
Org Mode for Emacs – Your Life in Plain Text - grhmc
http://orgmode.org/
======
preek
I've switched to Emacs after 14 years of Vim (with the required evangelism^^).
Initially it was because of Clojure, but then I tried org-mode. Now my GTD
Setup (formerly Things.app), Notes for everything (formerly Evernote), Time
Tracking (formerly Minco), Pomodoro Technique as well as writing slide decks
(I'm a part time lecturer, so I do that a lot) are _all_ within org-mode. And
not, because it's hipster, but because it's just so much better - plus it's
completely platform agnostic and future proof, because it's just text.

Cannot recommend it more. I started using simple outlines for meeting minutes
and quickly realised that it will be easy and more efficient to migrate the
aforementioned workflows into org-mode, too.

A last one: Finally I can properly link between Mails, todos and notes (using
mu4e for mails). That was never completely working on OS X with Evernote,
Mail.app and Things and is just so important!

~~~
Uberphallus
For anyone trying not to make the same terrible mistake, you have vim-orgmode:
[https://github.com/jceb/vim-orgmode](https://github.com/jceb/vim-orgmode)

~~~
midgetjones
Or for anyone that is more open-minded, yet worried about the learning curve
of switching from vim to emacs: [http://spacemacs.org/](http://spacemacs.org/)

~~~
sdnguyen90
I switched to Spacemacs from Vim a few months ago and I'm probably never going
back to Vim. I didn't notice any difference between Evil mode and actual Vim.
Took me a week or two to learn the Emacs and Spacemacs specific things before
I was comfortable using as my primary editor.

~~~
groovy2shoes
The fact that I cannot use `space` as a direction/movement key in spacemacs is
a non-starter for me. I'd have more luck just learning Emacs's keybindings at
that point.

~~~
fernandotakai
at least for me, it feels like i have to change my whole workflow to match
spacemacs, instead of being the other way around (i, being able to easily
config spacemacs to match my current vim workflow).

it honestly felt really backwards to use spacemacs after ~10y of vim usage. i
would prefer to learn plain emacs + evil mode instead.

~~~
JamilD
I use emacs+evil; tried out spacemacs but found it over-customized. I want to
know what everything in my .emacs does, and if I don't like something, how to
change it. Spacemacs was _way_ too overwhelming for me.

~~~
ejrowley
Another long time vim user, I switched to emacs+evil then to spacemacs back to
vim back to emacs+evil. Spacemacs was good but I started to feel bogged down,
as I do with big ide's and went back to a very minimal vim.

I have now started back with emacs + evil and a minimal setup. I find it gives
me the best of all worlds.

~~~
platz
agree.

everyone talks about spacemacs=vim. this is nice, but what turned me off of
spacemacs was the layers config abstractions. It breaks the normal
configuration of emacs. Just install evil mode and a few contrib packages..
that's spacemacs lite.

------
MarcScott
Most comments here seem to focus on the notes and GTD side of org-mode.

For me, org-mode is my go to markup language. So much so that I now find
writing in Markdown to be almost painful. A few of my favourite features are:

\- Tables are amazingly easy in org-mode, with spreadsheet features thrown in
as well.

\- Code snippets can be written in their own major mode, giving me syntax
highlighting, auto completion and the ability to run the code and embed the
output into the markup.

\- Local links autocomplete, so I don't worry about breaking them with typos.

\- I can export to HTML, Markdown, ODF or PDF.

\- GitHub supports org-mode Readmes

~~~
Chattered
I recently had a paper published written in org mode and I have another in
review. I don't plan to write straight LaTeX again.

For me, babel is the killer feature. I can write code snippets in the buffer,
highlighted and indented according to the corresponding emacs mode, with
paredit for lisp, and beautifully exported via pygments. A single key combo
lets me evaluate my code in persistent repls associated with my buffer, and I
can choose what combo of code/result I want to export. I had some of my
snippets generate raw LaTeX that I could include in the document.

Org links make section references trivial, and I have it hooked up to ebib so
my citations are pure org. In the emacs buffer, clicking a citation link takes
me straight to the bibtex entry.

I don't much use the organiser, but I do use org heavily for writing cross
referenced notes about other people's code.

~~~
peatmoss
Fellow academic org-writers unite! Org is a great place to write papers.
Unlike Markdown, which some people present as another alternative, Org
supports cross-references. Also, being able to do complicated stuff by
dropping back to LaTeX is a boon.

~~~
BellsOnSunday
Why not just use AUCTeX?

~~~
peatmoss
Because org-mode targets far more than than LaTeX/PDF in its standard case,
isn't itself Turing complete, and supports vastly more stuff including
literate programming in a huge number of languages.

------
colah3
I really like org-mode and used it heavily for about a year. But I found
having my todo list on a single computer pretty limiting. Thankfully, there's
a new generation of org-mode inspired cloud apps:

* [https://workflowy.com/](https://workflowy.com/) \-- the most mature app

* [https://www.moo.do](https://www.moo.do) \-- really nice Google Apps integration

* [https://checkvist.com/](https://checkvist.com/) \-- extremely feature rich

I'm really excited by these tools. I feel like org-mode has some really nice
insights, but there's a lot of potential to improve.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'd say there's one primary "potential to improve" \- a mobile app. The
situation is better than it used to be, but frankly still not good enough IMO.
Otherwise, an org-mode + Dropbox combo works perfectly for me; every computer
I own or work on has Emacs installed anyway.

And it's hard to note down so much content on mobile that you won't be able to
retype it back on a proper computer under 5 minutes.

~~~
mbrock
I googled and couldn't immediately find a thing that eats notes from IMAP into
org-mode. That could be pretty useful for capturing on the go, since e.g. iOS
Notes does good IMAP sync.

~~~
bloat
If you're using GNUS to read your IMAP mail, you can link from org into GNUS.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15736590/how-to-
automatic...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15736590/how-to-
automatically-track-links-in-org-mode-to-gnus-messages)

Org can also store arbitrary links, with custom protocols - for instance I
link from org to our jira project using links like [jira:3456].

------
gexla
OrgMode is one of the killer features of Emacs and the among my top greatest
finds in the world of softwares.

Don't use an Orgmode copycat on another platform. Go straight for OrgMode on
Emacs.

If you are a Vim user, EVIL mode has the best Vim keybindings I have ever
used.

You don't have to leave your other dev environments for Emacs. Use Emacs only
for OrgMode if you like.

My only issue with OrgMode is that it's a bit of a rabbit hole. Sometimes I
clean slate my system to get rid of built up complexities, cruft, debt and
other messes and I get stuck when I look at OrgMode. It's a full on project to
get it to where I feel I want it to be and there is always something I an
improve or change. It's never ending.

Sometimes I just want something quick which handles just text and has lots of
features for doing different things with that text. In this case, I reach for
Acsciidoctor. Yes, I know that OrgMode could be the same, but I need the
constraints to keep me from tinkering.

~~~
PeCaN
I switched from vim to emacs a week or so ago and with evil-mode I hardly even
notice. It's actually really good, pretty much a full implementation of vim
inside emacs—not like other editor's vim emulation which is usually just hjkl
and a few motions ( _cough_ brackets,atom,vs code _cough_ ).

The main reason I switched was to check out org-mode (I didn't even plan to
fully switch for a while), and it's that good. org-mode is the killer app for
emacs. gdb-mode is really good too actually, as is eshell. For web development
maybe emacs isn't any better, but for C it's really really nice.

------
pqhwan
I learned VI before Emacs, and by the time I heard about Org Mode, I had
developed a way of using Vim similarly; in a nutshell, I write in a clang file
(usually named control.c), and (mis)use syntax highlighting on things like
switch statement, comments, TODOs and code folding to add structure
(screenshot: [http://imgur.com/kqrEahz](http://imgur.com/kqrEahz)). I did most
of my coding in C in college, got into the habit of writing pseudocode into
editors, and ended up with this practice.

For the Org Mode aficionados: I feel that this "thing" meets my needs for the
most part. I can create task items, comment them out when I'm done, add notes
and TODOs, and fold everything so I can focus on the task I'm working on. What
feature do you think I'll benefit the most from, if I decide to switch to Org
Mode?

~~~
jsrjenkins
Organizing one's work is a bit different for each person, and since you have
done a lot of work in C, certainly vi and clang files are more your /modus
operandi/. However for those of us with LISP backgrounds, Emacs is definitely
more suitable.

What you gain with org-mode is quite a bit:

Org-bable which allows you to write outlines with blocks of text that can call
external scripts. This is a bit like a Mathematica workbook, with text notes
and evaluations, but you can call to Python, Ruby, or whatever language you
want.

You can export an .org file into many different formats. LaTeX, HTML and
OpenOffice format are what I use most often. Note that you can modify the
template to export to any custom format you want. What is very useful are the
Beamer templates, where you can turn an .org document into a slideshow very
easily. This is a killer feature for anyone who has to lecture often and needs
a quick way to get his notes on some slides that look quite professional.

Org-mode also has an agenda, calendar and even contacts if you want to store
them there. You can provide links in your agenda to a specific part of your
file, so you can click on the TODO link and go immediately to what needs to be
done. This is extremely valuable for a large project and saves a lot of time.

There is also org-capture for those moments when you are fixing one file and
you need to remind yourself to refactor a function in another file. This helps
avoid many bugs especially in a large project where the function definition
can be somewhere else. You can also capture any sort of text. When looking up
documentation I often capture the web page and put it in a NOTES.org file in a
project, especially when it is something obscure that I don't use that often.
These notes can also have links/todos, etc. making it very practical.

Also since I do email in Emacs [mu4e], I can simply make a TODO from an email
with org-capture, and it goes into the agenda. In the agenda I have a link to
the original email and to any other file or notes that I add to this task.
This is very handy with bug-reports and things of this sort. Also, I can
search my agenda files to see if anything like this has happened before, etc.
It really helps to be able to do this without having to be online like with
many bug-tracking software - which is very helpful when on a commute in the
train.

These are just a few things that you would gain with org-mode, but really
there is no end to the customization you can do. It is all written in plain-
text and controlled with elisp. I like the fact that with this one tool
[Emacs] I can do so many things, so it is worth the time to know the tool
well. It also can expand to do whatever task I need to do. The plain-text
format makes it possible to even employ outside tools, such as sed and awk, if
I am not inspired in elisp at the moment. To do all the things that I do in
Emacs would require learning several different tools each with their own
document format and key-bindings and wouldn't even necessarily be adaptable to
the task at hand.

On the other hand, you do have the obligatory xkcd:

[https://xkcd.com/1205/](https://xkcd.com/1205/)

~~~
HelloNurse
Last evening I set up org-babel integration with Ditaa and Graphviz. Seeing
diagrams inline in the document is extremely convenient. Next time: PlantUML,
and maybe HTML export tests.

------
SpaceCadetJones
I haven't extended my use of org-mode outside of simple outlines for taking
notes and todos, but for that it's been wonderful. Something always irked me
about Microsoft Word, it didn't work quite right. I didn't like a number of
other softwares I tried. Same goes for TODOs. Now I have a good place to
manage both and I get to use that glorious evil-mode as well.

------
lcall
I have written an org-mode replacement that addresses some of the key
challenges (hard to learn, awkward) while keeping some key benefits (efficient
from keyboard, extremely flexible), and adding huge flexibility in what can be
done: [http://onemodel.org](http://onemodel.org)

It is a personal organizer, and the beginning of a platform to change how
individuals (or mankind) manage knowledge overall.

(Now with an improved web site.)

Feedback welcome!!

~~~
alphapapa
Looks interesting, but Java is a turn-off for me.

Even more of a turn-off for me is storing data in Postgres. Postgres is great,
but one of the primary benefits of Org is that it stores data in plain-text. I
can get data out of my Org files on any platform with any program that can
view text files. To get data out of a Postgres file...is orders of magnitude
more complicated.

But it looks interesting. I'd recommend putting up some screenshots, because
the front page of your site is a list of links without much actual
information. :)

~~~
lcall
Just saw your reply. The app has export (& import) features to convert
anything to (or from) an indented plain-text outline.

Thanks for the suggestion. There are screen shots under "about" then "what it
is today" then "screen shots". I should probably put them on the top in a side
frame or such.

The FAQs have in them somewhere, links to a discussion of a more detailed
comparison with org-mode.

I could use web design input, maybe via lists or at the site.

------
tangue
I don't know why this get in the frontpage but for those who are willing to
give it a try : Org is the best software I've ever used to clock time and
generate reports. And org-capture + Deft is a decent note management system
(though there is place for improvement)

~~~
alphapapa
Deft is good if you store notes in many small files, but doing that gives up
many of the powerful features built-in to Org, like the Agenda. (Unless you
want to add every little file to your agenda-files list...) You might find
this useful:

[https://github.com/alphapapa/helm-org-
rifle](https://github.com/alphapapa/helm-org-rifle)

------
hashkb
I bet org mode is one of the most posted things on HN. It has passionate
users. I'm not one of them.

~~~
pzone
My theory is that HN loves Emacs because HN loves Lisp.

~~~
daniel-cussen
I'm an anecdatum that did, in fact, learn Emacs b/c of Lisp. B/c of HN. B/c of
PG...and strangely enough, I've been working on my emacs skillz all day.

~~~
pzone
As a kid I took an "intro to programming" summer course based around scheme.
If I hadn't felt some echo of familiarity with all the parentheses when I
started with emacs, I don't know if I would have become an avid fan like I am
today.

------
theodorewiles
My system for remote editing:

System A: get a notebook. Write down what you want to capture when you are
away from your comp. When you sit down, check your notebook.

System B: Run your org mode on a linode. Download Connectbot (SSH client) for
your phone. You can now connect to your Org wherever you have cell service and
work from one always-running emacs instance with emacs --daemon and
emacsclient -c. I bought a personal blackberry (yes, I know) solely for the
physical keyboard which makes throwing out a CTRL or META keypress much
easier.

------
eulji
Disclaimer: mediocre developer here

I have recently switched to emacs from TextMate. I have not been using
TextMate to its full potential as I simply did not have the need to do so. It
was good. It worked great out of the box.

Then I realized that I needed to do much more than just use a text editor and
have been glueing a lots of other utilities together.

Then I doscovered emacs. A behemoth godknows how old. And decided to learn it.

The learning experience is really steep but I think it's worth it. EMACS
survived the test of the time along with VI(m). But sometimes I just feel it's
too much and the great extensibility comes at price.

I am looking forward to Atom but the performance is not that great compared to
EMACS. Not yet.

------
tambourine_man
Somewhat related, check out Vim Wiki if you are on the other side of the great
editor's fence:

[https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki](https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki)

Not feature for feature compatible, but sharing the same spirit

------
sunng
I'm org-mode beginner but quite enjoy it so far.

I use emacs org-mode on my Linux desktop, and
orgzly([http://www.orgzly.com/](http://www.orgzly.com/)) on my Android. org
files were synced via syncthing.

------
kevan
I haven't seen this come up before, but skimming through the features it
reminds me a lot of Engelbart's NLS [1]. Tables, lists, links, exports to
other formats, all from a plaintext base, it seems like this was directly
inspired by a lot of Engelbart's ideas.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos)

------
Tomte
"plus it's completely platform agnostic and future proof, because it's just
text"

This always irks me a bit.

Being text doesn't mean that there is no file format and internal semantics to
it.

Sure, it's easy to hack together some transformation in Perl, but "plus it's
completely platform agnostic and future proof, because it's just binary" would
be correct, as well. As long as the format is documented.

~~~
preek
You didn't reply under my thread, but I'm glad I saw your post anyway.

What I meant is this: I do have a paperless workflow and used to have
thousands of Evernote notes with meeting minutes, scans of paper, etc. Whilst
this is working pretty well for now on the Desktop and Mobile, there will be a
time in 10-40 years when I need to go back to some of those documents. And
whilst I wish Evernote all the best of luck, chances are good that they won't
be around or worse.

Whilst you are correct in 'as long as binary is documented' it's platform
agnostic, you are also completely wrong. Have you tried to read some documents
from just 15 years ago recently? Apart from reading from floppy disks, it's
just hard.

The internal semantics of org-mode are important to me now, when I do my
actual project. In the far future, the only thing that is important is that I
can full-text search and find my old legal documents. That's just a billion
times more easy and realistic with a flat text file than with a hypothetical
well-documented binary format.

------
girzel
It's always good to see Org mode flagged up (though it gets a surprising
amount of love on HN).

I use Org more or less constantly, and I'll take this opportunity to note an
Org-related observation that I've been mulling over for a bit. It's apropos of
nothing, but then so was this submission :)

The observation has to do with how new Org users get to know the system. The
whole thing can seem pretty daunting, especially when you look at some of the
examples of TODO setups ([http://doc.norang.ca/org-
mode.html](http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html)) in the wild. Pretty crazy.

My nutshell advice for new users is: in the beginning, you should emphasize
learning to use Org's tools effectively, rather than spending time organizing
your Org files structurally. The initial impulse is: I'm going to make this
file look just like my brain (or my project). Instead, learn to use the agenda
commands, so that you can make the _Agenda_ look like your project, not the
file.

A couple of reasons for this: If you start out trying to make structure (and
I'm also talking about very complicated TODO keyword flowcharts), you're going
to get it wrong, and it's going to be a pain in the butt to fix. Learning
Agenda commands, on the other hand, will always provide you with more
flexibility, not less. It will give you the power to handle new situations
easily, and to narrow your focus with ease. (Actually the same principle
applies to Emacs usage in general.)

