[HN Gopher] Org tutorials
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Org tutorials
        
       Author : dargscisyhp
       Score  : 172 points
       Date   : 2025-07-23 03:09 UTC (19 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (orgmode.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (orgmode.org)
        
       | hodanli wrote:
       | i like logseq as somewhat modern iteration of org-mode
        
         | account-5 wrote:
         | What lead you to choose that over say obsidian, notion, Joplin,
         | and the many others that pretty much do the same thing?
        
           | innocentoldguy wrote:
           | I switched from Obsidian to Logseq because Logseq has better
           | block-level support, better embedded image previews, and more
           | functionality out of the box without having to rely on
           | plugins
           | 
           | Why not Notion or Joplin? I like Logseq's outline format
           | better than Joplin's long-form note taking format, and I just
           | don't like Notion at all for purely subjective reasons.
        
           | jcynix wrote:
           | Orgmode is more than just a note keeping tool, it is a
           | complete and complex toolbox. I can use tables like a
           | spreadsheet, include source code snippets, etc.
           | 
           | Joplin is fine, especially for shared note keeping. We store
           | its notes on a private WebDAV server and everyone in the
           | family can access these notes from their laptops or mobile
           | devices.
           | 
           | But the editing capabilities of Joplin are dismal. Try to
           | swap lines (on a smartphone, no mouse), change the same term
           | in a number of notes, or do some more complex editing
           | operations. These are easily done in emacs/orgmode, even on a
           | smartphone or tablet ... ,at least with emacs running in
           | Termux under Android.
        
           | solarkraft wrote:
           | They do not do the same thing.
           | 
           | Logseq is an outliner (though it does have a document mode),
           | which means a deep interaction with the document's hierarchy:
           | You can zoom into blocks, collapse them (not ephemerally,
           | it's saved in the document) and link to them.
           | 
           | I'd probably use Obsidian if it had those features (since
           | Logseq is still as buggy as it was years ago), but the last
           | time I checked it did not.
        
       | uludag wrote:
       | I'm on my seventh year of using org-mode for my task management.
       | My system has slowly evolved over time but I'm pretty much still
       | using the same single text file to manage everything. My main
       | getting-things-done org-mode file is now at 6k lines long.
       | 
       | Before org-mode, I was always downloading different software to
       | manage tasks and notes. The tool churn was very degrading to my
       | productivity but I feel that commercial interests would keep
       | turning the churn machine: new UI changes, enshitification,
       | monthly subscriptions, etc.
       | 
       | It's such a refreshing feeling, sitting back, and feeling assured
       | that for the next presumably 25 years of my career, and perhaps
       | for the rest of my life, I can still be using org-mode, and it
       | will always work as I learned it, but it's flexible enough to
       | easily implement extensions.
        
         | lycopodiopsida wrote:
         | I try it regularly and I was running an org-mode based task
         | management for a year and some months in between, but man, I do
         | not have time and patience for sync conflicts in 2025. It can
         | work but I have to be very cautious, and iCloud sync being a
         | bit mysterious does not help. But I've also recognized that I
         | don't have very complex projects, that GTD tools do not matter
         | since their contents are transient by nature and that Apple
         | Reminders is basically good enough. As a bonus it allows me to
         | share Lists/Projects with my wife.
        
           | uludag wrote:
           | I totally understand this situation. I actually never had a
           | good mobile set up when I was on iOS and only when switching
           | to Android was able to finally setup something I liked using
           | orgzly-revived, syncthing, and android Emacs.
           | 
           | As for GTD, I never did proper GTD until about a year ago,
           | after reading the GTD book. I don't consider my life complex
           | by any means, but I've been surprised at the amount of
           | projects in my life that have been reified in my system.
        
             | lycopodiopsida wrote:
             | I am practicing GTD since ~15 years already, but while I
             | stick to some practices (review, inbox and so on), I have a
             | simpler setup for projects and files, sufficient for my
             | needs. One of the lessons is that GTD and productivity
             | systems are not about tools - I am equally productive (or
             | unproductive) in emacs, omnifocus, reminders. The advantage
             | of OF and reminders is that I don't have to look after
             | sync, workflow-wise I quickly learn to navigate around
             | idiosyncrasies of each of them and settle on the same
             | workflow, helping myself with scripts and glue code where I
             | need it.
             | 
             | This said, I still keep my long-term notes in denote,
             | because it works and I don't trust Apple Notes for long-
             | term stuff (missing built-in export).
        
