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Plain text adoption often implies markdown for a richer experience, but we also have the wonderful https://orgmode.org https://orgmode.org markup. There is no

Plain text adoption often implies markdown for a richer experience, but we also have the wonderful https://orgmode.org https://orgmode.org markup. There is no shortage of markdown-based tools on all platforms. Our org markup options, on the other hand, are very few outside of Emacs. Org markup itself is super versatile and can power lots of use-cases. I built two org-powered apps for iOS myself: https://plainorg.com https://plainorg.com https://flathabits.com https://flathabits.com There are other great ones out there: https://beorg.app https://beorg.app https://logseq.com https://logseq.com https://organice.200ok.ch https://organice.200ok.ch https://orgro.org https://orgro.org http://orgzly.com http://orgzly.com Lastly, a shoutout to Karl Voit who's been driving org markup awareness outside of Emacs with Orgdown https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown. He's also discussed org markup's strengths at https://karl-voit.at/2017/09/23/orgmode-as-markup-only https://karl-voit.at/2017/09/23/orgmode-as-markup-only

urlwolf 5y ago
Don't forget asciidoc. Coherent, has markup for things like video etc. It's a superior format to markdown, a pity it's so unknown
- maleldil 5y ago
  Why do you think it's superior to Markdown?
  - mrpotato 5y ago
    I was also interested in the answer to your question. Here's[1] why AsciiDoc thinks it's better than Markdown. [1]https://docs.asciidoctor.org/asciidoc/latest/asciidoc-vs-markdown/ https://docs.asciidoctor.org/asciidoc/latest/asciidoc-vs-mar...
dm319 5y ago
And vimwiki!
atweiden 5y ago
As someone who lives in a terminal, I find @junegunn’s “journal” markup format a lot more pleasing to the eyes than Markdown — holy kaleidoscopic colours, batman. Bonus: in a weird way, the colours of journal trained me to love lisp. [1]: https://github.com/junegunn/vim-journal https://github.com/junegunn/vim-journal
Aardwolf 5y ago
I wouldn't call those plain text, if it doesn't keep your newlines by default, it's not plain text but a markup language like HTML BBCode is nice and keeps newlines, but something that uses markdown's syntax for bold and titles, but doesn't remove newline characters, would be ideal
jerrygoyal 5y ago
> There is no shortage of markdown-based tools on all platforms Could someone name one decent md editor for Android?
- Madeindjs 5y ago
  [Markor](https://github.com/gsantner/markor https://github.com/gsantner/markor), free, open source and available on F-Droid.
altgans 5y ago
I've been intensively using Orgmode for a year and a half (wrote my thesis in it) and then abandoned it to switch to Markdown. Orgmode quickly turns into not-quite-plaintext with humanly impossible to read and very distracting data structs stuck inside the text. I think these were called "Properties"? For me the beauty of plain-text is that it can be read and written in any Editor without needing syntax highlighting. Here Orgmode fails for me, as I found it unreadable and unusable without an Emacs-esque toolkit.
- Siira 5y ago
  The kind of “data-rich” org file you don’t like would presumably be impossible in markdown. So what are you gaining at all? Just don’t write such data-rich org files. That’s totally under your own control.
- seanw444 5y ago
  That's a fair gripe, as an Org-mode+Emacs user. I certainly see the clunkiness you experience in its structure. But for me, I find it highly unlikely I'll ever use an editor other than Emacs for anything but basic and quick editing. For things as comprehensive as to necessitate writing in Org-mode, I'd rather do it in Emacs anyways. Need to port it to another editor? Two options: Org-export it to a more portable format, or get started on a comprehensive integration for Org-mode in the new editor. I personally would be willing to put the time into developing Org-mode functionality on-par with Emacs, in a new editor, if the new editor were to have major advantages over Emacs. But I don't think I'll come across one for a very long time.
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  Yeah, I agree. I use org, but if I'm writing a document I'm in Markdown, not the Org markup. It's just noisy. Emacs partisans are often very, very sure that the emacs way is always the best way, sort of like evangelicals. (And I say this as a guy who has emacs and orgmode open all day, every day.)
tveyben 5y ago
@xenodium Wow - impressive reviews for your ‘plain org’ app. When I grow up with my eMacs and org usage (I’m only playing now as org is new to me - but I know it’s what I have been missing!!!) I for sure must give your app a shot for iOS usage
- xenodium 5y ago
  Nice to hear. Thank you. Enjoy your emacs + org journey! It’s quite a fun ride.