For instance: I do a fair amount of event and conference management, little
four/five day things. In the beginning, I started by making Org files where
each day was a heading, and then the various events lived under the various
headings. This meant that, if events got changed around, I had to go to the
file and refile, which isn't terrible, but is a pain.

Instead, I now have no day-based headings at all, just a pile of potential
events with timestamps. The Agenda organizes things into days for me. If I
need to reschedule something, the Agenda provides more than ample commands for
shifting dates by hour/day, or simply entering a new date altogether.

Dump everything in one file, all top-level todos. Use the built-in TODO
keywords. Learn to make timestamps, and schedule/deadline cookies. After
you're good at that, maybe consider using tags (but maybe don't). Spend the
rest of your time learning how the Agenda commands work. Stay in the Agenda,
and if you must look at a file, do it with <SPC> on the headline (followed by
"o" when you're done), or, if you must, <TAB>. Resist the temptation to futz
with your files at all, until some real need begins to emerge from daily
usage. If you hold out until the annoyance is killing you, it should be very
clear what needs to change, and how, and you're unlikely to do something that
you'll regret later.

(I should note that I use Org for two general types of work: one is document
authoring, the other is todo/agenda management. The above basically only
applies to the latter.)

Learn to impose dynamic, temporary structure on your agenda, rather than
imposing static, one-time structure on your files.

Here endeth the (unasked-for) lesson. :)

~~~
neutronicus
Do you have tips for the "document authoring" side of things?

~~~
girzel
No, just write your document :)

Seriously, that's the side of things where Org is meant to get out of your
way, not provide you with a bunch of flashy tools. Learning to create and
manipulate headings (move up, move down, indent, outdent) should take you all
of fifteen minutes. Add plain lists, if you like, and footnotes. That's about
it.

Where things do get complicated is when you start exporting documents, and
realize it would look a bit better if _this_ bit were just a bit different,
and then... rabbit hole. But all that stuff, while fiddly, is pretty
straightforward, it doesn't have the emergent complexity of agenda handling.

------
joe563323
This will be the major entry point for emacs for many people. Also org mode is
very helpful. Simply put it is an amazing add on to human memory. Think like
playing a video game on 512 mb ram with lots of lag, that default human memory
and now think if the same pc has been upgraded to 32 gb ram. The game will be
more fun and no lags and that what org-mode does when used rightly(awesome
community will help you get it right. :) )

------
ageofwant
I found that vim + markdown and vim folds are most of what I need.

I got most what I'm currently doing from here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh_WGWii7UE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh_WGWii7UE)

------
dunderdash
My favorite part lately - org babel for scripting in just about any language
(think more flexible ipython/jupyter notebook, in org)

------
morbidhawk
I switched from using org-mode a long time ago and now I strictly use
markdown. I find doing simple things like including links, referencing images,
and code blocks are so much easier in markdown and I never have to look up how
to do something if I stop using it for a while

MARKDOWN:

    
    
        ```python
    
       #code
    
       ```
    
       [Google](http://google.com)
    
       ![Image ALT text](path/to/image.png "Title Text")
    

ORG-MODE:

    
    
       #+BEGIN_SRC python
    
       #code
    
       #+END_SRC
    
       [[http://google.com][Google]]
    
       #+CAPTION: Image caption
    
       [[path/to/image.png]]

------
wangchow
I find the "Mastering Emacs" book very helpful to learn emacs for anyone
interested!

[https://www.masteringemacs.org/](https://www.masteringemacs.org/)

------
intrasight
I have been interesting in learning Org Mode since first finding out about it
a couple years ago. I probably would have had more success if I'd started
before purchasing a smartphone. Like a billion others, my smartphone as become
my personal digital assistant. Now I would love to (again) have a smartphone
with a full keyboard - but the market seems to have rejected that form-factor.

~~~
PeCaN
org-mode has an _extremely_ low barrier to entry. I thought it seemed
monstrous and magical for a while, but the learning curve is basically
strictly linear (and goes on as far as you want, because Emacs).

Smartphones aren't gonna replace org-mode any time soon either: if you do any
work on a laptop or desktop, you'll want org-mode. It's the best way to manage
ideas and projects.

~~~
pkaye
Can you sync org-mode between the desktop and mobile devices?

~~~
ecspike
I have several of my files in Dropbox and let it do the heavy lifting. I
generally only view the file from mobile. There is a MobileOrg app but it
isn't great.

~~~
denzil
There is also Orgzly for Android, which is much nicer than MobileOrg if you
use Dropbox.

