
Let's Get Going with Org-Mode - luu
https://beorg.app/orgmode/letsgetgoing/
======
midgetjones
This looks really good! I used to use org mode as part of my daily workflow,
but now that I don't have to submit timesheets I've got out of the habit.

At the time, though, it was wonderful. Once I'd spent some time getting used
to org-clock, it becamse a much less intrusive workflow than switching apps to
log time. Plus, you get beautiful tables at the end of it detailing your day,
and all your notes for each item if you need them.

I even wrote some (probably terrible) elisp to collect my day's time data and
post the items to our timesheet API. Mainly so I could show off to my
colleagues, but also something I would never even attempt in Vim.

Edit: found it! [https://pastebin.com/6EksUxAh](https://pastebin.com/6EksUxAh)

~~~
aasasd
Hmmm. Personally I'm currently using Toggl: even though the backend is
proprietary, the Mac tool is lightweight, well designed and, curiously, open
source. However, I could use some divorce from proprietary services sucking up
my detailed time records.

Could anyone please comment as to how Org-clock's recording interface compares
to Toggl? Especially, can it respect me going afk and count it as a break
after five minutes? Toggl has a great dialog for this, amounting to ‘stop or
continue.’ As for the reporting side, I mostly need just a summary of my time-
wasting achievements over a week.

I suppose that Org-clock doesn't leave the confines of Emacs itself? Which
must limit its abilities in measuring the activity.

~~~
username223
See the variable "org-clock-idle-time". This is Emacs, so _of course_ there is
an option.

I'm not sure if I would use org-clock unless I were already programming in
Emacs, but since that's mostly what I'm doing, it works great to keep track of
contracting time.

~~~
mercer
Personally I could see myself using org-clock in isolation, even if just for
the fact that I end up with a non-proprietary log. I've lost too much history
to various different tools (some of them turned out less than ideal, some just
went belly-up).

It's difficult to know though, because I started using org-clock alongside
org-mode, and if you combine time-tracking with outlining, journalling,
todo/project management, and a calendar, all of it well integrated, it's hard
to imagine switching to something else.

EDIT: also, just remembered that one reason I quite using Toggl was that
clocktables turned out much more powerful for analyzing/reporting my hours.

------
tangue
I was a bit shocked to see the author using the gui :) If you're already into
Emacs the David O'Toole is better imho [https://orgmode.org/worg/org-
tutorials/orgtutorial_dto.html](https://orgmode.org/worg/org-
tutorials/orgtutorial_dto.html)

~~~
appsonthemove
There are so many fantastic Org mode tutorials for users already familiar with
Emacs. My goal here was to show users who've never touched Emacs before - and
might be a little scared of it! - that it isn't really that hard. Most
tutorials I've seen jump straight into configuring the agenda keyboard
shortcut in a users Emacs configuration file. This would put the uses I'm
trying to reach off straight away.

I intend a follow up article where keyboard shortcuts are used - and enforce
they are a big part of the reason that Org mode can be so much more efficient
than other task management solutions.

~~~
gnufied
Of all the org mode apps, I like UI and ux of beorg most. But since I have
android as my main device, 8 can't use it. Any plans for android port?

~~~
appsonthemove
It's unlikely I will do an Android port any time soon - the likelihood is that
beorg will stay iOS only. Orgzly is a great app for Android.

------
Quequau
I've been using Org Mode ever since I saw that Literate DevOps presentation...
and I'm not even in DevOps at all. It's just that using emacs and Org Mode
creates the most usable documentation for recording what I've figured out and
done that I've ever seen.

I'm sort of surprised it's not more popular because the productivity gains are
pretty damn amazing.

~~~
krychu
Could you share how you use it exactly?

~~~
Quequau
I use it more or less exactly how it was described here:

[http://howardism.org/Technical/Emacs/literate-
devops.html](http://howardism.org/Technical/Emacs/literate-devops.html)

The only real additions relate to internal tools which we developed for our
work (I do sensor development and integration).

~~~
cheez
I've been using org-mode for years, including w/ Babel and this guy blew me
out of the water. Amazing.

------
neilv
If someone isn't quite ready for org-mode, but wants to try a lightweight todo
list (and more) with some powerful features, there's the todo.txt format,
which works with a variety of tools. (Or you might use org-mode for work
projects, but todo.txt for personal.)

[http://todotxt.org/](http://todotxt.org/)

There are many programs that support todo.txt, including multiple Emacs modes.

For one of the Emacs modes, I have a few tweaks to the format and Emacs that
let me use it as a lightweight todo list, calendar, and day planner.

[https://github.com/avillafiorita/todotxt-
mode](https://github.com/avillafiorita/todotxt-mode)

[https://www.neilvandyke.org/todotxt/](https://www.neilvandyke.org/todotxt/)

~~~
v_lisivka
I use just plain text file opened in plain text editor with following
conventions:

    
    
      # Topic
      [ ] A task. @tag #ticket
        [ ] A subtask.
          [ ] A sub-sub-task.
      [+] Completed task.
      [-] Failed task.
      [.] Partially completed task. WIP.
      [!] Urgent task.
      [^] High priority task.
    

