5 ms·

Organice – Using Org mode from a smartphone or browser [video]

111 points by preek 7y ago

preek 7y ago
This is one of two lightning talks I was holding at EmacsConf 2019[1]. By now, organice has naturally evolved even further - for example it features WebDAV support. With that, organice can potentially be used with a multitude of synchronization backends: Client/Server services ownCloud, Nextcloud and Seafile, but also self hosted dedicated WebDAV servers like Apache or Nginx. 1. https://emacsconf.org/2019/schedule https://emacsconf.org/2019/schedule
- brudgers 7y ago
  As an org-mode user, it looks like a great project. The Youtube video might benefit from editing. The first four minutes don't tell me much about the product, what it does, and why someone should care. When something is awesome, or just useful, the maker's credentials don't matter very much. For users, the license is mostly irrelevant (philosophical commitments aside). Installation instructions are less important than helping users decide whether the product is worth installing. Put things in a hierarchy. First tell people what it is and what it can do. Link to download information. On the download page, link to more information about yourself. Make it easy for people to decide not to use it...most people don't use org-mode and that's ok, I guess.
  - preek 7y ago
    Thank you for the feedback. The video is of a lightning talk for EmacsConf and specifically tailored to this audience. For a general introduction, I'd choose your way, of course(;
- dcolkitt 7y ago
  Very cool. Thanks for making this. I'll definitely be installing it. Just an opinion, but I'd vote adding git as a backend option. I think it's pretty common for people to keep their org-mode files in a catchall repo.
  - RMPR 7y ago
    I agree with this, it's the same issue I have with the mobile app I'm using actually for org-mode: orgzly, I ended up syncing manually with the mobile app MGit.
- tomlong 7y ago
  I don't use organice, but I do keep my org files in WebDAV. I use fastmail anyway and I've ended up putting them in the WebDAV provided by them, having tried nextcloud amongst other things. It's a really good solution. My laptop loads the webdav on boot, and my phone app will load from a webdav share as well. I also keep my kdbx files stored like this.
  - rpdillon 7y ago
    I also use org mode, Fastmail, and I run a NextCloud instance. I'm OK using Fastmail's WebDAV, but I somewhat prefer the self-hosted aspect of NextCloud. Are you able to share any insights about why NextCloud didn't work for you? They might save me some effort!
    - tomlong 7y ago
      Sorry for late reply. It was just slow and unreliable. Probably as much down to the machine i ran it on as anything. It was also a while ago. I just found with fastmail it consistently just worked. Also I really need those passwords, and as much as they are backed up I preferred relying on FM than myself.
Groxx 7y ago
Tho I'll give this one a try too, I've been using Orgzly a fair bit and am mostly happy: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.orgzly https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.orgzly I haven't been able to find much else that supports org mode, except for emacs... which seems ridiculous, as a non-emacs-user. What is it that makes this one of the apparently-most-loved features, but so incredibly poorly supported externally?
- gonewest 7y ago
  I'd assume what makes alternate ports rare is the fact that the entire implementation is in elisp. So any alternate implementation has to start by finding (or implementing) a parser with good compatibility and maintainability.
  - Spivak 7y ago
    Orgzly does it well enough for simple cases but if you try to use it for much more than a basic notes/reminder system you’ll run up against limitations fast since a lot of useful behavior like complex date formats leverage the elisp hole to work.
    - Groxx 7y ago
      Out of curiosity: have an example? I've only used relatively-simple formats in queries, never in todos, haven't hit any issues yet. Seems like it'd probably be a parser limitation or something tho? Or are some of the formats lisp-code-like and need to be executed?
- AlexCoventry 7y ago
  Doesn't vim have an org extension?
  - rrix2 7y ago
    Vim has a syntax highlighter with little of the functionality that raises Org-mode above, say, markdown.
goblin89 7y ago
For those on iOS, I can thoroughly recommend the beorg app for using emacs org mode on the go. It integrates nicely into the OS, offering sync via iCloud Drive (Dropbox and others too, though I don’t use that) and showing notifications for deadlines or scheduled items. It doesn’t treat org-drill items specially and shows notifications when review is due, which is a mixed bag but not too annoying for me yet. My only minor gripe with beorg is that on save it loses blank lines between items, which I tend to add in desktop emacs for readability. I believe the author would have to rewrite the app with something like concrete or lossless syntax trees to avoid this.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- preek 7y ago
  For those curious, here's a comparison of organice and Beorg: https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/#beorg https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/#beorg
marcosdumay 7y ago
Does the project have a homepage? If I search for "organice android app" on DDG, it throws back links to organic chemistry apps. If I try it on Google, I get pages about organizing the android's screen.
- preek 7y ago
  It does have a homepage: https://organice.200ok.ch/ https://organice.200ok.ch/
insufferablejak 7y ago
I'm wondering why this looks exactly like https://org-web.org/ https://org-web.org/ Is there some implementation of an org mode front-end that both use?
- Groxx 7y ago
  Wow, yea, that's nearly identical. Main authors for both repos are the two repo-owners tho, so there's some kind of collab going on in any case: https://github.com/DanielDe/org-web/graphs/contributors https://github.com/DanielDe/org-web/graphs/contributors vs https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/graphs/contributors https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/graphs/contributors (and munen is the CEO of 200ok)
- ssivark 7y ago
  It's a fork of org-web. See the relevant section in the README: https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice#acknowledgment https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice#acknowledgment
vyuh 7y ago
Github: https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice Web Browser App: https://organice.200ok.ch/sample https://organice.200ok.ch/sample
burtonator 7y ago
God.. you guys just love org-mode! Every time I get Polar on hacker news I get another batch of request referencing org-mode. :)
onemoresoop 7y ago
This is fantastic. I was just looking at org mode the other day and am planning to start using it. Now with organice, I'll ramp up the effort to adopt orgmode. This is fantastic, snappy and simple. The arrow buttons are a great idea too.
taude 7y ago
Hey, this is pretty cool. Just checking it out. It would be nice if you didn't need to request Full Dropbox permission to only a specific folder or something. I think DropBox supports that these days. This way we don't have to give you cart-blanche to everything. Thanks. Edited: too many spelling and grammar errors at first pass.
- preek 7y ago
  Hi taude, OP here. You're not giving us carte-blance to anything. organice is a front-end only application. You're only connecting your browser to your dropbox. There's no back-end, no data is stored on our account and we don't have analytics.
  - taude 7y ago
    OK, makes sense, I think? But.... When connecting to DropBox, though, I am prompted from Dropbox with: "organice would like access to the files and folders in your Dropbox. Learn more" And going to DropBox readme on the topic: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/third-party/third-party-apps https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/third-party/t..., it talks about the different access scopes: select access, app folder, full access....
    - preek 7y ago
      Yes, _your_ Browser Running organice will have full access to your Dropbox. Nobody but you has access to your browser.
RMPR 7y ago
I wanted to try the mobile counterpart of the app but I'm not able to find it on F-Droid, do you plan to release it there ?

