overview In init.el (see [1] for define-keys macro): (define-keys org-mode-map ("\C-cl" . 'org-store-link) ("\C-cw" . 'copy-org-link-at-point) ;; Make links work like chasing definitions in source code. ("\M-." . 'org-open-at-point) ("\M-," . 'org-mark-ring-goto)) A helper [2] to quickly export a subtree to HTML is very handy. [1]: https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749bfc1205f8216b7a5f4af5bb/modes.el?at=default&fileviewer=file-view-default#modes.el-3 https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749b... [2]: https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749bfc1205f8216b7a5f4af5bb/lisp/my-org-helpers.el?at=default&fileviewer=file-view-default#my-org-helpers.el-118 https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749b...
mjhoy 10y ago
I love Org mostly for its ability to link to stuff. In my mind it's the big feature that sets it apart from using, say, a separate application to do my task management. For instance: - When I'm reading email (in emacs), I can quickly create a TODO that links back to the current email I'm reading (most of my TODOs, in fact, link to an email, so this is very useful), - For my org file where I keep notes about the servers I'm running, I might link to a specific line on a remote apache config, - For a bug report I might link to a specific git commit in a project to look at later Any TODO that is important gets scheduled, so that it is linked to from the agenda view. In this way it's very hard for me to lose track of anything, despite most of my work communication happening through email. In fact I now prefer email over using something like Basecamp, because org makes it easier for me to manage!
- Fice 10y ago
  Because Emacs is an OS the way it should be — an extensible system with a unified UI instead of a pile of separate and hardly interoperable applications.
  - dorfsmay 10y ago
    So a step further would be a way to link outside a given OS/machine, so URIs basically. The parent poster does have a point though, we don't have URI for emails...
    - NoGravitas 10y ago
      We have message-ids, but those only let you find a message if you already know how to find a message store that contains it. Add an imap server name and user id, and you're most of the way there...
    - mjhoy 10y ago
      Well. org-mode has its own extensible URI system of sorts. My email links are formatted mu4e:msgid:<message identifier>. My git links are magit:<project path>::commit@<git SHA>. Remote files are just file:/ssh:<user>@<server>:<remote path>. You could write your own for whatever you want, gmail links say (although then you could just use a plain old HTTP link).
melling 10y ago
I'm a fan of using org mode files on Github. Hopefully, Github continues to expand org support: https://github.com/melling/ios_topics/blob/master/README.org https://github.com/melling/ios_topics/blob/master/README.org https://github.com/melling/ComputerLanguages https://github.com/melling/ComputerLanguages https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/README.org https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/README...
SnowingXIV 10y ago
More and more I keep wanting to try emacs or vim, because nothing else seems to work as far as productivity. I've tried Evernote and a bunch of other applications, nothing seems to be useful (to me). I always stick to my notepads of paper and pens, that may never change. I do mostly front end work, so the tools I'm constantly in is in iTerm 2, Adobe products, Mail, Sublime, and Transmit for SFTP. Would there be any benefit of spending time learning these? Where does one even begin?
- hackd 10y ago
  Checkout the sftp package for sublime, very useful.
- mjhoy 10y ago
  > nothing else seems to work as far as productivity What doesn't work, exactly? If you're trying to replace note taking on paper, you might want to dip a toe into Emacs and org-mode land and see how it feels. (My suggestion is to just start out slowly and play around with it.) If you don't feel productive in just manipulating text, I'd check out vim. It really is the superior text editor! Personally, I think you should begin with plain ole emacs, and start with the emacs tutorial, and work your way up from there. Once you're comfortable navigating buffers, creating files, and reading emacs manuals, check out the org mode manual. If you find yourself intrigued, you'll dig deeper.
  - SnowingXIV 10y ago
    > What doesn't work, exactly? Bunch of logins, trying to sync with devices, I fail to use it because it's a lot easier to think clearly with writing things out. Thanks for the suggestion, I think you're right and instead of looking at all the big packages just go vanilla.
