
Worg, the Org-Mode Community - lelf
http://orgmode.org/worg/
======
bachmeier
I use org-mode almost every day, and I think it's great, but I also think it's
fair to point out what I see as its biggest disadvantage. It changes. And by
that I mean the developers don't care at all about breakage. This has caused
countless problems for me over the years in two ways:

i. You better be using exactly the same org-mode version on all of your
computers, because there is no concept of backward compatibility. Making
matters worse, there is no restriction that changes have to be documented
before the release. I got burned with some presentations when they made major
changes to the exporters. The documentation consisted of a statement that they
were working on the documentation.

ii. The documentation you find may or may not work. Google is hit or miss
because in most cases your search will return an answer for a different
version from the one you're using.

This is not to say you shouldn't use org-mode. As I stated at the top of my
comment, I use it on a daily basis, so there are a lot of benefits.
Nonetheless, org-mode discussions paint a rosy picture, when there are in
reality issues that you have to be prepared for.

~~~
_yy
So far, I haven't encountered any undocumented or severe breakage when staying
with the stable version. Of course, things are different if you pull from Git
master, but that's to be expected...

~~~
bachmeier
I'm using the stable version. However, if I install on a new computer, I don't
want to go with a year old version just to maintain compatibility with my
other installs. And if I collaborate with someone else, it's unlikely they'll
have the same version.

------
e19293001
Here[0] is a demonstration of a good set-up in org-mode. This was written in
org-mode and generated the html file. You can tangle the source code[1] and
try it. This had greatly helped me to get started in organizing everything.

One of the feature I like is time clocking[2] where in you time all everything
that you do (including sleep![3]) and eventually review after a
week/month/year, you can generate some analysis on what task took most of your
time.

org-drill[4] helped me a lot when there are things that I need to memorize.

I used vim for one year before moving to emacs. Indeed, I can edit files
faster in vim rather than emacs but I can get more stuffs than in emacs rather
than vim because of org-mode. Therefore, I choose emacs for the reason that
org-mode helps me organize everything.

[0] [http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html](http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html)

[1] [http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.org](http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.org)

[2] [http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Clocking](http://doc.norang.ca/org-
mode.html#Clocking)

[3] [http://sachachua.com/blog/2015/11/weekly-review-week-
ending-...](http://sachachua.com/blog/2015/11/weekly-review-week-ending-
november-20-2015/)

~~~
_yy
Doesn't have to be that complicated, though. I recommend starting with a
simple workflow.

As a former Vim user, I can recommend evil-mode and the SpaceMacs project:

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

[https://bitbucket.org/lyro/evil/wiki/Home](https://bitbucket.org/lyro/evil/wiki/Home)

> An Emacs distribution - The best editor is neither Emacs nor Vim, it's Emacs
> _and_ Vim!

Evil is a very, very complete Vim emulation in Emacs. I have yet to find a
feature which is missing. Some features work _better_ than the original.

~~~
joonoro
> Doesn't have to be that complicated, though. I recommend starting with a
> simple workflow.

Definitely agree. I tried to force myself into using tags and agenda when I
first started and it didn't end well. Instead you should start out using it as
a simple TODO list manager and slowly use more advanced features when you
figure out how they could fit in with your workflow. I think Carsten Dominik
(the original author of Org-mode) put it best:

> _What people miss when they are new to Org-mode is this:_

> _Don 't try to set up the "final" task managing system from the start.
> Because you have no idea yet what your system should look like. Don't set up
> many TODO states and logging initially, before you actually have a feeling
> for what you working flow is. Don't define a context tag "@computer" just
> because David Allen has one, even though you are sitting at a computer all
> the time anyway! Start by creating and managing a small TODO list and then
> develop your own system as the needs arises. I wrote Org-mode to enable this
> development process._

[https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
orgmode/2008-04/msg...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
orgmode/2008-04/msg00009.html)

~~~
_yy
Just use org-mode like you would use a paper todo list, and then add the bells
and whistles when you need them. No need to spend a week setting it up.

------
daschwa
Org-Mode has been the most rewarding part of using Emacs for me and has been
what kept me from switching to another editor for more than two years now. I
have a single Org-Mode file[1] that builds my entire development environment.

[1] [https://github.com/daschwa/emacs.d](https://github.com/daschwa/emacs.d)

~~~
joonoro
> Org-Mode has been the most rewarding part of using Emacs for me and has been
> what kept me from switching to another editor for more than two years now.