------
Gratsby
I am an emacs user, but my initial foray into org mode wasn't particularly
successful. I was much happier in OneNote.

Now that I work mostly in an OSX environment where OneNote is a stripped down
shell of it's Windows counterpart, I've been searching for a replacement. I
think it's time to give org-mode a try once again.

I'm not big on this set of documentation though. It's great for a reference,
but I would like to see something more engaging that reviewed the features and
gave a brief how-to. If anyone has any links, I'd love to explore.

Also... one of the things that I liked most about onenote is a canned
integration with outlook - from my meeting calendar entry I could click a
button and it would start a new note with the title of the meeting, the
date/time, a list of attendees, etc. Does anyone do something similar in org-
mode for taking meeting notes?

~~~
BooneJS
Have you considered VoodooPad for a personal Wiki?
[https://plausible.coop/voodoopad/](https://plausible.coop/voodoopad/)

------
pholz
The most important thing when working with text is, for me, consistent
keyboard shortcuts. Just CTRL+A, CTRL+E, CTRL+K, CTRL+Y, ALT+D, CTRL-
left/right alone get used so frequently in Emacs that in any other editor I
immediately try to set things up the same way (thankfully, there seems to
always be someone who writes an Emacs mode plugin for almost any IDE). A
massive benefit of org mode, then, is that I can write my notes, meeting
minutes, TODOs and even latex/pdf papers as well as track time right there in
org mode, with consistent shortcuts and consistent emphasis markup. org-export
takes care of producing .md, .pdf, .odt, .html or whatever so that I can
communicate with other people. All my org files live in a Dropbox-synced
folder. The only thing missing is a mobile app that shows you your agenda in a
reasonable format...

------
b01t
I don't use emacs; should I still invest my time in OrgMode?

~~~
carbonmachine
I've used emacs solely for orgmode over the last year and I'm not sure I'd
recommend it whole-heartedly. Orgmode is great, but the emacs learning curve
is steep and unforgiving. It still feels as if I'm faking my way through an
ancient language whenever I fumble through keyboard "shortcuts".

That said, it's incredibly powerful. Wouldn't continue to torture myself if it
wasn't. I like the plain text files, the authoring experience (the document
feels alive somehow), and I've never been more organized. I just wish it
existed outside emacs!

~~~
egor83
> I just wish it existed outside emacs!

"Orgmode for Sublime Text 2 and 3" (didn't try it myself though)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11311465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11311465)

------
dogweather
I find org mode hard to use — the keystrokes seem inconsistent, and I get
funky visual results. I.e., sometimes the reordering does what I expect,
sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes a blank line gets inserted which changes the
control behavior.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

------
catnaroek
Emacs has been my text editor of choice for quite a while already, and I'm
pretty happy with it. But I've never seen the point to org-mode. What's the
benefit over simply using a physical notebook to take notes and keep track of
my schedule?

~~~
TeMPOraL
That's not the question for org-mode - that's the question of using digital
vs. physical for note taking. And the answer probably depends on person.

For me, I went through everything. I've been switching around between paper
and digital. I did GTD on paper, did Bullet Journal, and on the computer side
I went through Workflowy, OneNote, using Outlook for tasks and some other
things too. I eventually gravitated towards org-mode and stayed there.

For me the biggest advantage of org-mode over everything else, paper and
digital alike, is its speed and flexibility. I ultimately dislike physical
note-taking because my handwriting sucks. And other computer tools lack the
speed you get from pure keyboard interface, and the flexibility of org-mode's
Agenda system.

~~~
pzone
Yeah. Comparing org-mode to handwritten notes? You can grep through your
notes, quickly refile, integrate with other software, use hyperlinks, and
synchronize over multiple devices. But the same is true of onenote or
evernote.

~~~
catnaroek
I can draw arbitrary diagrams and pictures on my notebook. I can write using
arbitrarily big or small letters. I can write fancy formulas and even make up
my own notations on the fly. I can use pens of different colors, and let the
colors highlight the relationships between ideas. And I don't need to worry
about “synchronization”, because I always carry my notebook with me. It's not
all downsides for handwritten notes.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Totally. That's why in my response I avoided saying that one is better than
other. It totally depends on your situation and use cases.

