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Beginning to see the light with org-mode
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Posted by jaslar
Nov 29, 2015 at 09:48 PM
I’m continuing to explore emacs org-mode. I learned four things today that might help or be of interest to others.
1. “M-x auto-fill-mode” is a toggle that turns on/off the addition of a hard return at the end of each line, set at a column you choose. But I learned that if you turn it off, then type “M-x visual-line-mode” (another toggle), emacs then behaves like most modern text editors: it wraps at the screen border. You can also turn this on in the menu (Options>Line wrapping in this buffer>Word wrap). This makes it much easier to cut and paste from and to it from other programs. It’s surprising to me how much easier this seems to make emacs to use.
2. There is a markdown export. Emacs exports are really good. http://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/4279/exporting-from-org-mode-to-markdown
I haven’t worked out yet how to install it, but intend to.
3. There is a markdown MODE. http://jblevins.org/projects/markdown-mode/
Again, I haven’t installed it yet, but I’ve been thinking….
With Dropbox, org-mode on Windows and Linux, and Editorial on my iPad, this really does start to look like a cross-platform solution for writing.
What I find particularly appealing about emacs is the really extraordinary richness of commands. A example: move the cursor forward and back not only by line and paragraph, but by SENTENCE. Shouldn’t every editor have that?
4. emacs also has a taskpaper mode.
https://github.com/jedthehumanoid/taskpaper.el
Which again allows for cross-platform use, this time for task management.
As others have noted, the learning curve is relatively steep, but it appears that emacs really can do everything.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Nov 30, 2015 at 11:06 AM
On the one hand: splendid. On the other hand: where’s the elegance? The simplicity?
The answer, I suppose, is that if you want such things, you can always code them yourself… ;-)
Posted by jaslar
Nov 30, 2015 at 08:39 PM
Simple, it ain’t!
I suppose the “elegance” is what appears to be the goal of the religion of Emacs: to live entirely within it. And *I* certainly won’t be doing any coding myself - I’m still working out how come my init file doesn’t seem to have any effect on Emacs behavior at all.
But as I say, there are some strangely compelling commands in org-mode. My hope is to put together a start-up Emacs launch that does the things I want it to do (a relatively small set of functions, when you get down to it), and then never worry about it again. But then, once a CRIMPer, always a CRIMPer.
Posted by Dr Andus
Nov 30, 2015 at 09:57 PM
Hi (current and prospective) Org-mode heads,
I enjoy reading and am intrigued about your Org-mode adventures (though too time-poor to try it just yet for myself), so keep up the posts…
Posted by shatteredmindofbob
Dec 1, 2015 at 12:34 AM
So, I’ve recently found myself with more free time than I should and decided to tinker with Org-Mode. My feelings are mixed.
I feel like the biggest stumbling block to get over is realizing that Emacs, at least in its modern incarnation, is not that hard to use. It just does everything in its power to make it seem that way.
I mean, I don’t want to admit to how long I spent trying to enable spellcheck to ultimately find out I only needed to add one line to the configuration file…
It seems that for anything you’d want to do with it, there’s 20 to 30 different solutions that can be found, all with varying degrees of complexity…and varying odds of actually working.
With that out of the way, Org-Mode itself is probably the best outliner that runs on Windows that isn’t a web app and is still supported.
That said, I’m not sure I can bring myself to recommend it, especially on CRIMP central here. See, the thing about Emacs is that you can do almost *anything* with it by making a few modifications. And for someone who is very likely to procrastinate by tinkering with app setups rather than doing the actual work…well, this feels almost dangerous.
Then there’s the frustration of actually getting it up and running. I get the feeling that once one actually gets it configured the way they want, it’ll work wonderfully. But whether it’s worth the initial time investment to actually get to that point, I really don’t know.