Easy to store. Easy to share. Easy to edit at any device with plain text
editor.

The only feature I miss is grouping of sub-tasks. For example, I may want to
group all subtasks from all projects(topics), which I need to do _at_ place X
(e.g. at parents home), so I will prepare for them. I cannot select them all
without using of SQL engine or grep like tool. If editor can highlight a
search term, it helps, but for long lists it easy to miss.

~~~
redwards510
keep going, you are 90% there to having a Markdown todo list like me! just use
a dash and a space before the brackets and use "x" to indicate they are done.
If you render the markdown in a browser you can use a mouse to click the
checkboxes. Check out a markdown cheat sheet for more details.

Granted, you won't be able to use your special characters in the brackets..

~~~
v_lisivka
IMHO, a preprocessor can be used to convert from square-brackets format into
markdown format, e.g. to highlight urgent and high priority entries with
different colors. Sometimes, I need to share my TODO list with a manager.
However, even in it plain form, it works well. IMHO, same can be done with
todo.txt and org-mode files.

Can you share more about how you generate HTML from your markdown, and how you
share result, please?

------
Lewton
I use beorg

I like beorg

But I’m beginning to think the correct solution for emacs org mode on iOS is
something where I have a server running emacs with all my configurations and
customizations, while the app is just a dumb ui that sends the commands to the
server for processing. Beorg, or any app that isn’t a full blown emacs
implementation (which will never be allowed in the Apple app Store) will never
be able to fit my customized workflow fully

Edit: just noticed there’s no mention of beorg in the article so my comment
might seem a little schizophrenic :-p

~~~
appsonthemove
I'm not so sure that Apple wouldn't allow Emacs on the App Store - they are a
lot more pragmatic than they used to be. There is a project called iSH which
is currently on TestFlight - it gives you Linux via a usermode x86 emulator.
It would be strange for Apple to approve for TestFlight if there was _no_
chance of it ever being approved for the App Store.

~~~
ashton314
Beorg is halfway there with a sweet little Scheme REPL that you can use to
customize the app and write scripts. If anyone makes a full-blown emacs for
iOS that works well, I will buy it.

------
yigitdemirag
I am surprised that nobody mentioned spacemacs[1] and its org-mode support. If
you are used to vim shortcuts but want to give a chance to fully-supported
org-mode, you should definitely try spacemacs.

Still, I don't think I am ever going to use spacemacs to write code, but for
note-taking(with inline LaTeX preview)/todo/calendar, I am 100% happy with it.

[1] [http://spacemacs.org/](http://spacemacs.org/)

~~~
asciimov
I want to like spacemacs, I really do, but using spacemacs is like having a
bipolar cat. One moment it is nice and warm and cuddly, the next moment it's
randomly knifing you and trying to assert dominance by missing the box.

~~~
iLemming
Spacemacs doesn't magically liberate you from having to learn Emacs - it
simply makes certain things more obvious, but also it obscures some other
things. Be patient with it and you'll be rewarded. Whenever something breaks
on my config due to an upstream change (a package gets updated with a breaking
change) it usually takes me less than 2 minutes to triage that and find a
workaround. It doesn't happen very often and I update packages multiple times
a week.

~~~
asciimov
> Spacemacs doesn't magically liberate you from having to learn Emacs

Understandable, and not an issue for me.

My first issue was that there is an error from the start in the main version.
That bug was fixed, but syl20bnr refused to do a hotfix. To make matters worse
the main download that a new user gets is 13 months old at this point.

So a new user can either install the hotfix themselves or move to the dev
branch. A new user isn't informed that they should just be on the dev branch
and that due amount of changes since the last main branch release that the new
user is better off deleting everything and starting over straight from the dev
branch.

~~~
iLemming
experienced users know: it's better to be in development branch than in
master. Sadly that's is the current state of affairs with Spacemacs.
Development branch ironically is more stable - yes, things break sometimes,
but they also get fixed rather quickly. AFAIK maintainers currently working on
the next stable release and trying to figure out better strategies to move
forward.

------
rntksi
I love articles that explain by providing examples with how to click via a
menu. I use the keyboard extensively, but learn via menu items, mouse clicks,
... first, only then will I find shortcuts to do things I want to do.

~~~
all2
This is like learning music on the piano; one handed and slow. Perfect each
band's performance, then put them together.

------
istjohn
Slightly off topic, but I love the Org-mode feature of [[A link
description][file:~/my-file::a line in the file]] style links. Is there an
easy way to get just that feature in all my files? I'd love to be able to have
Org links in code comments, for example, but I don't want to use Org code
blocks.

