[HN Gopher] Hypertext Emacs: You may not need org-mode
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Hypertext Emacs: You may not need org-mode
Author : bwestergard
Score : 60 points
Date : 2023-01-30 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bjornwestergard.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bjornwestergard.com)
| jrootabega wrote:
| I believe that GNU Hyperbole (an Emacs package) is meant to
| comprehensively cover this approach:
|
| https://www.gnu.org/software/hyperbole/
| mik1998 wrote:
| > The org-mode extension to emacs is popular in part because it
| lets you create and follow hyperlinks between files.
|
| Huh? I almost never use this feature. Mostly, I use org-mode for
| the markup, org-capture, org-agenda and org-export.
| jolmg wrote:
| To be fair, it says "in part" and I'm sure different users use
| different subsets of features. For example, I've never used
| export, but do a lot of refiling and archiving, which you
| didn't mention.
| throwanem wrote:
| Org links are complex and difficult to use only until you
| discover `org-store-link' and `org-insert-link', and bind the
| former globally.
| kkfx wrote:
| I use org-mode, first because it's an outliner, secondly because
| at point I can do much more then links, I can also execute code,
| have personal link-types to do things, I can have attachments,
| query my notes with org-ql etc
|
| I've also tried Hyperbole but, no, org-mode is used because it do
| much more than anything else, and so Emacs as a whole vs
| gazillion of modern individual apps loosely connected by GUIs
| IPCs (copy&paste, drag&drop)...
| djha-skin wrote:
| I have been able to kick org-mode using a few keybindings. I was
| even able to switch to Vim: https://blog.djha.skin/p/planning-
| and-notes-using-markdown-i...
| ziroshima wrote:
| I started going down the org-mode rabbit hole when I was
| investigating emacs last year. Then I came across Obsidian
| (https://obsidian.md/) and haven't looked back.
| azaras wrote:
| What do you like about obsidian that org-mode does not have?
| CJefferson wrote:
| I use obsidian, and the two big advantages are:
|
| 1) high quality mobile client and syncing.
|
| 2) It uses the same standard keys as every other GUI program
| on whatever OS I use it on -- I don't want to go "full
| Emacs".
| srndsnd wrote:
| Some common issues I ran across that pushed me to Obsidian
| (for now) were mobile app support, package maintenance, and
| difficulty configuring and maintaining.
|
| Many people have no difficulty setting up and maintaining an
| app like beorg and orgzly, but translating the many keybinds
| and modes to a ml mobile interface can be cumbersome. I've
| personally experienced issues with folding large org files,
| not to mention the act of actually keeping the files in sync.
| SyncThing / rsync works for many, but is another tool to
| maintain. Even if you can get your files right, the workflow
| on mobile is not up to par with desktop, and I've had a much
| easier time with Obsidian sync.
|
| Which leads to package managment. It can be harder to depend
| on the goodwill of open source maintainers to find solutions
| to corner cases, particularly if you find something that
| becomes a staple of your workflow. If my choices are become a
| competent Elisp developer or kick someone a fee to keep
| working on a project, I'm picking the latter. I personally
| still am hesitant to push more and more of my workflow onto
| org-roam knowing it was birthed as a labor of love and a side
| project, knowing that it might not be maintained, or that
| versions will require labor and patching on my part to roll
| out, as was the case with the jump from org-roam v1 to v2.
|
| Also, depending on how you do choose to setup emacs, it can
| be a house of cards to set up all your packages and keep them
| running and up to date. Even if you are really savvy with
| elisp, keeping your versions, packages, and dotfiles in
| working order across multiple systems (not to mention mobile,
| as above) can be daunting. And not all platforms are
| supported equally. Configuring doom emacs to run on my
| Windows 10 work machine was and is _not easy_. Obsidian
| installed and opened in one click.
|
| I get and understand supporting open source and if that's an
| objective, logseq seems to be doing a great job on that
| front. It's still missing some features that would push me to
| switch over entirely (their Android support is non-existent,
| and many plugins I loved on emacs and Obsidian I haven't
| found a nice solution for (time-tracking and time blocking,
| and not even Obsidian can match org's export features, but
| markdown works fine for now, while logseq files were
| difficult to format).
|
| Overall, I love org mode and want it to be my daily driver.
| But at the end of the day I have to remember that I can't let
| knowledge management be a part-time job. I was spending so
| much time tinkering with tooling that it was impacting the
| very thing it was supposed to help: my workflow. Maybe
| someday I'll revisit org over several cups of coffee and a
| rainy afternoon, but Obsidian and Todoist will take care of
| me until then.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| > "not even Obsidian can match org's export features"
|
| As a very happy Obsidian user I'm curious which export
| features you're missing; "there's a plugin for that" is
| trite but a safe bet.
| [deleted]
| ploum wrote:
| As a Vim user, I'm curious to know what I'm really missing.
| Vimwiki is doing exactly what I think it should (creating links
| under the cursor by simply pressing "return" and following them).
|
| But I feel org-mode might be a lot more.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| org-mode has so many features that every answer you will get is
| different. I basically never use the links feature of org-mode
| that TFA mentions.
|
| However, I use org-babel (lets you embed arbitrary programming
| languages in an org document, and includes things like showing
| the results of calculations) _all the time_. It 's great for
| generating documents with can't-be-wrong examples.
| susam wrote:
| I use org-mode primarily for maintaining spreadsheets
| containing tables of data where the tables may be related to
| each other.
|
| As I enter new data into the tables or edit existing data, I
| may want to automatically recompute aggregate data pertaining
| to those tables. For example, I may want to recompute the
| totals or averages using the data in these tables. Further, I
| may want to write some Elisp code in the same file that
| composes new tables automatically based on the data in the
| existing tables.
|
| This is the kind of spreadsheet management work I use org-mode
| for. Here is a simple example that illustrates some of the
| points I made in the previous paragraph:
| https://github.com/susam/lab/blob/main/emacs/org/total-of-to...
| squeegee_scream wrote:
| I'll try to explain. I was a nvim user for a couple of years
| and used vimwiki (not a power user though) then switched to
| Doom Emacs about 3 years ago and would consider myself an
| almost-power user for org mode.
|
| What I like about org mode over vimwiki is how seamless the
| experience is. It is super-easy to pause what I'm working on,
| create a note or TODO or almost anything very quickly, and get
| right back to what I was working on. This note (or whatever I
| created) is linked to the file I was in when I started the
| note, it's timestamped, if I make it a TODO then it
| automatically shows up in my org todo list, if I schedule it or
| give it a deadline it automatically shows up in my org agenda.
|
| And then there's literate programming. I actually just finished
| an interview 30 minutes ago where I used literate programming.
| It was "create a database structure and a very rough outline of
| a UI for this thing" so I opened an org file, copied the
| requirements at the top, asked some questions and wrote those
| down as well, then started an org table to approximate a
| [database structure][0]. Once I was ready to write code I
| created a [code block][1] which gets syntax highlighting,
| formatting, basically all the LSP stuff in that code block.
| Everything I needed was in one place. And sure you could say
| "you can do that in a html file and just make all the non-html
| stuff comments". Yes you can, but it is just nicer and better
| supported in org mode imo. And you can evaluate these code
| blocks too, and the output will be printed just below the code
| block :)
|
| [0]: | Foo Table |
| |----------------| | id | | name
| | | description |
|
| [1]: #+begin_src html <h1>Hello,
| World</h1> <h2>Hope you're doing great!</h2>
| etc #+end_src
| kagevf wrote:
| It's also worth mentioning that SQL can be evaluated in a
| code block - as well as a bunch of other languages, but SQL
| would be pertinent for this example: #+name:
| my-query #+header: :engine mssql #+header:
| :dbhost DBServer #+header: :Trusted_Connection True
| #+header: :database DBName #+begin_src sql select
| top 3 id, name, description from dbo.Foo
| #+end_src #+RESULTS: my-query | id | name
| | description | |----+------------+-------------|
| | 1 | Name one | abc | | 2 | Name two |
| xyz | | 3 | Name three | 123 |
|
| My example uses MS Sql Server, but of course emacs supports a
| lot more databases.