- gkya 10y ago
  Start Emacs, hit Ctrl-h and then t (C-h t in emacs lingo). Brings up the tutorial, it's a quick intro to editing. Now open an org mode file, and open the Org mode info manual: Ctrl-h and then i, then m, which'll bring up a prompt, type "org" and hit enter (C-h i m org RET). By time you'll find your way to use it. Both emacs and org-mode lend themselves to excessive customisation, and learning a bit of Elisp unlocks incredible power. There are a myriad of packages and tens of starter kits like Spacemacs out there, it's quite possible that looking at these, one does not know where to start. I suggest you start with vanilla emacs and build up your personal and most-fitting experience. Takes some time but definitely worth it. It's like a city, you may have read ten tourist guides, but until you go out there and explore, you know nothing. That said, this is my set of most basic "sanitisation settings" for emacs: (setf ;; Always open a new buffer if default is occupied. async-shell-command-buffer 'new-buffer ;; UI. visible-bell t uniquify-buffer-name-style 'forward save-interprogram-paste-before-kill t font-lock-maximum-decoration nil ;; Search help more extensively. apropos-do-all t ;; Ignore case when completing file names in minibuffer. read-file-name-completion-ignore-case t read-buffer-completion-ignore-case t completion-ignore-case t completion-styles '(initials substring partial-completion) find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings t enable-recursive-minibuffers t ;; Save bookmarks after each bookmark command. bookmark-save-flag t ;; Do not ring the bell when killing in r/o buffers, put the ;; kill in the kill ring but do not modify the buffer. kill-read-only-ok t ;; Search modes default to regexps. search-default-mode t) (setq-default save-place t)
massysett 10y ago
What are Org users doing for mobile access? Using the phone to ssh to an emacs? Using mobile org? I also saw an Org plugin for an iOS editor. How do you keep it synched? I need tasklists to be accessible on the phone.
- shoover 10y ago
  I was never happy with the workflow of automatically syncing mobile org, so I gave up. A scheduled task on the desktop exports org to HTML in a Dropbox folder. Read-only HTML on mobile is good enough for my use in most cases. I capture with Google Keep if needed.
  - mwfogleman 10y ago
    How do you schedule that task?
    - shoover 10y ago
      Windows Task Scheduler and a script wrapping an emacs batch command. https://bitbucket.org/snippets/shoover/ggM5z https://bitbucket.org/snippets/shoover/ggM5z Alternately, you can invoke the org project/publish system.:https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749bfc1205f8216b7a5f4af5bb/lisp/publish-org-dirs.el?at=default&fileviewer=file-view-default https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749b...
- zaphar 10y ago
  Mobile Org actually works pretty decent at least for my purposes.
- vvvpqsw 10y ago
  I'm running emacs on android using termux, and using dropbox for syncronization. It works great, emacs run better in android than in my desktop.
- iLemming 10y ago
  Orgzly on Android
vittore 10y ago
I don't know how I've never heard of it, but now I know what are those .org files. Can anyone explain what's big win with org vs say markdown?
- peatmoss 10y ago
  For me, the biggie is better embedded code support. For example, with RMarkdown, I can embed chunks of... R code in Markdown and have them executed with results put in line. Org mode, by contrast, has had support for dozens of languages for quite some time. Beyond that, flexibility in rendered output formats. Markdown doesn't really provide any mechanisms for when you want some things to be different between the HTML and LaTeX -> PDF output. Org-mode supports multi output format issues quite neatly. Little things such as supporting in-document cross references work in Org-mode, but not Markdown. If you've ever needed to do something like "As seen in Figure [X]", know that with Markdown you'll be doing some hacks. Org-mode? Just works.
  - vittore 10y ago
    Thank you! btw I was sure that MD has in-doc references, just never really used them myself.
SZJX 10y ago
The most crucial thing for me is the inheritance of org-block face by src-blocks. Now finally I'm once again able to use fixed-width font for all codes and variable-width font for all normal notes, which greatly optimizes the reading experience. This has been an issue since org 8.2.1