       | thecsw wrote:
       | Orgmode got me through college, research, and at work, it really
       | is the _perfected_ markup language that can do a lot more than
       | just being a markup language. The extensibility and out of the
       | box export to other formats makes it immediately useful for at
       | least 80% of common tasks.
       | 
       | It has ingrained itself so deeply into my muscle memory that I
       | built out a whole website builder [1] and extended the language
       | to support all kinds of nice QoL things for my website [2].
       | 
       | Something that as the other commenter here noted--I can rely on
       | orgmode for many decades to come.
       | 
       | [1] https://github.com/thecsw/darkness [2] https://sandyuraz.com
        
         | jhoechtl wrote:
         | I have on gripe, that is the mixture between org structure and
         | org document heradings. I know, they are the same, and such a
         | distinction doesn't exist.
         | 
         | You can start a "document" at any place in the org hierachy. I
         | would rather prefer a distintion between these two concepts.
        
           | medstrom wrote:
           | How would the distinction work?
        
         | eviks wrote:
         | > As of 2025-02, there is no formal Org-mode syntax definition.
         | 
         | is very far away from perfection
        
           | nanna wrote:
           | > As of 2025-02, there is no formal Org-mode syntax
           | definition.
           | 
           | Confusingly, you seem to have taken this from Karl Voit's
           | website, without referencing having done so?
           | 
           | https://karl-voit.at/2017/09/23/orgmode-as-markup-only/
           | 
           | And then taken the sentence out of context. His point is that
           | even though there isn't a formal Org-mode syntax definition,
           | there is an informal one in that all of the Org mode syntax
           | elements are part of the Emacs Org-mode implementation. The
           | latest Org-mode implementation /is/ the spec. This is in
           | comparison with Markdown where there are numerous syntax
           | definitions and no implementation which includes all elements
           | and everything is a mess.
        
             | eviks wrote:
             | > taken the sentence out of context
             | 
             | > This is in comparison with Markdown
             | 
             | This context is irrelevant, I'm not discussing how bad
             | markdown is, but how great org mode is.
             | 
             | > The latest Org-mode implementation /is/ the spec.
             | 
             | You're just conflating the terms, that's not what a spec
             | is, and having one has benefits that living impls don't
             | have
        
         | pbmonster wrote:
         | > Orgmode got me through college, research, and at work, it
         | really is the perfected markup language that can do a lot more
         | than just being a markup language. The extensibility and out of
         | the box export to other formats makes it immediately useful for
         | at least 80% of common tasks.
         | 
         | With regards to your 80% claim, do you happen to know an
         | extension that works well with pasting images from clipboard?
         | 
         | Over the years, my professional note taking has become
         | extremely reliant on quickly pasting images (most often
         | screenshots from papers or quick-and-dirty plots I made myself)
         | from clipboard directly into the notes. The friction of doing
         | this in vanilla org-mode is the only reason I'm not doing
         | everything in org-mode.
        
           | v9v wrote:
           | I use org-download (https://github.com/abo-abo/org-download)
           | for pasting images.
        
           | chke wrote:
           | yank-media is built-in https://orgmode.org/manual/Drag-and-
           | Drop-_0026-yank_002dmedi...
        
       | Nesco wrote:
       | To people using org mode, how does it help you more than
       | Markdown? Genuinely curious because I tried at some point and it
       | felt too heavy.
       | 
       | Maybe because I am a vim user instead of eMacs?
        
         | stevekemp wrote:
         | First of all "emacs" rather than "eMacs".
         | 
         | But to answer your main question, markdown is used for writing
         | text which can then be converted to HTML, PDF, etc, etc. It's
         | used just to format things. org can be used in that way, and it
         | might feel better/worse depending on what you feel about the
         | choices used for various formatting styles.
         | 
         | However the big gain of org is that you can use it to format
         | dynamic tables, handle todo-lists, have deadlines, recurring
         | tasks, etc, etc. It makes no sense to compare org-files with
         | markdown-files. It's like saying "I use notepad how does Excel
         | help you do more?" - they do different thigns.
         | 
         | Now, much like excel, most people don't do everythign with org,
         | but they can if they want to. It is extraordinarily flexible,
         | and can be extended with custom lisp code if necessary.
         | 
         | I track rental properties with an org-document for each
         | property, and I get per-year profit/loss statements in a neat
         | format with graphs too. You can't do that with markdown.
        
