
Emacs Org Files in a Browser - risktaker
https://organice.200ok.ch/
======
preek
Maintainer here. Thank you for posting organice to HN, risktaker! I was close
to missing it before going to bed, too, so it's really a nice surprise^^

If you're a fan of Org mode and want to have access to your files on the go,
or if you want to collaborate with someone who's not into text editors and
source control, then organice might be for you. I'd be happy to answer any
questions you might have, albeit it's likely going to be tomorrow as it's late
here in Switzerland(;

organice is Free and Open Source Software released under the AGPL, the
repository is here: [https://github.com/200ok-
ch/organice](https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice)

If you like what you're seeing, feel free to collaborate or hang out with us
on #organice on IRC Freenode, or #organice:matrix.org on Matrix.

A big thank you to everyone interested, enjoy using organice and best of
health!

------
yodon
It's clever but From a UX perspective moving all the surrounding text anytime
you click on anything makes it extremely hard for the eye and brain to
maintain context. There's a reason why GUI text editors have affordances like
menu bars.

------
mfontani
I like it a lot, it's really neat and well done. I'd likely love to use it on
mobile.

On desktop, I've spent a while attempting to "properly" swipe to toggle
todo/done and it's been one of the worst exercises in frustration I've had in
a long time: it selected the text instead of swiping, or it started swiping
but then the action didn't properly complete. Really odd!

I've tried to find whether there was a somewhat hidden "grab anchor" that
would've made the experience better, but failed.

After leaving it be, then trying for a little while more, it seems I finally
"got it", and have had no problems swiping todos with the mouse since.

I wonder whether there's something that could be done for ensuring my first
"bad" experience wouldn't have happened.

Added to my bookmarks, will likely give it a real go soon.

~~~
preek
Thank you for the kind words and for giving organice a spin!

I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience with using 'swipe' on the Desktop.
This, indeed, is not a great experience. Generally speaking, it's also not a
very common paradigm on the desktop, and I wouldn't recommend to use it.

organice works quite well from a desktop browser, though, and has some
features explicitly for UX on the desktop. When toggling a todo, I would
usually use a shortcut (the default is M-T). There's more such shortcuts and
you can configure them as you wish[1].

If you don't want to remember shortcuts, you can also enable the setting "Tap
TODO to advance state", which let's you tap/click on a todo item and it
adances to the next piece in the sequence, i.e. from TODO to DONE. This can be
enabled in the 'settings' screen[2].

Enjoy using organice^^

1\.
[http://screenshots.200ok.ch/screenshot_2020_05_13-65191988.p...](http://screenshots.200ok.ch/screenshot_2020_05_13-65191988.png)

2\.
[http://screenshots.200ok.ch/screenshot_2020_05_13-5b68a6b8.p...](http://screenshots.200ok.ch/screenshot_2020_05_13-5b68a6b8.png)

------
quietthrow
Finally! Orgmode is a viable option for today’s connected world. I love
orgmode but couldn’t ever fully get behind it due to it being largely tied to
the desktop. We manage our lives much more on phone and your offering allows
that. Thank you thank you thank you!

~~~
RMPR
You should check out Orgzly, imho it's the best Android app for org-mode out
there.

------
zelphirkalt
I think it is a web UI for reading and modifying Org-Mode files?

I did not understand how the UI works though. There are 5 red round buttons at
the bottom, but I could not understand how I am supposed to know what any of
them do. Then I was thinking, that they are some kind of "simulation" of a
phone screen, showing me, where some buttons on a phone would be. However, I
don't know of a phone screen with 5 buttons at the bottom. And some of them
had "sub buttons", which were also not labeled.

Afterwards I thought: "Maybe the buttons did not have any labels or symbols,
because they use an online font?" However, I did not go back to checking,
whether that is the case.

As I did not understand the UI, I wonder what the advantage is, compared to
just a text editor with special buttons for the most common Org-Mode things or
a menu button with submenus for all important things.