285 points by Philipp__ 10y ago

Curiously to try it! > New option org-attach-commit > When non-nil, commit attachments with git, assuming the document is in a git repository. Anyone knows if it would work with org-store-link in magit? That would be handy.

superflit 10y ago

I really recommend everyone to try it. The power of org mode lies in its simplicity. No fancy gui, not too many features but allows creating and extending. When you need to be productive you need a simple tool so you do not spend your time being busy instead of working

berntb 10y ago
"Simplicity"?! <Cough> It took me quite a few hours to learn. :-) At first, I was a bit frustrated and thought "Because of recommendations, I just spent X hours learning a tool where the GUI applications can be learned in minutes?! Was this a good use of my life?" Then I realized the usability I had -- and that it was the closest thing I ever got to paper and pencil with a keyboard; I didn't need to think so it was not in the way when I wrote down notes. Still use it.
- mikekchar 10y ago
  Yes, another classic case of "ease of use" vs "ease of learning". It's easy to conflate the terms (and most people usually mean "ease of learning" when they say "ease of use"). I'm with you, though. I wouldn't call it simple, but man is it easy to use.
  - wodenokoto 10y ago
    This reminds me of something a guitar playing friend of mine once said, when asked to play something difficult: "Nothing is difficult if you practice it enough"
    - berntb 10y ago
      What the GP was referencing was the old argument of us Emacs users: "There is a difference with efficiency of easy learning and efficiency when using". It implies that the cost of learning Emacs is small, per year of bliss using it. (Why would you downgrade to something else if you know Emacs?) I guess, something like this for a musician: "This was a hard piece of music to learn, but it is sure to get me laid many times." :-) (Sorry about the preconceived opinion about why people learn to play an instrument, it is obviously jealousy since I can't even clap hands to most of my favorite music. :-) )
      - jeremiep 10y ago
        Learning to play an instrument "to get laid" is a guaranteed way to be mediocre at said instrument :) Practicing for the wrong reasons is pretty much bad practice.
        berntb 10y ago
        Only joking, I know enough music people to get that a lot of musicians are nerdier than I am. But the music people I know would still have appreciated that joke, so either drink more coffee or sleep more? :-) (You could counter with "If those people knows you, then they obviously don't have much of a sense of humour anyway -- which is another proof of the heterogeneity of musicians backgrounds." :-) )
- BeetleB 10y ago
  >"Simplicity"?! <Cough> It took me quite a few hours to learn. :-) For me, 7 years ago, it was literally: "Watch a 45 minute talk on it on Youtube, and I'm good to go" The learning curve is very shallow. You can do useful stuff with minimal learning. Once you start customizing, though, it takes more effort. Even that, initially, was just reading people's posts on how they customized it and tweaking that. Definitely not difficult to get into. Just don't do it by reading the manual. All Emacs manuals are written as references, not as manuals.
_pmf_ 10y ago
The export function is stellar (although I had to hack the OOo support to work on Windows); HTML exports look great (well, after using the right stylesheet). It's a really great way of bootstrapping/seeding presentations.
CJefferson 10y ago
While I agree with people trying it, I also just want to give the other side. I tried it for a few weeks, and stopped. For some people it is perfect, but I found it didn't integrate well with anything else. Like much of Emacs, it assumes you want to spend your whole life in org-mode. If that's not compatible with your life (and for me it's not. Sometimes I'm on another computer, sometimes an android device, sometimes in Eclipse), then org-mode will fight you constantly.
peatmoss 10y ago
I absolutely agree with this. And as reformed vi user and current emacs acolyte, everyone should use emacs for everything always. But... I really wish someone would spend some time building some first class alternative implementations of org-mode. I say this not because I want to escape emacs (I'll never go!), but because I wish org-mode would replace Markdown. It's a better format. People outside the emacs world just think I'm weird for using it. If Vim/Atom/Sublime/Eclipse/Netbeans/Etc all supported org as a format, then I wouldn't have to use anything else.

biomene 10y ago

I've tried to use org mode several times. Its functionality is truly great, but having to use emacs to use it is too much of a hurdle for me. I struggle to remember all the emacs key combinations, so in the end I just give up and revert to text files. It would be great if someone ported org mode out of emacs. I've tried the Sublime Text org mode package[0] but it's still too bare to be useful. Does anyone know of an alternative way to use it? [0]: https://github.com/danielmagnussons/orgmode https://github.com/danielmagnussons/orgmode

Johnny_Brahms 10y ago
Are you more of a vim person? If so, spacemacs might be something to use. Sure, it is slow and buggy in some rarely-used layers, but other than that it is a really neat experience. The org mode layer sees quite some love, and works well.
- CJefferson 10y ago
  I tried spacemacs for a month, but the problem is reading vim guides doesn't quite work, reading emacs guides doesn't quite work, and there isn't good enough spacemacs documentation.
  - ane 10y ago
    You can try evil-mode which is just the vi interface, Spacemacs is more of a packaged solution that happens to include the vi interface. Having used vi interfaces in other editors (VS, IntelliJ, Eclipse, NetBeans, Atom, Sublime, VSCode, etc.), based on my experiences, evil gives the most accurate vim experience.
    - flukus 10y ago
      The other editors don't have modes in the same way the emacs does though. What I find frustrating is if your in the package manager mode for example, then your keybindings break. Spacemacs improves this for some modes, but it still won't allow custom bindings in any/most of them.