         | impulsivepuppet wrote:
         | Org mode offers so much more than just syntax. You can use org
         | files as a calendar, a todo/issue tracker with time accounting,
         | a diary/knowledge base (zettelkasten, org-roam), as a literate
         | programming tool (think jupyter code notebooks but for
         | practically any programming language with org-babel), or a
         | publishing tool (static site generator, latex/pdf export) all
         | at the same time.
         | 
         | To be quite frank, Org mode is a _lifestyle_ which existed long
         | before Notion or Obsidian did. Saying that it has a barrier to
         | entry is a bit of an understatement.
         | 
         | Having said all that, quite ironically, I've migrated over to
         | Obsidian because I started using Intellij more for work,
         | meaning that I don't need Emacs for its other capabilities all
         | that much.
        
         | jcynix wrote:
         | Markdown is a markup tool, i.e. you decorate your text. Orgmode
         | on the other hand is a complete toolbox where you can add tags
         | to notes, filter on these tags, manage calendars, etc. You can
         | enter tables both for formatting and spreadsheet like
         | calculation.
         | 
         | And you can insert snippets of code into your notes, like
         | #+BEGIN_SRC shell            ls | wc -l           find . -type
         | f -name "*foo*"          #+END_SRC
         | 
         | (or javascript, elisp, html, ... instead of shell) where the
         | markup is changed appropriately in these regions.
         | 
         | You can even augment orgmode with elisp code if you are so
         | inclined.
        
         | myaccountonhn wrote:
         | I don't use it anymore but org-babel allows you to execute
         | commands in code blocks. I would use that to build interactive
         | explorations when learning how APIs work for example. I didn't
         | find that nearly as seamless with Markdown.
         | 
         | Combined with org-agenda you also unlock a calendar with
         | recurring events, task priorities and more.
        
         | MoreQARespect wrote:
         | Orgmode has standardized primitives for the things which exist
         | in some markdown note taking implementations but differ from
         | implementation to implementation.
         | 
         | Markdown doesn't have a built in concept of todo or tag or
         | scheduled event, for instance. It wasn't built for that.
         | 
         | I hate emacs but orgmode is still the file format which
         | contains all of the primitives I need for my notes which looks
         | like it will have the most staying power. I hope to be able to
         | edit the same files in 2035 using whatever brain-connection
         | device everybody is using in the future that I used in 2015
         | running on a netbook with 1GB of RAM.
         | 
         | Markdown files from the note taking flavor of today will have
         | to be migrated somehow.
        
         | polivier wrote:
         | `org-mode` used with Emacs is the tinkerer's dream playgound.
         | Apart from the basic markdown stuff, there are so many wild
         | things you can do. For example, org code blocks are not just
         | the basic markdown code blocks that show formatted code. Org
         | code blocks can actually be executed and can show the output of
         | the code, inline. So you can write code blocks (that may
         | include data found in variables/tables/etc elsewhere in the org
         | file), then "refresh" your org file and all the inline outputs
         | of the code blocks will be updated.
        
         | faustlast wrote:
         | Besides being a markup for structured text with special syntax
         | for links/tables/math, here are my highlights that I use:
         | 
         | 1. Code blocks that can be executed have their result captured
         | 
         | 2. Links to everything
         | 
         | 3. Drawing vector images (SVG) with a tablet
         | 
         | 4. Perform calculations on tabular data (like a simple Excel
         | sheet)
         | 
         | 5. Agenda (connected to Google Calendar)
         | 
         | 6. Spaced repetition system for language learning
         | 
         | 7. LaTeX export for reports/presentations with citations
         | 
         | Expanding:
         | 
         | 1.1. Execute code on different remote machines
         | 
         | 1.2. Work with sessions and execute code asynchronously
         | 
         | 1.3. Use noweb syntax for reusing code blocks
         | 
         | 1.4. Tangle ("export") source blocks to files (locally or in a
         | remote machine!)
         | 
         | 1.5. Use a source block to generate a graph/plot and view the
         | figure in the same place
         | 
         | 1.6. Use narrow functionalities to automate script executions
         | (example: execute all blocks in this section).
         | 
         | 2.1. Links to PDF pages, commits/pr`s/branches, email, other
         | files` particular lines, remote files, web pages, etc.
         | 
         | 7.1. Very easy to select which sections I want to export or not
         | 
         | 7.2. Include hand-drawn SVG graphics in the PDF output
         | 
         | 7.3. Generate Beamer presentations
        
         | slightwinder wrote:
         | Markdown is just a markup-language, while orgmode is a tool-
         | collection with a community of its own, which happens to also
         | come with its own markup-language. That's not the same, and
         | comparing them on that level makes little sense.
         | 
         | > Genuinely curious because I tried at some point and it felt
         | too heavy.
         | 
         | Which part felt heavy? The syntax? The tooling? The setup?
         | orgmode's purpose is to deliver an environment for managing
         | your notes, tasks, data, etc. Of course, will it be more heavy
         | than just the markup-language alone, as most documentation
         | focuses on the tooling and which jobs you can execute with it.
         | This more akin to a whole Office-suit, than a simple plaintext-
         | editor.
        