All things Org-Mode are interesting for me, because Org-Mode is such a great
tool in general. It is my favorite tool on a computer for any writing.

~~~
preek
Hi there

Thank you for the feedback. Some pointers from me:

\- Did you try the help button on the top? It’ll lead you to a sample file
that explains organice just like the emacs tutorial or the vimtutor would.

\- Alternatively, you could check out the 10min introduction video:
[https://github.com/200ok-
ch/organice/blob/master/README.org](https://github.com/200ok-
ch/organice/blob/master/README.org)

\- Or the extensive documentation:
[https://organice.200ok.ch/documentation.html](https://organice.200ok.ch/documentation.html)

If you’ve got any pointer on how to smooth the transition from an experienced
Emacs user like you to a first time organice tester/user, I’m all ears. Also,
if you’ve got any questions, feel free to ping me anytime.

A good place to get help is also the community chat: Community chat: #organice
on IRC Freenode, or #organice:matrix.org on Matrix

Thanks again for the valuable feedback. I’ll keep it in mind!

All the best and good health.

------
risktaker
You can add an Entry to your org file with a bookmarklet on your Phone,
awesome!

------
vzaliva
If there is a way to limit its access to my dropbox by one folder?

~~~
preek
Good question. This is not implemented. However, it isn't implemented for a
reason: organice is a front-end application, there is no back-end and no
monitoring whatsoever. So, when you login to Dropbox, only your browser will
have access to your Dropbox. So, from a security perspective, you're not
giving too much access to a server - your data cannot be seen by anyone else
but you.

The synchronization code for Dropbox is also pretty straight forward and can
easily be reviewed, it's less than 200LOC: [https://github.com/200ok-
ch/organice/blob/master/src/sync_ba...](https://github.com/200ok-
ch/organice/blob/master/src/sync_backend_clients/dropbox_sync_backend_client.js)

I hope that answers your question. If there's a reason to limit access that
I'm missing, I'd be happy to get a response^^

------
imslavko
I wanted some useable web/mobile version of org-mode synching from Dropbox for
a long time! Just to confirm: is this a product non-free product?

~~~
preek
organice is, like most OSS we work on[1], relased under a free license.
organice itself is relased under the AGPL[2] To me personally, this is very
important. We try do do some other related work as well. For example we co-
hosted the EmacsConf 2019[3] and regularly mentor at other hackathons[4,5]
which value FOSS.

1\. [https://200ok.ch/floss.html](https://200ok.ch/floss.html)

2\. [https://github.com/200ok-
ch/organice/blob/master/LICENSE](https://github.com/200ok-
ch/organice/blob/master/LICENSE)

3\.
[https://200ok.ch/posts/2019-11-10_impressions_from_emacsconf...](https://200ok.ch/posts/2019-11-10_impressions_from_emacsconf_2019.html)

4\.
[https://200ok.ch/posts/hack4glarus_hackathon_2019_winter_edi...](https://200ok.ch/posts/hack4glarus_hackathon_2019_winter_edition.htm)

5\.
[https://200ok.ch/posts/2019-10-13_mentoring_at_the_eth_visco...](https://200ok.ch/posts/2019-10-13_mentoring_at_the_eth_viscon_hackathon.html)

~~~
imslavko
Thank you for clarification. I must have missed the floss links from the
homepage.

------
BeetleB
Nice, but:

1\. How do I move nodes up/down? 2\. How do I promote/demote nodes?

Same with lists.

The ease with which I can do this in Emacs is what sold it to me initially.

~~~
preek
Hi BettleB,

thank you for checking out organice. You're question is very valid - it's
important to move stuff around quickly in an Org file. In organice, you can
quickly move nodes (and trees) in any direction. Here's a screencast showing
how: [https://youtu.be/aQKc0hcFXCk?t=360](https://youtu.be/aQKc0hcFXCk?t=360)

Having said that, since moving nodes around quickly is important, you can do a
lot more with nodes in organice. For example, you can create sparse trees[1]
or you can refile trees.

If you've got further questions, feel free to ping me up anytime!

1\.
[https://200ok.ch/posts/2020-02-09_creating_org_mode_sparse_t...](https://200ok.ch/posts/2020-02-09_creating_org_mode_sparse_trees_in_emacs_and_organice.html)

~~~
BeetleB
I'll take a look at it, but as someone who mostly uses a PC with a keyboard,
having convenient keybindings would be critical for me - I don't want to do
too much with the mouse.