jiehong 10y ago

The page doesn't show the changes for 9.0 for me yet. Here is a link to the git repository of the org-file containing those changes: http://orgmode.org/cgit.cgi/org-mode.git/plain/etc/ORG-NEWS http://orgmode.org/cgit.cgi/org-mode.git/plain/etc/ORG-NEWS

Wonnk13 10y ago

anyone have any good introduction tutorials for 1. org agenda integration into their todo lists 2. babel mode? i'd love to integrate code into some of study guides for interviews love emacs, but i never feel like im using more than 1% of org mode's potential.

mcshicks 10y ago
I like this one. You don't have to do the whole thing just start taking pieces of his init file and adding them as you want to try things. http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html
mjhoy 10y ago
For 1: I think the best way to start is to simply schedule your important TODOs (C-c C-s), so that you see them on the weekly agenda view. This is how I started, and then I slowly started to incorporate things like tags when I realized I needed some more organization. (And make sure to add your org files to `org-agenda-files`.)
Jtsummers 10y ago
http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages.html http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages.html That's a mostly up-to-date list of supported languages, with links to example usage. Technically, org-babel will support any language, but some have more interoperability with the overall system than others. At the simplest, you'll get syntax highlighting, tangle, and noweb support. At the most complex, you can execute them inside emacs/org and get the results, feed those into more blocks, etc. (making it very much like a python notebook or similar concept, but for any supported language). You can even see the org file generating each of those pages.

bachmeier 10y ago

Reading through the list of changes, I am very happy that I moved away from org mode. - New syntax for export blocks - org-file-apps no longer accepts S-expressions as commands - Preparation and completion functions in publishing projects change signature - Old Babel header properties are no longer supported So in other words, for the classes I teach every two years, I can forget about being able to open up my previous files and have them just work. This was a constant battle and is pretty much unique to org mode.

Veen 10y ago
What do you use instead of org mode?
- bachmeier 10y ago
  For lecture notes/papers/website documents, a system of Pandoc and scripts does all that I need (usually Pandoc is sufficient). For my calendar, first I moved to the system that came with my email, then eventually to a small script I wrote so I could have things the way I like.
  - tmalsburg2 10y ago
    Org supports literate programming and that's what makes it so attractive for writing teaching materials. Pandoc only gives me static documents.
- noir_lord 10y ago
  All though not a direct replacement I use use a program called CherryTree which is amazing, it does all the usual stuff (hierarchical notes) etc, what I really like is you can do everything from the keyboard and it allows you to embed code and stuff as well. Don't be put off by the website the product is much better than the site would imply. http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/ http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/ One of the things I like is that you can store notes in an SQLite DB and that makes syncing easy via Dropbox, if you pass it the path to the storage file on the CLI it will open that as well so I have it bound to a hotkey combination which lets me quickly open it, edit and close so it stays out the way when I don't need it and is there when I do.

_asummers 10y ago

Anyone have any org-mode config settings that they've found invaluable? I finally have my normal emacs config mostly working how I want it, so why not go in and add more stuff to it with org-mode!

nextos 10y ago
I use org-mode's agenda as kanban board, so adding a global shortcut for agenda is invaluable. Also more states. And I typically use a blank line between tree branches. Without altering org-cycle-separator-lines, it will be eaten up by last leaf of previous branch which I found annoying. Apart from that their defaults are pretty good. (use-package org :bind ("C-c a" . org-agenda) :config (progn (setq org-agenda-files '("~/org")) (setq org-cycle-separator-lines 1) (setq org-todo-keywords '((type "TODO" "PROG" "WAIT" "|" "DONE"))) (setq org-todo-keyword-faces '(("TODO" . "brightblack") ("WAIT" . "yellow")))))
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Excerpts from my org-mode configuration: https://gist.github.com/TeMPOraL/a25fbf499e295537fa80e525fcceebf3 https://gist.github.com/TeMPOraL/a25fbf499e295537fa80e525fcc... As you can tell, I'm a huge user of agenda and org-capture, and also keep my org files synced via Dropbox. I don't document my configs much, so friendly reminder for readers of mine (and others) - you can find documentation for any variable from within Emacs, by pressing C-h v (or M-x describe-variable), and for any function by pressing C-h f (or M-x describe-function). try-load-and-configure-library is a small macro I wrote long before I found out about use-package. (defmacro try-load-and-configure-library (lib &rest configuration) (declare (indent defun)) `(when (locate-library (symbol-name ,lib)) (require ,lib) ,@configuration))
shoover 10y ago
There are many, but here are a few. In the org files, to collapse and clean up the outline visuals: #+STARTUP: hidestars indent overview In init.el (see [1] for define-keys macro): (define-keys org-mode-map ("\C-cl" . 'org-store-link) ("\C-cw" . 'copy-org-link-at-point) ;; Make links work like chasing definitions in source code. ("\M-." . 'org-open-at-point) ("\M-," . 'org-mark-ring-goto)) A helper [2] to quickly export a subtree to HTML is very handy. [1]: https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749bfc1205f8216b7a5f4af5bb/modes.el?at=default&fileviewer=file-view-default#modes.el-3 https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749b... [2]: https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749bfc1205f8216b7a5f4af5bb/lisp/my-org-helpers.el?at=default&fileviewer=file-view-default#my-org-helpers.el-118 https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749b...

mjhoy 10y ago

I love Org mostly for its ability to link to stuff. In my mind it's the big feature that sets it apart from using, say, a separate application to do my task management. For instance: - When I'm reading email (in emacs), I can quickly create a TODO that links back to the current email I'm reading (most of my TODOs, in fact, link to an email, so this is very useful), - For my org file where I keep notes about the servers I'm running, I might link to a specific line on a remote apache config, - For a bug report I might link to a specific git commit in a project to look at later Any TODO that is important gets scheduled, so that it is linked to from the agenda view. In this way it's very hard for me to lose track of anything, despite most of my work communication happening through email. In fact I now prefer email over using something like Basecamp, because org makes it easier for me to manage!

Fice 10y ago
Because Emacs is an OS the way it should be — an extensible system with a unified UI instead of a pile of separate and hardly interoperable applications.
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  So a step further would be a way to link outside a given OS/machine, so URIs basically. The parent poster does have a point though, we don't have URI for emails...
  - NoGravitas 10y ago
    We have message-ids, but those only let you find a message if you already know how to find a message store that contains it. Add an imap server name and user id, and you're most of the way there...
  - mjhoy 10y ago
    Well. org-mode has its own extensible URI system of sorts. My email links are formatted mu4e:msgid:<message identifier>. My git links are magit:<project path>::commit@<git SHA>. Remote files are just file:/ssh:<user>@<server>:<remote path>. You could write your own for whatever you want, gmail links say (although then you could just use a plain old HTTP link).

melling 10y ago

I'm a fan of using org mode files on Github. Hopefully, Github continues to expand org support: https://github.com/melling/ios_topics/blob/master/README.org https://github.com/melling/ios_topics/blob/master/README.org https://github.com/melling/ComputerLanguages https://github.com/melling/ComputerLanguages https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/README.org https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/README...

SnowingXIV 10y ago

More and more I keep wanting to try emacs or vim, because nothing else seems to work as far as productivity. I've tried Evernote and a bunch of other applications, nothing seems to be useful (to me). I always stick to my notepads of paper and pens, that may never change. I do mostly front end work, so the tools I'm constantly in is in iTerm 2, Adobe products, Mail, Sublime, and Transmit for SFTP. Would there be any benefit of spending time learning these? Where does one even begin?

