Forum Posts Feed
Beginning to see the light with org-mode
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by Prion
Sep 10, 2015 at 12:23 PM
Back to the topic of org-mode.
I have meant to use org-mode more extensively for a number of years now and really would but currently I am not advanced enough to reach a productive-enough state with org to make it my only system at least for a while.
1) One reason is that I am often working with documents circulated around by colleagues to which (i.e. the documents) I would need to refer.Is there an easy way to put in nicely formatted links to things in the file system easily?
2) you mentioned inline images. I would like to learn more about this but although I got them to work, their inclusion made scrolling uncomfortably jumpy.
3) Is there a way to make the rendering look a little nicer? Barebones and functional is okay but emacs is sometimes a bit too 80ies and I suspect on purpose.
The information floating around for org is very dispersed and at times conflicting.
I would be immensely grateful if you’d share some of your insights. The org community is very helpful, too, but mostly concerned with difficulties at a level I am not likely to reach within the next year.
Thanks for your post and looking forward to more.
Best
Prion
Posted by zoe
Sep 10, 2015 at 02:53 PM
Here’s where I’m coming from in learning org-mode:
- What I like most about it is that an item (which is just a line of text) can be transformed and structured in many different ways. The syntax is easy to see within the editor, but lots and lots of stuff can be tucked away inside, retrieved quickly with keyboard commands, and even re-filed under different headings. Filtering out the file according to the metadata is simple and intuitive.
- I am using Emacs ONLY for org-mode. I’m just considering org-mode within Emacs to be a single piece of software that I would learn like any other. Learning the keyboard shortcuts is somewhat of a pain, but it hasn’t taken me too long to get up to speed on it. I use lots of software that has distinctive keyboard shortcuts for mastering the workflow (Photoshop, for example), and learning the key commands to me is just part of learning to use the software.
- I have never used Emacs before for anything else. For plaintext/coding tasks at work I use SublimeText and quite appreciate its interface and simplicity.
- I’m syncing everything with Dropbox.
To answer your questions:
1) You can put a link to any file on your file system with simple syntax:
[[file:c:/path/to/the/file.pdf]] This creates a clickable link to the file. You can also use relative links. For example, if your .org file is in a folder that also has an “Images” folder, you can link to an image by typing [[file:./Images/image.jpg]]
2) Inline images work but are shown at full size unless you have ImageMagick installed. You can toggle them on an off. When they’re off, click the image link and it opens in a side-pane. Emacs can show the image itself, which is a nice feature that many text editors lack.
3) You can set the default font in Emacs to be whatever you want. By default it’s monospaced because of the assumption that you’re programming, but you can make it whatever. You can also set org-mode to indent your outline levels by default. Emacs has so little to it (it’s pretty much just a series of rectangles) that there’s not much else to modernize.
- Related: you can export your .org files in a matter of keystrokes. You can export to HTML (nicely formatted with tables of contents, add your own CSS if you want), formatted plaintext, even LaTeX and PDF.
Posted by zoe
Sep 18, 2015 at 03:35 PM
Here’s another update after a week or so of more use. The more I use org-mode, the more I am convinced that the designer seems to think the same way I do! This is refreshing compared to many other programs I have used.
- org-mode supports hoisting, in addition to folding. With a long outline, you may open and close various parts, but you can also open a new window and show only the subtree you want to work on. This hoisted view is updating in all other views, but you can’t see it…
- The ability to archive todos is brilliant. A dedicated archive file lives in the directory, and with a key command, the heading is tossed into the archive file, along with nice metadata about what time the item was archived, where it was originally in the source document tree, what tags it had, etc. So things can be filed away, but aren’t truly lost. :-D
- The agenda system is complex, but quite useful. Agenda commands provide filtered lists of tasks or other items, and can be organized by dates, deadlines, tags, properties, etc.
The downsides:
- Getting MobileOrg working is a bit confusing. I now have it up and running on my iPhone, and it’s useful for referring to my org files when away from the computer, or for taking down very limited snippets of information. It’s by no means full-featured, but it does provide a good amount of mobile accessibility.
- Image support on Windows is less than ideal. I’m still unsure of how to get the images to scale, because it involves configuration of ImageMagick on a registry level that I don’t understand. If you’re in *nix, this is no problem, apparently.
Posted by PIMfan
Oct 18, 2015 at 06:19 PM
Bumped into a really good video showing the power and flexibility of Org-mode. A pretty amazing toolkit…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgizHHd7nOo
Posted by jaslar
Oct 21, 2015 at 08:03 PM
I’ve been spending some time today with org-mode. And I realized: when I got my Kaypro (back in 1982) it came with Perfect Writer, which was a sort of emacs subset. So some of those commands are in my fingers. And I have to say that it’s a lot easier to learn a new package when you’re connected to the internet and can type up the commands. (This process is easier than searching the built-in help files, or at least right now it is.)
You all are right. This is a powerful system. I was looking at orgzly on Android, too, a sort of org-mode front end, but without, alas, folding.