But certainly, for the times when I'm not near a computer, it's nice to be
able to access via the phone, etc.

~~~
preek
_hihi_ , good points!

organice has you covered on shortcuts, though. Quite a few users don't use it
primarily as a mobile app, but in a desktop browser. You can even customize
them. This is the settings screen for shortcuts:
[http://screenshots.200ok.ch/screenshot_2020_05_12-c9c7a531.p...](http://screenshots.200ok.ch/screenshot_2020_05_12-c9c7a531.png)

Of course, the shortcuts are not as mighty as in Emacs or VIM, but the usecase
is a different one (away from your main computer or sharing files with people
not that much into text editors).

In any case, thank you for taking the time to check it out. If it helps you
just a couple of times while on the go to add something to the shopping list
or remember when you're in the store, I'm happy^^

------
dzsekijo
Nice stuff.

Some nit regarding the user experience:

\- Sorry, but I just can't wrap my mind around your choice too emulate a
handheld device's screen layout on desktop. It actually makes me feel like
running some mobile app in a cranky emulator! I also checked org-web on
desktop, I think their layout is much more _handy_ (sorry for the bad pun).

\- It's really annoying to not properly prepare users to get started for using
the tool for production. OK, there is the landing page. Quickly that gets me
to the sample doc, which is nice, extensive and useful. So far so good,
appetite is whetted. Now let's get to do some real stuff, let's start a
document! ... ehm, no way to do that. Maybe login is necessary for that? At
which point I start to scratch my head -- given that the tool is touted as
client-only software, why do I need to log in anywhere to create something?
Anyway, getting beyond that... OK logged in. It drops me to a file browser...
but still no "Create" or "New doc" button. Slowly it dawns on me that the org
files need to pre-exist on backing storage to be able start work on them. The
level of frustration is pretty high at that moment, the only reason to not run
away right away because it addresses something I am interested in. So while I
think it would be part of a full feature set to allow to create docs, its lack
wouldn't be a big issue if users were properly guided through the setup the
workflow, which involves uploading their initial org files to the storage.

By the way, why do users have to configure a storage backend and can't just
import/export org files? I see stuff like
[https://github.com/qbit/gavin](https://github.com/qbit/gavin) is being worked
on, but it feels a bit upsidedowny to me... if there is demand to use this
tool without cloud hosting, wouldn't it be simpler just to add import/export
facilities than the ancillaries of pretending to have a host? (Does it maybe
have something to do with Apple's recent decision to kill local storage?...)

Other things that would be nice to have:

\- When focusing in a subtree, would be nice to have a place somewhere that
indicates the absolute path (sidenote, I also wonder if such a setting is
available in Emacs...)

\- I read
[https://200ok.ch/posts/2020-02-09_creating_org_mode_sparse_t...](https://200ok.ch/posts/2020-02-09_creating_org_mode_sparse_trees_in_emacs_and_organice.html)
and I appreciate the work on the internal search engine, but the UI provided
does not match sparse tree. It's just an ephemeral pop-up, not a filtered live
view of the content.

------
lvass
Does this require me to send unencrypted files to GDrive/Dropbox?

~~~
preek
Good question! No, it doesn't(; Even if you were to use GDrive or Dropbox, all
communication would happen over HTTPS.

I'm assuming you're not talking about encryption on transit,though. organice
can use WebDAV as a backend, so you're free to use a whole range of free
software like ownCloud,Nextcloud and Seafile,but also self hosted dedicated
WebDAV servers like Apache or Nginx. More documentation on that is here[1]

Just recently, something interesting in the community happened in this regard,
too. qbit started to write a a simple WebDAV server specifically to run
organice called gavin[2].

1\.
[https://organice.200ok.ch/documentation.html#org7366d60](https://organice.200ok.ch/documentation.html#org7366d60)

2\. [https://github.com/qbit/gavin](https://github.com/qbit/gavin)

------
Torwald
staggering competition seems to arise in this field

[https://org-web.org](https://org-web.org)

~~~
timpark
If you look at the bottom of the Readme in the repo, you can see that this is
a fork of that one. [https://github.com/200ok-
ch/organice](https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice)

I'm glad to see this, since I was wondering how to search in org-web. (can't
use in-browser search to find items that aren't currently displayed)

~~~
preek
Thank you for checking out organice. Indeed, it is a fork of org-web and has
since added quite a few fixes and new features.

The search capabilities in organice are quite sophisticated for example. I've
written a small blog post to compare it to Org mode in Emacs:
[https://200ok.ch/posts/2020-02-09_creating_org_mode_sparse_t...](https://200ok.ch/posts/2020-02-09_creating_org_mode_sparse_trees_in_emacs_and_organice.html)

All the best and enjoy using organice!