hackd 10y ago
Checkout the sftp package for sublime, very useful.
mjhoy 10y ago
> nothing else seems to work as far as productivity What doesn't work, exactly? If you're trying to replace note taking on paper, you might want to dip a toe into Emacs and org-mode land and see how it feels. (My suggestion is to just start out slowly and play around with it.) If you don't feel productive in just manipulating text, I'd check out vim. It really is the superior text editor! Personally, I think you should begin with plain ole emacs, and start with the emacs tutorial, and work your way up from there. Once you're comfortable navigating buffers, creating files, and reading emacs manuals, check out the org mode manual. If you find yourself intrigued, you'll dig deeper.
- SnowingXIV 10y ago
  > What doesn't work, exactly? Bunch of logins, trying to sync with devices, I fail to use it because it's a lot easier to think clearly with writing things out. Thanks for the suggestion, I think you're right and instead of looking at all the big packages just go vanilla.
gkya 10y ago
Start Emacs, hit Ctrl-h and then t (C-h t in emacs lingo). Brings up the tutorial, it's a quick intro to editing. Now open an org mode file, and open the Org mode info manual: Ctrl-h and then i, then m, which'll bring up a prompt, type "org" and hit enter (C-h i m org RET). By time you'll find your way to use it. Both emacs and org-mode lend themselves to excessive customisation, and learning a bit of Elisp unlocks incredible power. There are a myriad of packages and tens of starter kits like Spacemacs out there, it's quite possible that looking at these, one does not know where to start. I suggest you start with vanilla emacs and build up your personal and most-fitting experience. Takes some time but definitely worth it. It's like a city, you may have read ten tourist guides, but until you go out there and explore, you know nothing. That said, this is my set of most basic "sanitisation settings" for emacs: (setf ;; Always open a new buffer if default is occupied. async-shell-command-buffer 'new-buffer ;; UI. visible-bell t uniquify-buffer-name-style 'forward save-interprogram-paste-before-kill t font-lock-maximum-decoration nil ;; Search help more extensively. apropos-do-all t ;; Ignore case when completing file names in minibuffer. read-file-name-completion-ignore-case t read-buffer-completion-ignore-case t completion-ignore-case t completion-styles '(initials substring partial-completion) find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings t enable-recursive-minibuffers t ;; Save bookmarks after each bookmark command. bookmark-save-flag t ;; Do not ring the bell when killing in r/o buffers, put the ;; kill in the kill ring but do not modify the buffer. kill-read-only-ok t ;; Search modes default to regexps. search-default-mode t) (setq-default save-place t)

massysett 10y ago

What are Org users doing for mobile access? Using the phone to ssh to an emacs? Using mobile org? I also saw an Org plugin for an iOS editor. How do you keep it synched? I need tasklists to be accessible on the phone.

shoover 10y ago
I was never happy with the workflow of automatically syncing mobile org, so I gave up. A scheduled task on the desktop exports org to HTML in a Dropbox folder. Read-only HTML on mobile is good enough for my use in most cases. I capture with Google Keep if needed.
- mwfogleman 10y ago
  How do you schedule that task?
  - shoover 10y ago
    Windows Task Scheduler and a script wrapping an emacs batch command. https://bitbucket.org/snippets/shoover/ggM5z https://bitbucket.org/snippets/shoover/ggM5z Alternately, you can invoke the org project/publish system.:https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749bfc1205f8216b7a5f4af5bb/lisp/publish-org-dirs.el?at=default&fileviewer=file-view-default https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749b...
zaphar 10y ago
Mobile Org actually works pretty decent at least for my purposes.
vvvpqsw 10y ago
I'm running emacs on android using termux, and using dropbox for syncronization. It works great, emacs run better in android than in my desktop.
iLemming 10y ago
Orgzly on Android

vittore 10y ago

I don't know how I've never heard of it, but now I know what are those .org files. Can anyone explain what's big win with org vs say markdown?

peatmoss 10y ago
For me, the biggie is better embedded code support. For example, with RMarkdown, I can embed chunks of... R code in Markdown and have them executed with results put in line. Org mode, by contrast, has had support for dozens of languages for quite some time. Beyond that, flexibility in rendered output formats. Markdown doesn't really provide any mechanisms for when you want some things to be different between the HTML and LaTeX -> PDF output. Org-mode supports multi output format issues quite neatly. Little things such as supporting in-document cross references work in Org-mode, but not Markdown. If you've ever needed to do something like "As seen in Figure [X]", know that with Markdown you'll be doing some hacks. Org-mode? Just works.
- vittore 10y ago
  Thank you! btw I was sure that MD has in-doc references, just never really used them myself.

SZJX 10y ago

The most crucial thing for me is the inheritance of org-block face by src-blocks. Now finally I'm once again able to use fixed-width font for all codes and variable-width font for all normal notes, which greatly optimizes the reading experience. This has been an issue since org 8.2.1