| anyfoo wrote:
| Hah. Did you get the job?
| gipp wrote:
| Also Vim user, and I've always been a little baffled by org-
| mode in general. There are several Neovim plugins that try to
| replicate it (either real org-mode compatibility or just a
| spiritual association), and I've really struggled to understand
| what the use-case even is. It just seems like so much overhead
| to even grok org-mode, keep a sane and meaningful hierarchy of
| your ideas and keep it up-to-date... seems like a ton of work
| over just using your inbox and calendar as your "external
| mind". People constantly sing its praises and the advantages it
| brings but I've never seen it articulated what those actually
| are.
| margarina72 wrote:
| org-mode is a markdown like language. In itself it doesn't
| have anything special. But the ecosystem of integration in
| emacs makes it a very rich experience. Both the UX of
| integration (seemless idea capture, outline manipulations
| etc.) and the breadth of application (email writing, gantt
| generation, accounting compute and reporting, RSS reading and
| sorting, slide presentations, agenda integration, time card
| reporting, invoice generation etc.) in combination it becomes
| a very hard to describe experience, precisely because it is
| so rich and varied while at the same time very streamlined
| because everything is text, and it all behave intuitively.
| epakai wrote:
| I'm a vim-orgmode user. I more or less edit org markup with vim
| and a few helper commands.
|
| The main selling points for me were document production, and
| the ability to run code that generates part of the document. As
| a bonus org is kind of fun to extend or override functionality
| (in elisp) when you want a particular output or feature.
|
| Org can export to LaTeX, HTML, and more. With python ebooklib I
| can produce a usable epub output. Before org I had been using
| LaTeX, and this let me maintain the same style output there.
|
| Org's babel feature turns it into something more like jupyter
| notebook for any language or mix of languages. I can generate
| diagrams from source sections, run shell to filter includes,
| include code and its generated output.
|
| Org has filter lists for modifying exports with your own
| function, or use Emacs advice system to mangle things before
| the org code gets them.
|
| I don't use the agenda features much, but they're a big feature
| for using org as a planner/todo list. Org can generate
| calendars, reports, and special views from your files to help
| keep track of all that.
|
| https://orgmode.org/features.html if you want a broader
| overview.
| bobchadwick wrote:
| Vim user here. Is this functionality not widely known in the
| Emacs world? In Vim's normal mode, gf will do the same thing and
| I'm under the impression it's a pretty widely used command.
| agumonkey wrote:
| it's known but not put forth as much as vim it seems. a case of
| subpar defaults in a way
| susam wrote:
| I have been a user of Vim as well as Emacs. Vim's gf command
| and M-x ffap RET of Emacs were both known to me since my early
| days of using these editors.
| chriswarbo wrote:
| My Emacs config replaces the default 'find-file' with the 'find-
| file-at-point' mentioned in the article, so the keybinding is
| just C-x C-f
|
| I also modify it slightly to look for line-numbers and column-
| numbers, so pressing C-x C-f when the cursor is on
| '/home/chriswarbo/foo.txt:135:23' will open that foo.txt file,
| then navigate to line 135 and column 23. This is especially
| useful when looking through compiler messages, etc.
|
| https://github.com/Warbo/warbo-emacs-d/blob/5e8b18dbae1767a9...
| vithlani wrote:
| [dead]
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| I mostly use org-mode as an outline and table editor and notebook
| (here's a shell command, here's what happened when I ran it).
| File links work but I usually just hop into dired.
| gpvos wrote:
| https://archive.is/dnheK
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