111 points by preek 7y ago

This is one of two lightning talks I was holding at EmacsConf 2019[1]. By now, organice has naturally evolved even further - for example it features WebDAV support. With that, organice can potentially be used with a multitude of synchronization backends: Client/Server services ownCloud, Nextcloud and Seafile, but also self hosted dedicated WebDAV servers like Apache or Nginx. 1. https://emacsconf.org/2019/schedule https://emacsconf.org/2019/schedule

brudgers 7y ago
As an org-mode user, it looks like a great project. The Youtube video might benefit from editing. The first four minutes don't tell me much about the product, what it does, and why someone should care. When something is awesome, or just useful, the maker's credentials don't matter very much. For users, the license is mostly irrelevant (philosophical commitments aside). Installation instructions are less important than helping users decide whether the product is worth installing. Put things in a hierarchy. First tell people what it is and what it can do. Link to download information. On the download page, link to more information about yourself. Make it easy for people to decide not to use it...most people don't use org-mode and that's ok, I guess.
- preek 7y ago
  Thank you for the feedback. The video is of a lightning talk for EmacsConf and specifically tailored to this audience. For a general introduction, I'd choose your way, of course(;
dcolkitt 7y ago
Very cool. Thanks for making this. I'll definitely be installing it. Just an opinion, but I'd vote adding git as a backend option. I think it's pretty common for people to keep their org-mode files in a catchall repo.
- RMPR 7y ago
  I agree with this, it's the same issue I have with the mobile app I'm using actually for org-mode: orgzly, I ended up syncing manually with the mobile app MGit.
tomlong 7y ago
I don't use organice, but I do keep my org files in WebDAV. I use fastmail anyway and I've ended up putting them in the WebDAV provided by them, having tried nextcloud amongst other things. It's a really good solution. My laptop loads the webdav on boot, and my phone app will load from a webdav share as well. I also keep my kdbx files stored like this.
- rpdillon 7y ago
  I also use org mode, Fastmail, and I run a NextCloud instance. I'm OK using Fastmail's WebDAV, but I somewhat prefer the self-hosted aspect of NextCloud. Are you able to share any insights about why NextCloud didn't work for you? They might save me some effort!
  - tomlong 7y ago
    Sorry for late reply. It was just slow and unreliable. Probably as much down to the machine i ran it on as anything. It was also a while ago. I just found with fastmail it consistently just worked. Also I really need those passwords, and as much as they are backed up I preferred relying on FM than myself.

