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I keep everything in my life in plaintext, so I've been looking longingly at Org for several years now. There are three things standing in my way, from least to
by reificator 5y ago
I keep everything in my life in plaintext, so I've been looking longingly at Org for several years now. There are three things standing in my way, from least to most important:
* I sometimes view on or want to share documents over sites like Github/Gitlab. If I share Markdown or even usually AsciiDoc, then the document is formatted appropriately even for people who are used to Word and rendered HTML. EDIT: Apparently this has changed since I last looked. Good news!
* I often edit from mobile devices, which almost certainly have no support for Org features. EDIT: There are apparently good org-specific editors.
* My desktop editor of choice is not and likely never will be emacs, so even with plugins that support Org it's always a hampered experience relative to what the format claims to offer.
It looks like it does everything I want and more, with all the little helpers you need overtop a plaintext format that's decent enough to read on its own. But I'm not changing my text editor just to use a single different format.
So instead I opt for the worst of all worlds and just use Markdown for everything because it's supported everywhere. It gets me headers, lists, code blocks, and sometimes checkboxes, and the rest I can handle ad-hoc.
EDIT: 5 responses in ~10 minutes, but 0 or neutral upvotes. I knew mentioning an editor preference was a mistake. Yes I have tried emacs for an extended period, yes I respect it, no I am not likely to use it myself.
- mbrumlow 5y ago> My desktop editor of choice is not and likely never will be emacs That is a shame. Why?
- reificator 5y agoI hesitate to answer because I sense an editor war incoming, but I'm going to assume your question was in earnest and not evangelical or judgemental. Also to be clear, because I know people can be touchy about editor preferences: I say this only as an analogy for the feeling I get, not as an analogy for users who use emacs or other tools. For whatever reason emacs just feels like I'm using left-handed scissors, and I'm not left handed. It doesn't mean I don't think people should use emacs, it just doesn't feel right in my hands.
- sokoloff 5y agoNothing wrong with using emacs for just org-mode if you want to use more of the interactive features. You give up something vs someone who’s “all in” on emacs, but it’s workable. I’m teaching my son to code and we use emacs only for magit. He may get more and more exposure down the road, but for now that’s enough to justify what little bare minimum learning curve is needed to get a great git porcelain.
- hirvi74 5y ago> It doesn't mean I don't think people should use emacs, it just doesn't feel right in my hands. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your opinion. Do you like to tinker with things in general? That is a common personality trait that I have seen amongst many of fellow Emacs users. I enjoy tinkering with all kinds of things, so Emacs fits my personality well. Though, sometimes it's easy to get distracted tinkering instead of actually doing productive work (for me, at least). I still say that my Emacs config has been my single longest running "project."
- totetsu 5y agoI want to use org at work but the performace of emacs on windows is beyond unusable. also copy paste just doesn't work without pulling teath. its such a dissapointment.
- alex_smart 5y agoI have been using emacs on windows for years. The only thing that is unusably slow for me is magit. >also copy paste just doesn't work without pulling teath. What do you mean?
- GongOfFour 5y agoNo OP but I personally prefer the simplicity of VS Code's diff and conflict resolution point-and-click tooling to using ediff/smerge. I also work in a project with some very deep directory structures and like the VS Code sidebar much more.
- sidpatil 5y agoGitHub does render Org-mode documents to an extent. I haven't done a comparison with its Markdown rendering though. There do exist mobile apps for Org-mode, but it's been a while since I've used them. I agree with your third point and wish that Org-mode support was better in non-Emacs editors.
- anschwa 5y agoIt sounds like you are looking for an excuse to give org-mode a chance. Github will render org-mode documents now, so there's that. Don't be afraid to give emacs a test drive, it's very possible to avoid getting sucked into the ecosystem and configuration if you aren't interested. Either you'll decide it's what you've been looking for, or you prefer your current approach. Win-Win.
- dv35z 5y agoIf you had to suggest a “get started on Emacs org-mode” guide to a newbie, which would your recommend? Might kick the tires this weekend…
- tecosaur 5y agoFor the syntax, I'd recommend https://orgmode.org/quickstart.html https://orgmode.org/quickstart.html :)
- Oreb 5y ago> Github will render org-mode documents now, so there's that. Is that actually working now, or just mostly kind of working? Last time I tried (maybe one year ago), I had so many issues that I just gave up and reverted to markdown.
