Use Emacs Org-mode Links for Absolutely Anything (opens in new tab)

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95 pointsmalabarba11y ago20 comments

20 comments

One nice org-mode feature is "Babel", the ability to embed snippets of code in documents, run them during export and insert the results (either values or stdout) into other parts of the document http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/

Since my blog is mostly about programming, this lets me write the code I'm talking about directly into the prose (using C-c ' to switch to the relevant Emacs mode for editing that language) and ensures that the code and results match up exactly (including graphs generated with GNUplot).

peedy11y ago

People even write their dotemacs in Org mode and use babel in their init.el to run it

https://github.com/thomanil/dot-emacs/blob/master/thomanil.o...

cies11y ago

Even an "Emacs configuration template" (a la Prelude or emacs-starter-kit) that makes use of it (and `el-get` to retrieve and initialize packages):

https://github.com/xiaohanyu/oh-my-emacs

Nifty.

616c11y ago

So I am trying to restart a blog using org-mode. I think it is the way forward. Right now, I meaning using it as one subset, a markup language to convert into other representations. I know org-mode is more featureful than that by a long shot. I am just curious for this use case for the reason below.

Having said that,I am more interested in why, despite the Church of Emacs and Its Holy Love of Parens (that is a joke from an admirer, btw), why pure sexpr is not the way forward for a markup language. I decided to look into them recently, including cl-who, Scribble (CL, Scheme, and now most popular Racket variants), and other sexpr markup languages. I did so thinking that, if you want to have a ground-up markup language to convert to anything, would not sexpr-based data be the best for the iconicity Lispers crave. Is it not that far removed from XML+XLST for this very reason.

Does anyone have full-bodied markup that uses sexpr as a source and translates to everything? I think this would be quite compelling, well maybe only to Lispers. Would there be a desire for such a thing?

mhd11y ago

The difference here is that we're not talking about describing data, like XML does (most of the time), where sexpr-based markup is pretty great. For actual markup, SGML wasn't all that bad (closing tags are useful if the start of the current section is a few screenfuls away), or the more "do what I mean" approach as commonly used by markdown, asciidoc, rst or org-mode. And while Emacs might be "in love" with lisp, it's also all about dwim.

(Never mind the texinfo legacy)

616c11y ago

But what are we describing then. I like to see org, HTML, asciidoc, and XML as taking any data, in a very moronic basic sense, and annotating it or reshaping it for different kinds of parsers to accept.

Am I missing the mark somehow in your comment?

1 more reply

gcr11y ago

Javascripters are beginning to rediscover some of these ideas in React.js.

I'm still waiting for them to rediscover continuations again. They have the "Callbacks aren't great" part down, but they still haven't pieced together the "Let's use continuations instead" part quite yet. Give it a year or two :)

mej1011y ago

Some Javascript developers would love to have support for first class continuations, but the Javascript engines would need to implement several changes to make them practical.

1 more reply

davexunit11y ago

>Does anyone have full-bodied markup that uses sexpr as a source and translates to everything?

Check out Skribilo.

http://www.nongnu.org/skribilo/

arsenerei11y ago

In Clojure:

https://github.com/weavejester/hiccup

https://github.com/cgrand/enlive

davexunit11y ago

For XML/HTML, I'm partial towards the SXML notation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SXML

1 more reply

616c11y ago

Thanks. I guess I really do not need to take a look at Clojure, no matter what excuse I put forward.

davidw11y ago

Is there a tutorial for using org-mode only for a simple TODO list that anyone can recommend? I had a brief look around, but don't have the time to read the entire manual at the moment.

mhd11y ago

The tutorial by David O'Toole focuses pretty much on TODO lists and simple outlines: http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/orgtutorial_dto.html

VLM11y ago

As an indirect response to the OPs question the next step after that good intro tutorial is something like this, which is a medium level application of org mode once you get the basics down, in a well known format: (Edited to emphasize if you know the basics of GTD, and its not terribly complicated, this is a good example of applying org mode tools to a known problem, presumably this will help you in applying org mode to your individual problem, assuming its not just setting up GTD of course)

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/GTD/gtd_workflow.h...

I actually used this, or many ideas strongly borrowed from this, for some time until I was kind of forced into evernote in order to inter operate both mobile and with some evernote users (OK specifically the other user is my wife). It turned out to be easier to implement something like GTD in evernote than to teach my (techie, pbx programmer) wife how to use emacs. But emacs org mode did work perfectly and was quite effective and fast while I used it.

The mobile client for evernote a couple years ago was far superior to the mobile org mode client. As of years ago. This may have changed. The big problem from memory with the mobile clients is the mobile app model is inherently windows-ish where all the worlds features are in one self contained app, so you gotta make a good gui and a good sync in one app, where as the unix-ish philosophy of using a suite of tools perfectly designed for individual jobs is not permitted in mobile, so its a hard fit. Although the evernote guys got it to work pretty well, so its obviously possible.

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zackham11y ago

Print this out and leave it somewhere handy: http://orgmode.org/orgcard.pdf

For a simple TODO list just open a .org file (so org-mode is actually enabled). Make a new TODO item by pressing ctrl-shift-return. Clock in with C-c C-x C-i, mark it finished with C-c C-t d. That should be all you need to get started, and when you want to do something else scour the cheat sheet to see if it's there.

If you decide to go all-in, this is IMO the best and most complete reference for a GTD-style setup: http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

20 comments

chriswarbo11y ago

peedy11y ago

People even write their dotemacs in Org mode and use babel in their init.el to run it

https://github.com/thomanil/dot-emacs/blob/master/thomanil.o...

cies11y ago

Even an "Emacs configuration template" (a la Prelude or emacs-starter-kit) that makes use of it (and `el-get` to retrieve and initialize packages):

https://github.com/xiaohanyu/oh-my-emacs

Nifty.

616c11y ago

mhd11y ago

(Never mind the texinfo legacy)

616c11y ago

Am I missing the mark somehow in your comment?

1 more reply

gcr11y ago

Javascripters are beginning to rediscover some of these ideas in React.js.

mej1011y ago

Some Javascript developers would love to have support for first class continuations, but the Javascript engines would need to implement several changes to make them practical.

1 more reply

davexunit11y ago

>Does anyone have full-bodied markup that uses sexpr as a source and translates to everything?

Check out Skribilo.

http://www.nongnu.org/skribilo/

arsenerei11y ago

In Clojure:

https://github.com/weavejester/hiccup

https://github.com/cgrand/enlive

davexunit11y ago

For XML/HTML, I'm partial towards the SXML notation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SXML

1 more reply

616c11y ago

Thanks. I guess I really do not need to take a look at Clojure, no matter what excuse I put forward.

davidw11y ago

Is there a tutorial for using org-mode only for a simple TODO list that anyone can recommend? I had a brief look around, but don't have the time to read the entire manual at the moment.

mhd11y ago

The tutorial by David O'Toole focuses pretty much on TODO lists and simple outlines: http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/orgtutorial_dto.html

VLM11y ago

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/GTD/gtd_workflow.h...

1 more reply

zackham11y ago

Print this out and leave it somewhere handy: http://orgmode.org/orgcard.pdf

If you decide to go all-in, this is IMO the best and most complete reference for a GTD-style setup: http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse