[HN Gopher] Emacs' org-mode gets citation support
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Emacs' org-mode gets citation support
Author : NeutralForest
Score : 104 points
Date : 2021-08-03 13:27 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.tecosaur.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.tecosaur.com)
| reificator wrote:
| I keep everything in my life in plaintext, so I've been looking
| longingly at Org for several years now. There are three things
| standing in my way, from least to most important:
|
| * I sometimes view on or want to share documents over sites like
| Github/Gitlab. If I share Markdown or even usually AsciiDoc, then
| the document is formatted appropriately even for people who are
| used to Word and rendered HTML. EDIT: Apparently this has changed
| since I last looked. Good news!
|
| * I often edit from mobile devices, which almost certainly have
| no support for Org features. EDIT: There are apparently good org-
| specific editors.
|
| * My desktop editor of choice is not and likely never will be
| emacs, so even with plugins that support Org it's always a
| hampered experience relative to what the format claims to offer.
|
| It looks like it does everything I want and more, with all the
| little helpers you need overtop a plaintext format that's decent
| enough to read on its own. But I'm not changing my text editor
| just to use a single different format.
|
| So instead I opt for the worst of all worlds and just use
| Markdown for everything because it's supported everywhere. It
| gets me headers, lists, code blocks, and sometimes checkboxes,
| and the rest I can handle ad-hoc.
|
| EDIT: 5 responses in ~10 minutes, but 0 or neutral upvotes. I
| knew mentioning an editor preference was a mistake. Yes I have
| tried emacs for an extended period, yes I respect it, no I am not
| likely to use it myself.
| simick wrote:
| It's unlikely I would ever move away from (Neo)Vim as my 'main'
| (i.e., programming) editor, as I find it much more intuitive
| and comfortable.
|
| Instead, I think of Emacs + org-mode as a single, separate
| entity solely for to-do tracking and plain text hierarchical
| note taking. I find that the conveniences of org-mode for these
| specific tasks outweighs the otherwise unintuitive (from the
| perspective of my muscle memory) interface.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > I sometimes view on or want to share documents over sites
| like Github/Gitlab.
|
| If nobody else edits the documents you could first export them
| to Markdown or HTML. Pandoc handles that reasonably well.
|
| > My desktop editor of choice is not and likely never will be
| emacs
|
| That only matters if you want to use the more interactive
| features of Emacs' org-mode. I only use Vim and still write
| everything in .org files. I just like how it's got a simple
| syntax and also enough flexibility to handle everything. I set
| up a keybinding that lets me convert the file to a PDF by
| calling Emacs in batch mode (unfortunately there's no other
| correct and complete parser).
|
| In the end Markdown isn't bad, but I don't like how basically
| every platform and tool adds their own special flavor.
| reificator wrote:
| > _That only matters if you want to use the more interactive
| features of Emacs ' org-mode. I only use Vim and still write
| everything in .org files._
|
| I did something similar for awhile but felt like I was net
| negative in effort to gains.
|
| > _In the end Markdown isn 't bad, but I don't like how
| basically every platform and tool adds their own special
| flavor._
|
| Yeah I stick to a known safe subset, including legacy newline
| behavior, and only a few extensions to that. _(highlight and
| checkbox off the top of my head)_
| mbrumlow wrote:
| > My desktop editor of choice is not and likely never will be
| emacs
|
| That is a shame. Why?
| GongOfFour wrote:
| No OP but I personally prefer the simplicity of VS Code's
| diff and conflict resolution point-and-click tooling to using
| ediff/smerge. I also work in a project with some very deep
| directory structures and like the VS Code sidebar much more.
| reificator wrote:
| I hesitate to answer because I sense an editor war incoming,
| but I'm going to assume your question was in earnest and not
| evangelical or judgemental.
|
| Also to be clear, because I know people can be touchy about
| editor preferences: I say this only as an analogy for the
| feeling I get, not as an analogy for users who use emacs or
| other tools.
|
| For whatever reason emacs just feels like I'm using left-
| handed scissors, and I'm not left handed.
|
| It doesn't mean I don't think people should use emacs, it
| just doesn't feel right in my hands.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Nothing wrong with using emacs for just org-mode if you
| want to use more of the interactive features. You give up
| something vs someone who's "all in" on emacs, but it's
| workable.
|
| I'm teaching my son to code and we use emacs only for
| magit. He may get more and more exposure down the road, but
| for now that's enough to justify what little bare minimum
| learning curve is needed to get a great git porcelain.
| totetsu wrote:
| I want to use org at work but the performace of emacs on
| windows is beyond unusable. also copy paste just doesn't work
| without pulling teath. its such a dissapointment.
| alex_smart wrote:
| I have been using emacs on windows for years. The only
| thing that is unusably slow for me is magit.
|
| >also copy paste just doesn't work without pulling teath.
|
| What do you mean?
| sidpatil wrote:
| GitHub does render Org-mode documents to an extent. I haven't
| done a comparison with its Markdown rendering though.
|
| There do exist mobile apps for Org-mode, but it's been a while
| since I've used them.
|
| I agree with your third point and wish that Org-mode support
| was better in non-Emacs editors.
| joeman1000 wrote:
| I've been a plain-text fiend for about the past 3 years: there
| is no other experience which can come near org-mode in emacs.
| Absolutely none. Markdown feels like a toy compared to org.
| anschwa wrote:
| It sounds like you are looking for an excuse to give org-mode a
| chance.
|
| Github will render org-mode documents now, so there's that.
|
| Don't be afraid to give emacs a test drive, it's very possible
| to avoid getting sucked into the ecosystem and configuration if
| you aren't interested.
|
| Either you'll decide it's what you've been looking for, or you
| prefer your current approach. Win-Win.
| singingfish wrote:
| So I discovered recently that if you set up git-auto-commit
| mode with an org directory tree, then configure it to auto-push
| to gitlab on add/change, I get nicely formatted documents for
| free.
|
| Later on I can convert them via pandoc to docx or markdown so
| they can end up in sharepoint/confluence and I only minimally
| have to touch either of those horror shows.
|
| I was writing some docs yesterday, and my colleague who's
| always bagging me about my use of nothing but emacs and
| terminals complimented how nice it looked rendered in gitlab.
| talentedcoin wrote:
| Yeesh. Please don't complain about your poorly-researched
| laundry list of preferences not being upvoted. Come on, nobody
| cares what editor you yourself do or don't use.
| cmiles74 wrote:
| Aside from editing on mobile devices, I think Emacs isn't as
| hard to pick up as it once was. It's certainly not easy but
| tools like Spacemacs or Doom make it much simpler to get
| started and really limit the need to create and edit a
| complicated little library of your Elisp code.
|
| http://spacemacs.org
|
| https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I'm not sure such Emacs "distributions" really convince
| people that don't like it on a fundamental level. I've tried
| it a few times, but it always feels like it gets in my way
| because a large part of its assumptions and settings go
| against my expectations. And changing that seems like a
| multi-year project because the whole program is just so huge
| and complex and still growing.
|
| If Emacs was faster and much smaller I'd probably love it.
| But in its current state all I can do is slap more plugins
| and modes on it until it almost grinds to a halt.
| [deleted]
| simtel20 wrote:
| The native compilation feature that is now in the
| development branch makes this experience much better.
| reificator wrote:
| I don't feel like it was hard to pick up* so much as it was
| just not the right tool for me.
|
| *Relative to my expectations when trying a new editor for a
| short period
| mewfree wrote:
| * GitHub does render .org files just like Markdown!
|
| * I've heard people of people being really happy with Orgzly on
| Android. I personally run Emacs on my Android phone through
| Termux. It works really well for me. Other solutions include
| using a SSH client to connect to a server running Emacs, or
| simply using GitHub directly on mobile web or their app if your
| notes are on GitHub.
|
| * I've made the switch from Vim to Emacs (+ evil-mode) because
| of org-mode and have been extremely happy with it. It truly
| changed my life.
| karlicoss wrote:
| sadly GitHub's version of org-mode parser haven't been
| updated for a while, there is a fair amount of very annoying
| issues :( https://github.com/novoid/github-orgmode-tests
| dannyobrien wrote:
| Not really for OP, but I've found a couple of really great iOS
| apps that work well with Emacs org-mode, Beorg[1] and
| FlatHabits[2]. They're actually both good apps in their own
| right, that use org-mode files as a backend for their features.
|
| [1]: https://beorgapp.com/ [2]: https://flathabits.com/
| AlanYx wrote:
| Does anyone know what software the author uses to prepare Figures
| 1 and 2 (the figures showing the syntax, with colored labels)?
| uallo wrote:
| The source code of these SVG images suggests
| https://inkscape.org/
| jpeloquin wrote:
| Not 100% sure, but: (1) the arrow caps look like some that are
| available in Inkscape and (2) the SVG's XML has a bunch of
| inkscape-namespaced tags, so it was probably drawn in Inkscape.
|
| Edit: Cross-posted with uallo. Leaving it up anyway.
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(page generated 2021-08-05 23:00 UTC)