Emacs org mode - Tips and tricks anyone?

[b_o_b]

I have been looking into emacs - org mode after recommendations here and I love it. Haven't learned all the tricks and keyboard shortcuts yet and I am sure that will take a while but it is already quite useful after a couple of short introduction tutorials I found on youtube (from Kurt Schwehr). 

Now there seem to be 2 emacs versions. One is a version without X and one newer version with X. The newer version 2.4 works pretty good http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=emacs-24 and has org mode already integrated (not sure what org mode version). One of the advantages of org mode is that it isn't relying on mouse or touch screen input. Keyboard only seems to works fine, for now that is. I am still very much in the beginning of learning this tool, so I might think differently later. 

I want to use it for planning, note taking, mind mapping (it can export to mm freemind maps.. how cool is that!), calendar, to do lists, other lists (contact list maybe)

I have seen a couple of posts of people using (or at least liking) org mode. Would someone like to share their experience with this program and especially how they use it on the Pandora. Very interested in user experiences on the Pandora and any tips and tricks that I can learn from. 

 

[TrashyMG]

What's this emacs you talk about?

:wq

 

[levi]

Heh, I was going to make the same joke as TrashyMG there, but afaik vi is a truly woeful personal orgaiser, except possibly for organising todo lists.


Sorry, don't know emacs that well any more, and I have never come across org mode. Hope others come along and can share tips and tweaks.

 

[b_o_b]

I was not interested in emacs or used it at all, but read some very interesting articles and tutorial videos about org mode. It is very powerful and flexible and that is the main reason for me to try it out. 

I have tried some other programs on my Pandora (e.g. makagiga, freemind)  but they all seem to be less efficient and mouse oriented. On the small Pandora screen org mode works very nice and it seems to be an all in one solution that I was looking for. 

The creator has a nice talk about it here (floss weekly) 

 

[b_o_b]

Been spending some time with emacs today and working through some tutorials. 

I have some issues with the current no X version in the repo. 

The out of the box configuration does not seem to be Pandora specific. Some keys don't give the expected result (fn keys) and typing some stuff in /italic/ will not be visible in italic. Also I am not a big fan of the colors used, in some cases the text is not visible very well. Especially dark blue. 

Spell check is not working / set up. 

Default browser (for exporting to HTML) is not set up. 

Pretty sure this is all customizable but it would have been nice to have a bit of a better out of the box experience. Lets face it, in the most userfriendly set up possible it is already quite a challenging piece of software

 

[cube48]

User ArchiMark asked me some time ago via PM about org-mode. This was my reply, describing how I use it daily life. Hope he doesn't mind I'm sharing it here too

Hi,

Well, of course I can wholeheartedly recommend org-mode. It definitelly takes some to get used to it but it's well payed investment. On one hand it has "simple" UI but with so many hidden features (and thus so many shortcuts).

I use it mainly for work project management (standard outliner project breakdown structure), task clocking (move to task, clock in, clock out and it will calculate the time spent on it, also summing times at parent level), project note taking. My private projects are much simpler so in this area of my life the use is much simpler. org-mode's Agenda View is awesome, if you "schedule" your tasks (you can assing "deadlines" too), they will show up nicely in your Agenda which can be heavily customized as well. Also the simple yet efficient spreadsheet functionality (tables with formulas) is cool (Edit: actually tables can go from simple to very advanced!). When needed it's very simple to export parts of your org-mode file into .html, .txt, .pdf etc. to share your info with other people. Another way I'm using it is journaling. Every day I note down what I did at work so I can easily fill the reports at the end of the month. For this I have a simple outline structure 2013 > 06 June > CW23 > [2013-06-04 Tue]. Entering dates into org-mode so easy. Oh, and the quick note capturing process is also efficient as "ctrl+c c" if you set it up like this (search for "capture" in relation to org-mode).

To me it took one or two monts of fiddling with emacs config to set the features and behaviors as I liked them. And the shortcuts? I just remember the most used ones and have the "GNU Emacs Reference Card" and "Org-Mode Reference Card" printed at A5 sheets at the desk all the time and org-manual is always pinned in my browser. I've even bought the paper book just to support the good cause and have the good old off-line reference at hand. Luckily the emacs/org-mode are self-documented so it's easy to get to the command you are looking for.

I would recommend to start with reading the manual/guide (yes, I'm the manual reading freak :-D), reading the articles about how other people are using it - there you usually find some nice emacs config examples and explanations. There is also a lot of videos on youtube. See the links below.

To sum it up ... org-mode was "invented" by scientist and luckily not mad scientist. Rather genius one. After several years (since 2009?) that I'm using it, I'm getting surprised from time to time by features I didn't know or used before and still discovering it's potential. It became my religion org-mode is easy to use if you prefer keyboard against mouse and  especially if you are able to type blind.

Official documentation

Guide (really worth of reading - it will show you what is possible)

http://orgmode.org/guide/index.html

Tutorials (these come quite often with config examples)

http://orgmode.org/w...ials/index.html

Videos

Presentation by the author of org-mode

Screencasts

http://orgmode.org/w...asts/index.html

Cheers and good luck with org-mode!

cube48

P.S.: It's also cool to have the org-mode files stored on cloud storage like Dropbox and have it available everywhere.

Yeah, color palette in no X PND version is limited to 16 colors. You can change them after you right-click on the app window then open Preferences > Colors. It's not perfect - i.e. same color is used for Agenda highlighted line and some types of items so they visually disappear if you select them. But you can at least define colors to make outline structure more readable.

Also color themes are not supported with used terminal or at least that's my assumption after some research. In emacs 23 X version color themes are fine but there I have a problem with font - have to set it manually after every PND launch, no matter what I define in .emacs config file.

All in all I think the best thing about org-mode is it's flexibility, you have true freedom to set your own information structures, navigate easily through them, do insane reporting and exporting etc. I've tried a lot of PIM's before (started at good old Palm OS devices) and even after I met org-mode but it's the only one I'm sticking to for app. 4 years now. Knowing that it's development or existence won't vanish in next 20-30 years as it's part of GNU which already exists nearly 30 years (show me other software project running that long continuously).

Edit: Opening HTML pages from other PNDs is general problem of SuperZaxxon. AFAIK it's not trivial to associate browser of your choice system wide to accept file paths as arguments.

 

[b_o_b]

Thanks for your input cube48, that was a good read. Seems like I am on the right track and it is just a matter of customizing it further and learning how to use it.

Still hoping someone will port the latest X version and ideally will make it work better out of the box but the no X version works fine too and it is a good learning experience.

Emacs with org mode is a very flexible tool and the amount of features seems to be unlimited. I am certainly going to use this as my main PIM tool for the future  

 Knowing that it's development or existence won't vanish in next 20-30 years as it's part of GNU which already exists nearly 30 years (show me other software project running that long continuously).

That is so true and basically the main reason I switched to Linux and start using open source programs whenever possible. 

 

[b_o_b]

Activated the Calendar report functionality in org mode by adjusting .emacs. It is very nice and powerful for reporting, but I was hoping to have some active visual or audio alarm/reminder too. Couldn't find an easy solution. Do you use the calendar cube48?