- cmiles74 5y agoAside from editing on mobile devices, I think Emacs isn't as hard to pick up as it once was. It's certainly not easy but tools like Spacemacs or Doom make it much simpler to get started and really limit the need to create and edit a complicated little library of your Elisp code. http://spacemacs.org http://spacemacs.org https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs
- reificator 5y agoI don't feel like it was hard to pick up* so much as it was just not the right tool for me. *Relative to my expectations when trying a new editor for a short period
- alpaca128 5y agoI'm not sure such Emacs "distributions" really convince people that don't like it on a fundamental level. I've tried it a few times, but it always feels like it gets in my way because a large part of its assumptions and settings go against my expectations. And changing that seems like a multi-year project because the whole program is just so huge and complex and still growing. If Emacs was faster and much smaller I'd probably love it. But in its current state all I can do is slap more plugins and modes on it until it almost grinds to a halt.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- simtel20 5y agoThe native compilation feature that is now in the development branch makes this experience much better.
- taeric 5y agoAt a fundamental level, emacs is difficult because the crowd says it is difficult. Oddly, I am not even claiming it isn't true. But it is the same fear that folks have in avoiding computers entirely. Not wrong, but fairly easy to overcome.
- 5y ago
- mewfree 5y ago* GitHub does render .org files just like Markdown! * I've heard people of people being really happy with Orgzly on Android. I personally run Emacs on my Android phone through Termux. It works really well for me. Other solutions include using a SSH client to connect to a server running Emacs, or simply using GitHub directly on mobile web or their app if your notes are on GitHub. * I've made the switch from Vim to Emacs (+ evil-mode) because of org-mode and have been extremely happy with it. It truly changed my life.
- karlicoss 5y agosadly GitHub's version of org-mode parser haven't been updated for a while, there is a fair amount of very annoying issues :( https://github.com/novoid/github-orgmode-tests https://github.com/novoid/github-orgmode-tests
- mickael-kerjean 5y agoI've built an org mode editor that connects to git repo and works form the browser, it looks like this: https://demo.filestash.app/login?next=/view/org/emacs.org#type=git&repo=https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/nuage_org_demo https://demo.filestash.app/login?next=/view/org/emacs.org#ty... Pages can be exported in a wiki that is rendered dynamically by emacs like this: https://demo.filestash.app/api/export/hn/text/html/emacs.org https://demo.filestash.app/api/export/hn/text/html/emacs.org or if you prefer pdf: https://demo.filestash.app/api/export/hn/application/pdf/emacs.org https://demo.filestash.app/api/export/hn/application/pdf/ema... The code is on github: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash
- celeritascelery 5y agoThis looks awesome! It mentions “full text search” but I wasn’t able to get it to work in the demo. Does it support searching though all your org files?
- mickael-kerjean 5y agoFTS is only available when you host your own as it relies on crawl + index and such operation can be expensive when used against a storage backend like S3 where API calls and bandwidth aren't free. On the demo server, the search is stateless and does recursive call with a timeout
- alpaca128 5y ago> I sometimes view on or want to share documents over sites like Github/Gitlab. If nobody else edits the documents you could first export them to Markdown or HTML. Pandoc handles that reasonably well. > My desktop editor of choice is not and likely never will be emacs That only matters if you want to use the more interactive features of Emacs' org-mode. I only use Vim and still write everything in .org files. I just like how it's got a simple syntax and also enough flexibility to handle everything. I set up a keybinding that lets me convert the file to a PDF by calling Emacs in batch mode (unfortunately there's no other correct and complete parser). In the end Markdown isn't bad, but I don't like how basically every platform and tool adds their own special flavor.
- reificator 5y ago> That only matters if you want to use the more interactive features of Emacs' org-mode. I only use Vim and still write everything in .org files. I did something similar for awhile but felt like I was net negative in effort to gains. > In the end Markdown isn't bad, but I don't like how basically every platform and tool adds their own special flavor. Yeah I stick to a known safe subset, including legacy newline behavior, and only a few extensions to that. (highlight and checkbox off the top of my head)
- simick 5y agoIt's unlikely I would ever move away from (Neo)Vim as my 'main' (i.e., programming) editor, as I find it much more intuitive and comfortable. Instead, I think of Emacs + org-mode as a single, separate entity solely for to-do tracking and plain text hierarchical note taking. I find that the conveniences of org-mode for these specific tasks outweighs the otherwise unintuitive (from the perspective of my muscle memory) interface.
