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Xah Lee makes Org-Mode easy for non-technical people - and Org-Mode as 2-pane outliner
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Posted by JBfrom
Sep 27, 2011 at 11:52 AM
#1 - You can have different outline visibility settings in a split screen view of the same file in Org-Mode. You must open an “indirect buffer”, with the command C-c C-x b
This puts org-mode right up there with the most powerful outliners discussed here. It is effectively a two pane outliner, since you can create the second “pane” by collapsing the body text in one half of a split screen any time you want. You can also rapidly reorganize the outline with hotkeys, use bookmarks, etc.
#2 - ibuffer mode - This allows you to handle the windows you currently have open in Emacs.
As an example operation, I recently closed 30 open windows by running a regex on the window names (a very simple regex - “scratch*”), marking the ones I didn’t want to close, inverting the marks, and closing the superfluous files, after bulk saving them first. It is extremely powerful. And it’s easy to use, because you can always press M-` to view the menu and navigate through it with your keyboard. In fact, you can use that command anywhere in Emacs, a handy intermediate shortcut.
#3 - Dired mode - This allows you to rapidly find, delete, rename, etc files on your hard drive. The M-` key is also crucial here for managing this very powerful mode. Works well in conjunction with ibuffer.
#4 - Time tracking - I’m now logging in and out of tasks for clients as I work within my normal text outline, and any time I want I can generate customized reports on time spent. I already knew I could do this, but I didn’t realize how easy and flexible it would be.
#5 - (Best for last) - Emacs made easy for regular people.
I discovered this incredibly clear and simple site that explains how to use Emacs and Org-Mode: http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs.html
This truly covers everything. But Xah doesn’t just EXPLAIN Emacs. He also created his own version of Emacs that works more like a modern Windows program, and fixes a lot of the weird little problems. Basically he made it accessible for non technical people like me. Here’s the distro version: http://ergoemacs.org/
Posted by JBfrom
Sep 27, 2011 at 11:59 AM
correction - Org-Mode is a three pane outliner, since it supports inline metadata and also has “panes” or “views” where that metadata is collected and can be modified.
The three panes -
1. Body text and outline view, for writing
2. Collapsed outline view in indirect buffer, for rearranging outline structure and rapid navigation
3. Agenda and other metadata displays and interfaces
For anyone confused by what Emacs is, just go to Xah’s site (http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs.html) and read the first article, “Emacs Basics”
Posted by Dr Andus
Sep 27, 2011 at 01:22 PM
JBfrom wrote:
>#5 - (Best for last) - Emacs made easy for regular people.
>discovered this incredibly clear and simple site that explains how to use Emacs and
>Org-Mode: http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs.html
>This truly covers everything.
>Basically he made it accessible for non technical people like me.
I’m a non-technical person and this explained absolutely nothing to me. I have no idea what Emacs is and the few times I clicked on any of the links (regarding Emacs or BrainstormWFO) in these posts I simply failed to get the idea what these are about or for… So if these posts are part of some kind of a promotional campaign, they are definitely not getting through to at least some of the “non-technical people…
Posted by JBfrom
Sep 27, 2011 at 02:54 PM
I’ve decided to shift my focus away from any attempt to market or promote Cyborganize and instead just build a clearer product. So no, this is merely sharing an enthusiastic discovery I made yesterday, not trying to promote it to people who have no idea what Emacs is.
But I’m happy to clarify -
Emacs is one of the original text editors. It began as a collection of macros before there were any of the operating systems we use today. It can do a tremendous number of things, and is primarily a tool for people like programmers and sys admins. However it also has extremely powerful writing and outlining and GTD capabilities, many of which are contained in the package Org-Mode.
The reason I’m excited about Xah’s page is that it cuts through all the technical voodoo for the programmers and gives you the info necessary to use it as a writer. It is the best resource I’ve found for this purpose, by a very large margin. However it doesn’t really tackle the question of “what is Emacs and why should I use it.” For that question, see the Cyborganize page where I link to this pdf: http://therandymon.com/papers/emacs-for-writers.pdf
The “Emacs Basics” article that is the first link on Xah’s page will teach you how to use Emacs as a basic text editor. If you use Xah’s distro, you won’t have to learn the odd Emacs keybindings for basic editing functions like copy/paste.
BrainStormWFO is an outliner that lets you rapidly reorganize an outline. It performs this function faster than any other outliner. However its design is highly specialized which makes it less than ideal for other kinds of tasks, like writing long documents. Fortunately it imports and exports plain text outlines well to other programs that can handle those tasks.
Lastly, I felt it was imperative to share the little-known indirect buffer trick because with it you can duplicate nearly all of BrainStormWFO’s functionality in Org-Mode except for bookmark and hotkey sorting, which makes it comparable to the vast bulk of 2-pane outliners discussed here, not to mention its metadata or “third pane” features.
Posted by Dr Andus
Sep 28, 2011 at 09:10 PM
JBfrom
>But I’m happy to clarify -
>The reason I’m excited about Xah’s page is that it cuts through
>all the technical voodoo for the programmers and gives you the info necessary to use it
>as a writer. It is the best resource I’ve found for this purpose, by a very large margin.
>However it doesn’t really tackle the question of “what is Emacs and why should I use
>it.” For that question, see the Cyborganize page where I link to this pdf:
>http://therandymon.com/papers/emacs-for-writers.pdf
JBfrom, thanks for clarifying, I wasn’t aware of all this history. There is some interesting stuff about the downside of word processors in that PDF. Having just started using Scrivener instead of Word, I’m only just beginning to experience some freedom now…