Same. Every now and then I think "ooh, Acme might be really cool" but then I
remember it doesn't have Org-mode. It really is the killer-app of Emacs. I
guess it's a good thing because it means I can finally settle on an editor
long enough to master it.

~~~
daschwa
Precisely.

------
rtplasma
I regularly use org-mode, for all types of notes, including for work notes.
One of the many advantages with org-mode is "time-stamping", and to have a
reference to a particular item in your agenda (org-agenda). As e19293001
noted, time-clocking is also very nice, and the possibility to generate
reports based on time spent on each item. Another very useful feature is the
usage of internal or external links: links to local files, or to a external
source such as a web links (e.g. through http, ftp, mailto, etc).

------
kev6168
Genuine question: how does Org-Mode handle mindmap style information
management? By "mindmap" I mean applications such as Freemind, Xmind, etc.?

I recently started to use Xmind after years of Vimoutliner. Both the upsides
and downsides are huge for me. For text based approach such as Vim, it is
great in fast input, text manipulations, complex searches, integrate with
other tools, portability, etc.

But on the other hand in Xmind(or other mindmap applications), being able to
see the nodes spreading out on the screen(with colors, icons and whatnot) ,
drag them around freely into various structures(trees, flow charts, fishbone
diagrams, etc.) is really helpful to thinking and manipulation. Also you can
attach a host of files(images, videos and stuff like that) to those nodes. I
am torn between these two types of approaches, each with their respective
advantages.

~~~
jmnicolas
Well an outliner is really faster but sucks at showing the big picture. A
graphical mindmapper is slower but is great when you want an overview.

Ultimately you would need a combination of both, one where you create your
outline and it's rendered as a visual mindmap.

I'm not aware of any software that does that though.

~~~
girzel
There's another (Mac-only) bit of software called Tinderbox. I'm a die-hard
Org user -- use it every day, and have written quite a bit of software on top
of it. Tinderbox is the only program that occasionally makes me regret
committing to Emacs/Org.

~~~
blue1
I've also been watching Tinderbox for years, it's a very interesting software,
but never used it because it's non-FLOSS and single-platform.

------
flyrain
One of pains is that the mobile-org doesn't work. I cannot even view my org
file on iPhone.

~~~
girzel
Truly, the difficulty of getting your Agenda on the phone is one of the great
frustrations of Org. I have an Android phone, and while it's useful for some
things (making phone calls, wechat), its utility would easily be doubled by
having my Org information on the phone.

I think the problem arises because most Org hackers are Emacs hackers, but
writing apps is a totally different domain. I went at it once, full of beans,
and was defeated by Java, and the general app ecosystem.

Each uptick in my emacs lisp ability has had an immediate effect across my
entire computing environment, and that has made learning lisp a practical
endeavor, despite my not really being a programmer. Learning to write Android
apps... I'm going to need that once, perhaps twice, and it's not worth it.

~~~
unhammer
I used to use [https://github.com/dengste/org-
caldav](https://github.com/dengste/org-caldav) to export my agenda to
owncloud, which at least gave me a low-effort read-only calendar of my agenda,
but with recent versions of orgmode they changed the whole export engine which
made my configuration not work (and I haven't had the energy to try again).

------
krylon
I am currently beginning to use org-mode to keep track of what I do at work.
When my boss comes into the office on Friday afternoon and asks us what we did
all week, I usually have a hard time remembering what I did on Monday or
Tuesday. Having a record of that will hopefully help.

Once I have gotten into the habit of writing down what I did, I hope to also
use it for time-tracking, so I can also tell my boss that I worked on Task A
for five hours and Task B for three hours.

It is impressive how rich the feature set is, even though I currently use just
a tiny fraction of it.

~~~
chris_st
I wrote a pretty simple web app to do just this -- write down what I did, per
project or task, and how long I worked on it. I eventually gave up on keeping
track of the time, as I found I didn't really need it.

It's really useful, not only on weekly staff meetings, but in our (SIGH...)
yearly appraisals.

I didn't know about org-mode at the time...

~~~
krylon
There are plenty of software projects, both FLOSS and proprietaty that aim to
support people in this, mainly because many, many people need to keep track of
their time.

On the other hand, each person's workflow and environment is different, so
there probably is no one-size-fits-all solution for this sort of thing.

So, given that it is not an excessively complex problem, rolling your own is
perfectly fine, I think. (Probably fun, too.)