       | NoboruWataya wrote:
       | I hear so many people rave about orgmode on HN, all of them emacs
       | users. This seems obvious since it is an emacs feature after all,
       | but if orgmode is so good, has it not been implemented outside of
       | emacs? Is there a standalone orgmode implementation that non-
       | emacs users should look into?
        
         | doctor_blood wrote:
         | What would be the point? Without emacs all you're left with is
         | another markup language.
        
           | sligor wrote:
           | What makes org mode tied to emacs ? I really need to try org
           | mode to understand it. If only I had time...
        
             | Torwald wrote:
             | Elisp, but not really elisp, more the environment of elisp.
             | It's a LISP machine. Hard to explain, it's a different way
             | of computing. Another living instance of this model of
             | computing is a Smalltalk image. Others have written about
             | how LISPing makes you a better coder much better than I
             | could. Try it out!
        
               | codethief wrote:
               | I disagree, Elisp doesn't tie org to Emacs at all. What
               | does tie org to Emacs is the fact that Emacs' org-mode
               | (i.e. the mode you use to edit org files) provides a
               | great DevEx when editing org files, including lots of
               | convenience shortcuts. (Again, the fact that those are
               | written in Elisp is irrelevant.)
        
               | skydhash wrote:
               | It does. A lot of advanced options in Org have escape
               | hatches for more code, and the fact that you configure
               | org in Elisp and are free to hack on org provided
               | functions due to the Elips environment add to its
               | versality.
        
             | skydhash wrote:
             | It's really integrated into emacs.
             | 
             | First, you have the calendar, but it's not just a date
             | picker, it's also shows holidays and other markers.
             | 
             | Then you have the capture (quick entry) where you have the
             | full power of emacs environment plus lisp language to code
             | anything you want. Emacs have other applications like a
             | file manager, mail readers, document readers..., and you
             | can capture the context as well as the note itself.
             | 
             | Then, there's the agenda, which is fully customizable with
             | a mix of options and code.
             | 
             | And there's the exporters. Notice that emacs have support
             | for most of the format, so it's more like an handover to
             | some other parts of emacs. But you don't merely transform
             | the document from org to html as an example. You extract
             | the html from the org structure as you can filter sections
             | out. Also a lot of options there (and code)
             | 
             | And code blocks (named babel). That you can execute.
             | 
             | So org can be a static document format or a dynamic
             | environment. And all of that because of emacs as the buffer
             | concept is very fluid. In emacs there are only buffers.
             | Each buffer is assigned a major mode which is just a set of
             | functions that does stuff on the buffer text. And you have
             | the minor modes (more functions) that are more like
             | plugins. And you're free to hack on them. It's just that
             | the default set looks like a text editor.
        
             | pbmonster wrote:
             | As a very practical example: You take notes in org-mode,
             | and as you do in many modern note-taking apps, you use
             | copious links between notes.
             | 
             | But org-mode is inside Emacs, and Emacs is (can be) also
             | your email client. So your notes can link to emails. Emacs
             | is also your calendar. So your notes can link to events.
             | 
             | You can extend this to almost anything if you like Emacs
             | enough. Your notes link to source code files (or your notes
             | contain code, which can be executed from your notes). Emacs
             | is also your git front end, so you could link to commits.
        
               | eawgewag wrote:
               | This is a great comment. My "Aha" moment with org-mode
               | was when I started using it to track my TODOs on ongoing
               | branch. I was able to link bookmarks to actual code from
               | my org mode agenda, jump back and forth between my todo
               | list and the actual code in my repo, add more, add
               | context, etc.
        
           | ubermonkey wrote:
           | I think you're missing what he's asking.
           | 
           | Orgmode includes agendas and whatnot in addition to the
           | markup; any Org implementation somewhere else would need to
           | include those.
        
