- Org Mode (with org-superstar) for taking notes. Everything gets saved into a Microsoft OneDrive for sync between my laptop and desktop machine.
- Org tasks and org-agenda for project planning. Far less disruptive to your train of thought than busting out Microsoft Planner to remind yourself to follow-up on some line of research or whatever.
- pdf-tools for viewing PDFs. It's a bit kludgy (it renders PDF pages to PNGs on the fly because that's what Emacs can display), but it's somehow still less CPU-intensive than Acrobat DC or anything based on PDF.js. PDF-tools has fast incremental search, and a fast occurs mode for finding and highlighting all hits in the file.
- pdfgrep and pdfgrep-mode for searching across PDFs. Hits show up in a grep-mode buffer and you can click to jump to the exact hit. (It uses libpoppler under the hood to confine the search to the PDF text layer and show hits in logical page order rather than PDF file order, which can be arbitrary.)
- org-pdftools for creating links to specific pages of specific PDFs in Org Notes (e.g. noting that the testimony for a particular witness starts on page 758 of some 2,000-page trial transcript).
- Built-in Emacs features (windows, frames, buffers) make it easy to juggle between documents and compare them side-by-side. Emacs Bookmarks make it easy to save your place and jump back to where you left off. It's shocking how many notes tools get this wrong and only let you see one document or attachment at a time.
I'm kicking myself for not having discovered this earlier!
I don't sync Org notes with my smart phone. But the nice thing about Emacs (compared to most other notes tools) is that file attachments are in your file system. One Drive's sync backend is very good and smooth, so it's easy to grab a PDF if I want to attach it to an email or view it from my phone or tablet.
Yes, but one of the smooth scrolling modes was too slow for me and I use `pixel-scroll-precision-mode` which requires Emacs 29.
> How do you sync your work with your smartphone?
I use syncthing for this and Orgzly, emacs in termux, and organice.
I bet most would prefer and could get away with just using organice.
I'm head-in org land. For habit-tracking, I found removing friction from the tracking process itself absolutely fundmental for longer term success (Atomic Habits, the book, corroborates). Like the author, I also needed mobile access for this. I built https://flathabits.com (powered by org) for this purpose (iOS only). In the end, I found I hardly used Emacs org mode to view or track my habits since the mobile app removed all the trakcing friction. Now I just get peace of mind knowing that I can access the plain text file if I want to.
ps. I also built another org mode app for iOS https://plainorg.com
Mileage varies across iOS providers, but some users have reported being fairly happy with either WorkingCopy or Syncthing/MöbiusSync which would work on Linux. I'm on iCloud though.
https://karl-voit.at/2021/11/27/orgdown/
I'd actually love to see Gemini and HN adopt orgdown. Just sayin... :)
That said, what would it mean for HN to adopt orgdown?
I found out recentishly that GitHub supports org mode too.
OrgMode wasn't even born until 2003, so my guess is that you made your choice about Org very, very early on.
I cautiously suggest that maybe Org does more now than you realize. Your tool seems . . . well, very dated-looking to start.
> CrossLine is an outliner with sophisticated cross-link capabilities in the tradition of the well-respected Ecco Pro.
This is the minimal description in the repository you link to. It does not contain anything, that Org mode does not bring to the table. Org more has sophisticated inter-document linking as well as citations and footnotes. All one needs to write a scientific paper in it and export to tex/latex.
What features exactly is org mode missing for you? I know you wrote, that you tested 10 years ago. Perhaps the picture has changed a lot since then.
Also I understand, that ones own tool often is like a second skin, perfectly matching, what one needs.
General structure is a file per month, a toplevel outline heading per day, and a global hotkey that takes me to 'today' with a single button. I use a private git repository to archive it to a secure place and replicate across different machines if needed. (Not common.)
Code here:
https://github.com/mschaef/.emacs.d/blob/master/lisp/orglog....
It's worked well, but generally speaking the key to logging is less the code/system and much more the discipline to write every day. I'm hit or miss on that front, but still find it useful to both formalize my thoughts on things into english and also occasionally go back to look at previous things I've done. (Oh, and it makes developing lists of accomplishments for annual reviews an easy thing.)
I found trying to synchronise across devices tedious and made me stop logging.
On desktop I use Magit to push/pull changes.
On Android I cloned the repository in Termux and pointed Orgzly to it. This wasn't absolutely trivial, can provide details if needed. Also created some convenience scripts for git operations (commit-and-push, pull, check status). Now I can push/pull changes with singe-letter commands in Termux.
I find the friction to be low enough. Using git is also very convenient to resolve any conflicts in case I forget to push or pull some changes.
Org roam - that's not a mature project and it frequently breaks. If the current Roam is doing what you need, do not let it upgrade automatically.
I do version everything under Git so when I switch machines/countries my latest notes are one (ma)git command away.
You don't need this - you can use Org's capture templates with datetree type. It will then have it all in one file with appropriate headings.
Tip I didn't realize for years: Sometimes you forget to log it on the day intended (e.g. for the post-month you log it 5 days after the new month when you should have done it on the 1st day). Prefix your capture command with C-1, and it will prompt you for the date to file it as.