- RMPR 5y agoI do the same thing. I use Emacs solely for org-mode (that includes org-roam and org-journal)
- e3bc54b2 5y agoThe good thing about NeoVim getting a real language for its plugins now is that it can start diving into and making uber complex and and uber awesome plugins like org-mode [0] Another good thing is now that org-mode is likely to have a popular and maybe hopefully almost complete second implementation, it'll probably get a proper spec. [0] https://github.com/kristijanhusak/orgmode.nvim https://github.com/kristijanhusak/orgmode.nvim
- singingfish 5y agoSo I discovered recently that if you set up git-auto-commit mode with an org directory tree, then configure it to auto-push to gitlab on add/change, I get nicely formatted documents for free. Later on I can convert them via pandoc to docx or markdown so they can end up in sharepoint/confluence and I only minimally have to touch either of those horror shows. I was writing some docs yesterday, and my colleague who's always bagging me about my use of nothing but emacs and terminals complimented how nice it looked rendered in gitlab.
- dv35z 5y agoCould you share specifics on how to set this up? I’m interested in having a “local” personal knowledge base (currently using Obsidian—>Hugo site —> GitHub —>AWS Amplify / Netlify) Your setup sounds extremely useful. I haven’t tried Emacs / org-mode / org-roam, but the more I read about it, the more curious I am getting. If you have advice, I’d love to hear it.
- singingfish 5y agoI had to look it up but this lives in `.dir_locals.el` in the root of the git repo. Including the comments of what to put in .emacs I think that's everything needed: ( ( nil . ((eval git-auto-commit-mode 1)) ) ) ;; and chuck this in your .emacs ; (setq-default gac-ask-for-summary-p t) ; (setq-default gac-automatically-push-p t)
- talentedcoin 5y agoYeesh. Please don’t complain about your poorly-researched laundry list of preferences not being upvoted. Come on, nobody cares what editor you yourself do or don’t use.
- reificator 5y agoI was commenting on the snap responses, my goal was just to avoid an editor war. I brought up post score relative to comment rate only because in my experience high engagement with no votes generally means I probably just started an argument.
- joeman1000 5y agoI’ve been a plain-text fiend for about the past 3 years: there is no other experience which can come near org-mode in emacs. Absolutely none. Markdown feels like a toy compared to org.
- dannyobrien 5y agoNot really for OP, but I've found a couple of really great iOS apps that work well with Emacs org-mode, Beorg[1] and FlatHabits[2]. They're actually both good apps in their own right, that use org-mode files as a backend for their features. [1]: https://beorgapp.com/ https://beorgapp.com/ [2]: https://flathabits.com/ https://flathabits.com/
- xenodium 5y agoNice to see Flat Habits mentioned. I’m working on another org-based iOS app for quickly adding/searching tasks https://twitter.com/xenodium/status/1423397014646177792?s=21 https://twitter.com/xenodium/status/1423397014646177792?s=21
- themulticaster 5y agoThanks, this is incredibly helpful! I was looking into org-mode a few years ago but ditched it because the only iOS app I could find at that time couldn't really sync with other devices without a lot of effort, and automatic, reliable synchronization is a deal breaker for me. beorg OTOH seems to be designed with syncing in mind.
- kehrin 5y agoI'd love to see Org to be picked up as a universal format. The overlap with LaTeX is probably too big though.
- enriquto 5y agoBut can you get the full org experience without emacs? I love the principles of org mode, but it seems to be too dependent on a particular editor. For it to be universal it should be 100% un-tied to emacs. As in, the most popular org mode tutorial should not mention emacs at all. So far this does not yet seem feasible. EDIT: to clarify, there's nothing wrong with emacs. But if Org mode is tied to it, you cannot help interpreting promotion of Org as promotion of emacs. Which is alright, but it feels a bit sneaky. Just be upfront about it: promote emacs (plus some packages).
- tecosaur 5y agoThere's a strong effort to implement Org for Neovim (https://github.com/kristijanhusak/orgmode.nvim https://github.com/kristijanhusak/orgmode.nvim) and I'm thinking of trying to make an Org LSP server in the future.
- BeetleB 5y agoI think you'll always get a subpar experience if you try to use the org format without Emacs. I would not recommend org if Emacs is a deal breaker.
- jcpst 5y agoMobile: “Organice” is by far my favorite org mode editor on a mobile device. And it’s not even a native app, it’s a PWA. https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice Like others have mentioned, you don’t have to switch to Emacs. 99% of what I do in Emacs is in org mode. You don’t have to stick to one editor. I use NeoVim when in a shell, Jetbrains when I’m at work, VS Code when trying out other languages…
- tveyben 5y agoAwesome - I gotta check out that tool. 1E3 than for the info!