There's _tons_ of stuff that is about infinitely more convenient to do with
paper than with computers (even tablets). Fast arbitrary drawing, fast
arbitrary coloring, being able to get a full overview quicker (if you use a
binder, just take out all your notes and spread them on your desk - even three
4k screens won't beat _that_ ), etc. But nobody says you have to stick to one
and only system for everything. Personally, I still make a lot of designs on
paper - but I store tasks and project notes in a digital form.

~~~
catnaroek
> It totally depends on your situation and use cases.

Agreed. That's why I asked what other people's use cases are. Genuine
curiosity. :-)

------
carlesfe
I'm always interested in orgmode, but for TODOs and tasks I need ubiquitous
access, a mobile app, and the ability to delegate tasks. Is there any way to
do that (e.g. using a bridge app) with org-mode?

------
satyajitranjeev
I recently read a blog post[1] describing to store dot files in org mode. It
is a fantastic technique and I really don't need to worry about symlinking
files. All my dot files are stored in one orgmode file. Brilliant usage of
org-bable feature. This also influenced moving my init.el file to org file.

[1] [https://expoundite.net/guides/dotfile-
management](https://expoundite.net/guides/dotfile-management)

------
vim-guru
I've been using Org-mode and babel for about a month; and I'm sold! I think
the way I was writing software before outlines and the literate nature of Org-
mode was just wrong. The software you write when you do literate programming
can be read like a book, following the data-flow chronologically. That's a
really attractive trait if you are to share your code with others and of
course your future self.

------
calebm
I love plain text, and like the idea of having notes in one place, but I use
tons of pictures when taking notes (like taking screenshots of online class
whiteboards). Evernote is awesome for this kind of note taking. Is there an
easy way to add images to Org Mode notes? Or would I have to manually move the
image to the right directory, copy the path, and paste it into the Ord Mode
note?

~~~
groks
No problem:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahqKXbBVjpQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahqKXbBVjpQ)

------
gravypod
I would love to make the switch from an IDE to something like vim or emacs, I
just don't know where to start.

Is there something like oh-my-zsh for emacs?

I want to be able to have all of the IDE features that I've come to know and
love but for a wider range of languages.

I usually use C, Asm, Python, php, bash, and a few other languages.

don't know where to start.

~~~
bolivier
[https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude](https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude)

or if you know/like Vim:

[https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs)

------
jyriand
Have been using org-mode for a few years now but never reached the point where
I would feel comfortable. I can't find a good way to organize my files, there
are at least 20-30 files in my Dropbox, some are empty, some contain random
notes.

~~~
pzone
Have you tried org-capture? It's nice to have the files be accessible through
keyboard shortcuts, but it has the additional benefit that the potential
places I could drop some random note are specified in advance, forcing me to
maintain some level of organization.

------
look_lookatme
Org Mode really is the application of emacs principles to information
management. I love it and used to keep my emacs config in org. The reason I
don't use it so much for GTD or capture is the lack of a usable iOS sync
experience.

------
luxpir
Anyone turned off by the ridiculous amount of config required for a todo list,
feel free to try out my plaintext productivity 'suite'. It's intended to be
used in vim, but do as you please!

> [https://github.com/luxpir/plaintext-
> productivity](https://github.com/luxpir/plaintext-productivity)

Features: todos, timestamps, tagging, calendar, kanban-in-a-text-file
(vertical, not horizontal)

It was a response to org-mode complexity and the cruft it encourages you to
stow away and never look at again, as well as its rather insane amount of
features, 95% of which I had no need for. I make some more detailed comments
about org-mode in the post linked to from the repo
([https://lukespear.co.uk/plaintext-
productivity](https://lukespear.co.uk/plaintext-productivity)).

~~~
groovy2shoes
Not to put you down or discourage you from sharing useful things, but even
_that_ much config is too much for me.

My .vimrc and .gvimrc are small enough that I have them memorized, and I have
no reservations about manually typing things like "TODO", date/time, tags, or
check boxes.

Like I said, I don't mean to discourage you, but that's my personal
preference. I'm sure org-mode and the like make some people more productive,
but honestly I don't think the (rather small, really) feature set justifies
the bloat; and, frankly, I have a tendency to get sucked into a self-inflicted
configuration hell, so I'm likely more productive without them.

ETA: Looks like you're being downvoted. I have no idea why, given that this is
_Hacker_ News, after all, and you've just linked us to a hack of your own...
Sometimes I hate this place.

~~~
luxpir
Appreciate the response. The org-mode lot can be quote passionate, as much as
the proponents of 'the other' editor I mentioned...

TBH the config is not as minimalist as it could be - the autocomplete isn't
necessary, nor the archive and save keymappings. Just the syntax, fold and
timestamp settings would do - 5 lines? Many would have those set up already...
anyway, the idea is to be editor-agnostic, even (poor) Windows 10 users could
use notepad with its timestamping or Notepad++ with its folding etc.