~~~
ashton314
Yes! You just have to bind the function `org-open-at-point-global` to a
keystroke. This is what I have in my .emacs file:

    
    
        (global-set-key (kbd "C-c L") 'org-insert-link-global) 
        (global-set-key (kbd "C-c O") 'org-open-at-point-global)

~~~
istjohn
Awesome! Thank you! I'm new to Emacs, and the transition has been a bear, but
things like this are well-worth the price of admission.

------
LandR
I love emacs on linux but it always seems so slow for me on Windows and the
scrolling feels janky.

~~~
teddyh
To fix scrolling:

M-x customize-variable

mouse-wheel-progressive-speed

Toggle it off, then click on State/Save for Future Sessions.

~~~
teddyh
For reference, it is possible to do the same thing completely from the top
level menu option “Options”/“Customize Emacs”/“Top-level Customization Group”:

From there, click “Editing”, then “Mouse”, then scroll down to “Mouse Wheel
Progressive Speed” and click the arrow at the start of the line to fold out
that option. Then do as described above; i.e. toggle the option _off_ and
click the “State” button menu and choose “Save for Future Sessions”.

------
euroclydon
org mode is a nice place to write a resume or quick white paper. It’s easy to
embed sequence diagrams with plant uml. Then send it to html or pdf, but I’d
like to have an export to ms word or google docs for sharing. I know you can
copy and paste the html output, but the styling comes out wrong in word. I
want the word default Title 1,2,3 styling.

~~~
nnq
> diagrams with plant uml

...any tip on getting that working _faster_? (it takes seconds!!!) I generally
prefer to edit the plantuml markup and see the diagram update _instantly_
(like ~<200ms) on the other half split. This is the workflow I have with
VSCode + Markdown Preview Enhanced.

I prefer org mode deeper structure instead of markdown, but this kinds of
usability stuff (there's also horrible latex formulas rendering, a thousand
small papercuts that are fixable but nobody has time for that). From a
practical perspective _nothing_ just works out-of-the box the way I want on
Emacs, and I'm just to lazy to properly customize everything...

~~~
juki
I assume those seconds are mainly JVM startup time. The existing ob-plantuml
doesn't support sessions, so it evaluates every code block in a new instance
of plantuml. Seems to me like should be possible to use the `-pipe`-option for
plantuml so that you can send multiple code blocks to the same instance via
stdin and get the images back via stdout. That's probably what VSCode does,
but it doesn't seem like anyone has bothered to write that for Emacs so far.

~~~
WhatIsDukkha
Yep most likely -

[https://code.orgmode.org/bzg/org-mode/src/master/lisp/ob-
pla...](https://code.orgmode.org/bzg/org-mode/src/master/lisp/ob-plantuml.el)

Seems like this might an opportunity for a graalvm build of plantuml... might
be better then a server version but tbd.

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

------
rthomas6
How does org-mode compare to Todoist + gcal? Does it solve a different
problem?

~~~
appsonthemove
Depending on your point of view, Org mode has the advantage of being plain
text and free software. It is a system you could still be using in 10-15 years
time. Todoist might be have bought by Microsoft (or similar) by then and
discontinued. This is probably a good reason why Org mode is appealing to
academics who may be on a research project for many years - you need to be
using something that is going to stay the course.

Org mode does a lot more than Todoist (literate programming, spreadsheet
features which I personally use in project proposals for calculating costings,
exporting complex documents, logging time, ...) However all that power might
be a distraction depending on what you need the tool for :)

------
RMPR
Despite being shocked (maybe it's not the right word) by the keyboardless use,
I just want to add that for mobile users there is orgzly which allows you to
access your org files.

~~~
legooolas
On Android recently I've been more tempted to just use "termux" and to run
emacs and org-mode locally, using git to sync files back-and-forth.

The main pain there is going to be the key combos required, which aren't
exactly mobile-friendly, but they can be reconfigured...

~~~
aasasd
If you're gonna be so masochistic, could at least slap Evil-mode on it.

------
riazrizvi
I find emacs too slow on Mac, so I use vim (actually nvim) with jceb’s vim-
orgmode. Good enough emulation for me.

~~~
snicker7
If startup time is the issue, you can use emacsclient for near instant starts.

------
purplezooey
He must be English because he uses the word 'rubbish'.

------
davidhunter
"utility room" \- hello from a fellow Brit :)

~~~
midgetjones
Or the "futility room", as my Dad would call it.

~~~
appsonthemove
Ha! That is a very apt description. My wife feels quite overwhelmed by ours at
the moment. We can just about squeeze in to get to the piles of Play-Doh and
the washing machine.

I never stopped to think that a utility room was a British thing :)