urlwolf 5y ago

Don't forget asciidoc. Coherent, has markup for things like video etc. It's a superior format to markdown, a pity it's so unknown

maleldil 5y ago
Why do you think it's superior to Markdown?
- mrpotato 5y ago
  I was also interested in the answer to your question. Here's[1] why AsciiDoc thinks it's better than Markdown. [1]https://docs.asciidoctor.org/asciidoc/latest/asciidoc-vs-markdown/ https://docs.asciidoctor.org/asciidoc/latest/asciidoc-vs-mar...

dm319 5y ago

And vimwiki!

atweiden 5y ago

As someone who lives in a terminal, I find @junegunn’s “journal” markup format a lot more pleasing to the eyes than Markdown — holy kaleidoscopic colours, batman. Bonus: in a weird way, the colours of journal trained me to love lisp. [1]: https://github.com/junegunn/vim-journal https://github.com/junegunn/vim-journal

Aardwolf 5y ago

I wouldn't call those plain text, if it doesn't keep your newlines by default, it's not plain text but a markup language like HTML BBCode is nice and keeps newlines, but something that uses markdown's syntax for bold and titles, but doesn't remove newline characters, would be ideal

jerrygoyal 5y ago

> There is no shortage of markdown-based tools on all platforms Could someone name one decent md editor for Android?

Madeindjs 5y ago
[Markor](https://github.com/gsantner/markor https://github.com/gsantner/markor), free, open source and available on F-Droid.

altgans 5y ago

I've been intensively using Orgmode for a year and a half (wrote my thesis in it) and then abandoned it to switch to Markdown. Orgmode quickly turns into not-quite-plaintext with humanly impossible to read and very distracting data structs stuck inside the text. I think these were called "Properties"? For me the beauty of plain-text is that it can be read and written in any Editor without needing syntax highlighting. Here Orgmode fails for me, as I found it unreadable and unusable without an Emacs-esque toolkit.

Siira 5y ago
The kind of “data-rich” org file you don’t like would presumably be impossible in markdown. So what are you gaining at all? Just don’t write such data-rich org files. That’s totally under your own control.
seanw444 5y ago
That's a fair gripe, as an Org-mode+Emacs user. I certainly see the clunkiness you experience in its structure. But for me, I find it highly unlikely I'll ever use an editor other than Emacs for anything but basic and quick editing. For things as comprehensive as to necessitate writing in Org-mode, I'd rather do it in Emacs anyways. Need to port it to another editor? Two options: Org-export it to a more portable format, or get started on a comprehensive integration for Org-mode in the new editor. I personally would be willing to put the time into developing Org-mode functionality on-par with Emacs, in a new editor, if the new editor were to have major advantages over Emacs. But I don't think I'll come across one for a very long time.
ubermonkey 5y ago
Yeah, I agree. I use org, but if I'm writing a document I'm in Markdown, not the Org markup. It's just noisy. Emacs partisans are often very, very sure that the emacs way is always the best way, sort of like evangelicals. (And I say this as a guy who has emacs and orgmode open all day, every day.)

tveyben 5y ago

@xenodium Wow - impressive reviews for your ‘plain org’ app. When I grow up with my eMacs and org usage (I’m only playing now as org is new to me - but I know it’s what I have been missing!!!) I for sure must give your app a shot for iOS usage

xenodium 5y ago
Nice to hear. Thank you. Enjoy your emacs + org journey! It’s quite a fun ride.