No discouragement at all - whatever works for you. Manually typing is
essentially what the calendar setup I posted 'offers'. It's typically quicker
than picking from a date-box to just type 12 - TASK under the correct month.
Completely with you on that front.

My main problem with org-mode and taskwarrior etc. is they are based on the
premise that you will have an inordinate number of tasks to manage.
Productivity does not that way lie, IMO. I am not into 'folding away' 400
tasks and brain dumping every useless thought I have. Nor am I into being
forced to review dozens of time-wasting entries every week.

Being strict with my work tasks/goals/deadlines means I run a lean list - I've
run too many crufty ones before to go back there. I just want the computer to
automate as much as it can and to augment my wetware, not to give me more
work.

Also no probs for the downvotes. The comment started with a few + but then
they quickly got overruled. It happens, no big deal, I just always prefer to
have both sides of a cult presented in my decision-making :)

------
pklausler
I'm not a Luddite, but I prefer to use paper notebooks and a fountain pen to
remember things and organize my thoughts. I prefer Quo Vadis notebooks with
beautiful creamy unlined paper suitable for writing and sketching.

------
miseg
I can appreciate the ability it gives you to flesh out tasks and projects.

Mindmapping is another nice tool to achieve this. Freemind is a useful piece
of software (but doesn't have the future-proofness of plain text.)

------
thanatropism
I was beginning to learn org-mode a while back, but stumbled on this: there
simply isn't a nice emacs for the iPad, which is what I have on me at all
times.

------
dunderdash
Found this useful for navigating:

;; Scroll line by line

(global-set-key (kbd "M-P") 'scroll-down-line)

(global-set-key (kbd "M-N") 'scroll-up-line)

------
malloryerik
I just wish there were a decent mobile client.

------
johntaitorg
I requested tag hierarchies on the mailing list back in 2011 and here it is in
the release notes.

------
fosco
anyone familiar with a way to export to html and make it editable from say a
smartphone accessing a home apache server?

------
el3ctron
a very happy org-mode user here!

------
atemerev
Tried to switch to vim/Emacs repeatedly for more than 10 years, never
understood the reason of cryptic commands and shortcuts, that was OK 25 years
ago, but since then, keyboards got, say, _arrow keys_. Alt-F is "forward one
word"? OK, can be memorized, but there is Alt-right arrow for everything else,
much more intuitive.

UI matters. Shortcuts and their relationships are part of the UI, and it's
horrible for Emacs. It's the same as some people saying "syntax doesn't matter
in programming languages", to which I say BS.

~~~
amasad
Arrow keys are the worst ergonomically. You need to be able to stay as close
as possible to the home position. When my RSI got really bad I noticed how bad
it can be to keep reaching for the arrow keys.

~~~
atemerev
I don't feel uncomfortable when reaching for the arrow keys with my right
hand.

But I _do_ feel very uncomfortable when I press wrong navigation key in Vim
(was it h or j? My fingers don't _feel_ it), and it's really uncomfortable
reaching for Ctrl for anything in Emacs, especially Ctrl-B — now _this_ is
RSI-prone).

~~~
TeMPOraL
Remap CTRL to CAPS LOCK. It's a pretty standard thing in Emacs world.

Also, learning keybindings is a matter of your state of mind. Or rather, of
your attitude. You didn't start knowing how to use arrows, you _learned_ it at
some point in your life. It took time then too. Like 'amasad wrote, treat it
as a new controls for a videogame. Somehow people don't have problems with
learning those.

~~~
atemerev
Some things are inherently easy to learn and to use, because they map to
innate categories (e.g. direction and size). And some things are arbitrary and
require memorization.

And don't get me started on videogames. When I was still playing them, I was
constantly remapping keys.

One can say: "OK then, it's Emacs, you can remap the keys any way you want".
And believe me, I tried. And struggled with keymapping conflicts here and
there (including Ergoemacs).

I adore the idea of absolute configurability. I like how Emacs is built and
what amount of extensions is available. I just can't use it, no matter how I
tried.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Well, I have much more problems with Vim bindings (hjkl) than with Emacs,
which map to obvious concepts - #\p for "previous", #\n for "next", #\f for
"forward", #\b for "backward", etc. Still, I found out that 5 to 10 minutes of
focused training is enough to overcome any set of keybindings. Seriously, try
that - 5 minutes, _to the clock_. Most people never spend more than a minute
or two on a new thing, and then give up and complain it's too difficult.