But in my case, learning org-mode was faster than rolling my own. And of
course, one doesn't need to use every bell and whistle.

------
KnightHawk3
As a Vim user, I wish I could have something like what I have heard of Org-
Mode for Vim / Neovim.

At the moment I just have a folder of Markdown files that I compile with
gitit, it doesn't seem as nice though.

~~~
ikurei
You can have it in a way... Emacs + EVIL mode make for a pretty good Vim, and
with some effort almost all Vim plugins can be replaced on emacs.

You'll still miss some things if you are a hardcore user of a very customized
Vim, ofc. I'm ok with using Vim for almost everything and a kind-of-weird-Vim-
that-is-actually-Emacs for Org.

~~~
tetraodonpuffer
or you could move to neovim, open a terminal in neovim and launch console
emacs inside it just for org-mode :)

------
luxpir
I might have to finally try it if so many people are claiming life-changing
effects!

I don't create or edit code for a living, for the most part, but I do use vim
to edit workstation/server files and side-projects as well as a fair bit for
notes and todo lists. I share the notes with an always-on raspberry pi via
syncthing, which I can SSH into to check in a pinch.

There isn't much incentive in this case to switch to emacs, then (although the
idea of a wearable rpi with emacspeak instead of a HUD has always intrigued).
My current todo list for keeping organised, after recently moving off of
Trello, needed to be reasonably smart to replace it.

I think the solution is smart yet simple enough to work long term. It has been
OK for a month or two now, at least, but I'm still open to improvements. It's
basically a vertical kanban board, instead of the usual horizontal one. I
don't need time tracking, as I don't bill that way (but if it were automated,
again, I'm open to it - could be interesting) but it would be nice to have
alerts and reminders. For those I set reminders in tkremind for the important
stuff - also copied and synced to the pi. The workflow is this:

\- Tasks are entered into the relevant folding section, prepended with a
timestamp [F5], with a #tag.

\- As tasks complete, I delete/paste [dd/p] into the invoicing section, if
required.

\- Then [key binding] moves the item to 'the last line of the file' where a
log has built up in roughly chronological order, returning the cursor to the
same line.

This basically replicates Trello locally, but with the advantage of speed,
grep-ability [grep -m 10 '#projectX' todo.txt] and privacy. The other open
source kanban options looked good, but I am a big fan of text files, as org-
mode users probably are too.

I'm now wondering if org-mode would be an upgrade or an over-complication...
acutely aware of the irony of spending all this time on getting organised in
order to be more productive.

~~~
npsimons
> I might have to finally try it if so many people are claiming life-changing
> effects!

Org, much like emacs, is like catnip to a certain minded type of individual.
This might stem from both being written in lisp
([http://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html](http://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html)).

Both are infinitely malleable to your needs, yet surprisingly effective out of
the box for their intended use cases; the tweaking only comes later when you
go "I wonder if I can do this." It also opens your eyes when you realize it's
all just text ([http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3996068979/the-levels-of-
em...](http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3996068979/the-levels-of-emacs-
proficiency)).

Beware though: you can go pretty deep down the rabbit hole, it can be made
over complicated, but if you KISS and keep disciplined, both emacs and org are
powerful tools.

~~~
luxpir
Your point could still partially apply to vim. But my main train of thought on
reading this, as well as the sample configs offered above[0], is that it
_really is_ much too complex for my needs.

The amount of configuration and maintenance required, shuffling todo items
around, filing, refiling - even the person whose setup is mentioned
elsewhere[0] admits he had 373 tasks at that time - that doesn't sound
organised to me!

I'll most likely stick to developing my 'plaintext vertical kanban' system,
unless I dabble with the vim clone of org-mode. I do however get the ethos of
the thing, and happily encourage it. I saw a fun quote at the top of one of
today's HN front page articles:

 _Laziness is a virtue as it “makes you go to great effort to reduce overall
energy expenditure.”_

— Larry Wall, founder of Perl

[0] [http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html](http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html)

\---

PS - slightly off topic, but saw in another comment here you still use org-
mode on an N900 - I need to de-brick mine, but that involves splitting a USB
cable and soldering it onto the test pads under the battery. It lasted for 5
years, performing brilliantly, and I was just about to put the easychroot
Debian back on when disaster struck.

With that phone/device I had an SSH shortcut on the desktop to my various
servers and also ran syncthing on it directly, barely affecting battery life,
to keep phone and laptop notes in sync. I can still do most of that on the
Ubuntu phone, but can't help feeling restricted. Sure I can enable write
access to the system files, but then I forego the updates. Not ideal.