Groxx 7y ago

Tho I'll give this one a try too, I've been using Orgzly a fair bit and am mostly happy: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.orgzly https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.orgzly I haven't been able to find much else that supports org mode, except for emacs... which seems ridiculous, as a non-emacs-user. What is it that makes this one of the apparently-most-loved features, but so incredibly poorly supported externally?

gonewest 7y ago
I'd assume what makes alternate ports rare is the fact that the entire implementation is in elisp. So any alternate implementation has to start by finding (or implementing) a parser with good compatibility and maintainability.
- Spivak 7y ago
  Orgzly does it well enough for simple cases but if you try to use it for much more than a basic notes/reminder system you’ll run up against limitations fast since a lot of useful behavior like complex date formats leverage the elisp hole to work.
  - Groxx 7y ago
    Out of curiosity: have an example? I've only used relatively-simple formats in queries, never in todos, haven't hit any issues yet. Seems like it'd probably be a parser limitation or something tho? Or are some of the formats lisp-code-like and need to be executed?
AlexCoventry 7y ago
Doesn't vim have an org extension?
- rrix2 7y ago
  Vim has a syntax highlighter with little of the functionality that raises Org-mode above, say, markdown.

goblin89 7y ago

For those on iOS, I can thoroughly recommend the beorg app for using emacs org mode on the go. It integrates nicely into the OS, offering sync via iCloud Drive (Dropbox and others too, though I don’t use that) and showing notifications for deadlines or scheduled items. It doesn’t treat org-drill items specially and shows notifications when review is due, which is a mixed bag but not too annoying for me yet. My only minor gripe with beorg is that on save it loses blank lines between items, which I tend to add in desktop emacs for readability. I believe the author would have to rewrite the app with something like concrete or lossless syntax trees to avoid this.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
preek 7y ago
For those curious, here's a comparison of organice and Beorg: https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/#beorg https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/#beorg

marcosdumay 7y ago

Does the project have a homepage? If I search for "organice android app" on DDG, it throws back links to organic chemistry apps. If I try it on Google, I get pages about organizing the android's screen.

preek 7y ago
It does have a homepage: https://organice.200ok.ch/ https://organice.200ok.ch/

insufferablejak 7y ago

I'm wondering why this looks exactly like https://org-web.org/ https://org-web.org/ Is there some implementation of an org mode front-end that both use?

Groxx 7y ago
Wow, yea, that's nearly identical. Main authors for both repos are the two repo-owners tho, so there's some kind of collab going on in any case: https://github.com/DanielDe/org-web/graphs/contributors https://github.com/DanielDe/org-web/graphs/contributors vs https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/graphs/contributors https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/graphs/contributors (and munen is the CEO of 200ok)
ssivark 7y ago
It's a fork of org-web. See the relevant section in the README: https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice#acknowledgment https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice#acknowledgment

vyuh 7y ago

Github: https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice Web Browser App: https://organice.200ok.ch/sample https://organice.200ok.ch/sample

burtonator 7y ago

God.. you guys just love org-mode! Every time I get Polar on hacker news I get another batch of request referencing org-mode. :)

onemoresoop 7y ago

This is fantastic. I was just looking at org mode the other day and am planning to start using it. Now with organice, I'll ramp up the effort to adopt orgmode. This is fantastic, snappy and simple. The arrow buttons are a great idea too.

taude 7y ago

Hey, this is pretty cool. Just checking it out. It would be nice if you didn't need to request Full Dropbox permission to only a specific folder or something. I think DropBox supports that these days. This way we don't have to give you cart-blanche to everything. Thanks. Edited: too many spelling and grammar errors at first pass.

preek 7y ago
Hi taude, OP here. You're not giving us carte-blance to anything. organice is a front-end only application. You're only connecting your browser to your dropbox. There's no back-end, no data is stored on our account and we don't have analytics.
- taude 7y ago
  OK, makes sense, I think? But.... When connecting to DropBox, though, I am prompted from Dropbox with: "organice would like access to the files and folders in your Dropbox. Learn more" And going to DropBox readme on the topic: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/third-party/third-party-apps https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/third-party/t..., it talks about the different access scopes: select access, app folder, full access....
  - preek 7y ago
    Yes, _your_ Browser Running organice will have full access to your Dropbox. Nobody but you has access to your browser.

RMPR 7y ago

I wanted to try the mobile counterpart of the app but I'm not able to find it on F-Droid, do you plan to release it there ?