------
zsh
Are there also similar communities for other "text-based-
organization/documentation" tools, like asciidoc
([http://asciidoctor.org/docs/what-is-
asciidoc/](http://asciidoctor.org/docs/what-is-asciidoc/))?

org-mode looks very good, but I am not sure, I want to switch to the emacs
universe only for org-mode.

I discovered asciidoc a few weeks ago and so far I love it, I am just
experimenting how to use it.

Currently I use asciidoc with: \- Atom \- Atom autosave \- Atom Asciidoc
preview package \- My existing project folder hierarchy, where I just place
the asciidoc text files.

------
jacquesm
Is there a web-based org-mode like application that can be used by more than
one user simultaneously like google docs?

~~~
mjklin
There is Workflowy, which doesn't have all the features but works well for
what it is (a zoomable outliner)

------
vox_mollis
Many comments here are claiming that org-mode is a "life changer", without
qualification. I'm curious, what, specifically, has it changed about your
life?

~~~
e19293001
The qualification is not fake. To quote from this tutorial[0], the author
says:

 _I have been using org-mode as my personal information manager for years now.
I started small with just the default TODO and DONE keywords. I added small
changes to my workflow and over time it evolved into what is described by this
document.

I still change my workflow and try new things regularly. This document
describes mature workflows in my current org-mode setup. I tend to document
changes to my workflow 30 days after implementing them (assuming they are
still around at that point) so that the new workflow has a chance to mature._

> I'm curious, what, specifically, has it changed about your life?

It changed my life by consistently improving my workflow and I've become way
more productive by doing it. I got impressed on my self when I automate things
that seems difficult and time consuming to manually track. Extending emacs
never ends when you keep on finding better ways on how to use it.

[0] [http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html](http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html)

~~~
vox_mollis
Thanks. Trying it out is now on my (non-org-mode) todo list. :)

------
ftwynn
I started out using org mode for a while, but I've come to scale it back to a
series of markdown files because I just never used the advanced stuff.

~~~
luxpir
This is what I was getting at in my rambling comment here... Is it really
worth the time investment when an 'augmented' text file is enough?

------
markc
I'm not a power user, but use Org every day. My init.el even drops me into my
org todo list. Top uses:

Engineering notebook. Key combo calls org-journal-entry which I found on the
web. It brings up a time-stamped narrowed buffer. I use this in every meeting
where note-taking occurs. TODOs can be recorded directly in the journal and
can be merged with other TODOs in agenda mode.

Linking. C-c C-l creates a nice looking hyperlink. I link to URLs, local files
of all kinds (office, pdf, jpg, etc), or org tags. E.g. I keep a list of
restaurants I want to try. I tag by cuisine type, and link to the restaurant's
web page. Cycling to DONE time-stamps the entry so I know when I visited. I
keep track of books-to-read in a similar way.

Other TODOs. I set the mode cycling to TODO -> IN PROGRESS -> WAITING ->
DEFERRED -> CANCELLED -> DONE so I can handle a wide varieties of task
outcomes. Also timestamped.

Spreadsheets. Mostly when I have a bunch of data already in a buffer and want
to do some quick calculations. Quicker than firing up a real spreadsheet,
though it's pretty limited.

HTML generation. Making pretty outlines/notes from my org files.

Gnu-pg. Seamless encrypt/decrypt of sensitive data.

Stuff I tried but mostly stopped using:

Org-babel. It was neat to run Clojure, Python, Ruby, and shell all from one
file, pipe data between them, and make pretty tex output from it all. But day
to day I rarely need that sort of power.

Calendar. I tried keeping all my recurring and one-time appointments in org.
Problem is, I'm forced by work to live in Outlook, so keeping 2 calendars is
not worth it.

Agenda. I used to view my agenda to merge everything in todos and calendar. I
tend not to use agenda much any more.

TBH, I don't really have the discipline to rigorously update my TODOs all the
time. Even so, I'd feel a little lost with out org. As with any todo system it
declutters your head. When I realize there's something I _should_ do, I need
to get it out of my head into org, else I feel anxious that I'll forget it.
Hardly matters that I only wind up doing 1/3 of them. I also rely on it for
backup and sync of important notes, todos, etc. (via dropbox).

You'll get out of it what you put into it, but even with a few core uses (for
me, notes, todos, and linking) it can quickly become indispensable.

------
jkot
Zim works just fine for me