         | stevekemp wrote:
         | There is an implementation for neovim, and some "viewer"
         | applicatrions for android, etc:
         | 
         | https://orgmode.org/tools.html
         | 
         | Basics are easy to replicate, but one of the reasons why org is
         | so useful is because it is tied into the emacs ecosystem, so
         | you can write extensions/configuration tweaks in lisp. You can
         | hookup agenda (calendars), etc, etc, and those things don't
         | really translate so well to external tools.
         | 
         | If you had to write a lisp interpreter, and fake "bare minimum"
         | compatability? At that point you'd be better off just running
         | emacs for real.
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | > You can hookup agenda (calendars), etc, etc, and those
           | things don't really translate so well to external tools.
           | 
           | Sounds like a replication of Unix inside an editor if you ask
           | me.
        
             | vslavkin wrote:
             | Well, yes. I'd say that's what emacs is. A framework for,
             | mostly, text based applications in lisp. The advantage is
             | its "unified interface".
             | 
             | Everything is configured in the same language, uses mostly
             | the same keybinds, and can easily be integrated with other
             | apps of the framework.
        
             | anthk wrote:
             | If _every_ Unix tool outputed TSV, yes. In Emacs everything
             | it 's Elisp.
        
             | input_sh wrote:
             | Wait until you learn many of the default bash keyboard
             | shortcuts (like Ctrl + A / E to move to the beginning/end
             | of the line) actually come from emacs.
        
             | BeetleB wrote:
             | I know you meant it as a criticism, but Emacs years view it
             | as a feature.
        
         | pydry wrote:
         | orgzly revived for android is pretty great.
         | 
         | more tooling would be good though, especially command line
         | tools to get data in and out.
        
         | bananapub wrote:
         | 1. it has, there's various mobile apps and a reimplementation
         | for vim and vscode at least
         | 
         | 2. it's very very good and having access to it is enough reason
         | for some people to _become_ emacs users, much like magit
        
         | nurumaik wrote:
         | Standalone orgmode implementation is called emacs with org
         | mode. I'm that person that uses emacs solely for orgmode and
         | write code in other editors (vscode/zed/cursor), we also exist
        
           | thyristan wrote:
           | Same. I do use emacs with spacemacs, because that is the only
           | thing that makes emacs viable to me, only to use it solely
           | for orgmode.
           | 
           | Everything else happens in vim/nvim or zed.
        
             | DemiGuru wrote:
             | Have you considered incorporating orgmode plugin with
             | Neovim? [https://github.com/nvim-orgmode]
        
         | eadmund wrote:
         | > if orgmode is so good, has it not been implemented outside of
         | emacs
         | 
         | Org Mode _is_ that good, but part of its goodness is due to
         | being in Emacs.
         | 
         | Emacs is not really an editor: it's an easily user-extensible
         | operating environment with a remarkably shallow learning curve
         | (seriously: one can go years just setting variables before
         | moving up to simple functions and then starting to explore).
         | Having all that power so easily accessible is a part of what
         | makes Org Mode great. It's what means that each Org Mode user
         | can mold his experience to his needs.
        
         | xenodium wrote:
         | I've written a handful iOS apps powered by org. Journelly is my
         | latest https://xenodium.com/journelly-like-tweeting-but-for-
         | your-ey...
         | 
         | I got quite a few users who either come from Markdown or simply
         | don't care about the internal implementation. Here's a
         | wonderful writeup by a user
         | https://ellanew.com/ptpl/157-2025-05-19-journelly-is-org-for...
         | 
         | ps. Markdown is also coming to Journelly
         | https://xenodium.com/markdown-is-coming-to-journelly
         | 
         | edit: My other org-based iOS apps
         | 
         | - Flat Habits (habits tracker): https://flathabits.com
         | 
         | - Plain Org (general purpose org viewer/editor):
         | https://plainorg.com
         | 
         | - Scratch (a scratch buffer):
         | https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scratch/id1671420139
        
         | ants_everywhere wrote:
         | I think it's kind of the other way around.
         | 
         | Emacs is a universal lisp environment, and org-mode is a
         | lightweight markup language that works well with it.
         | 
         | You can port the markup language, but it's a heavy lift to port
         | the lisp way of thinking to another language.
        
         | durazabu wrote:
         | The reason is that elisp org-mode is huge and re-implementing
         | it without elisp is a great undertaking.
         | 
         | I started an implementation in javascript that I integrated in
         | an obsidian plugin [0]. But the plugin has a long way to go
         | before reaching feature parity with emacs orgmode.
         | 
         | [0] https://github.com/BBazard/obsidian-orgmode-cm6
        
         | arethuza wrote:
         | There is an orgmode for VS Code that I used for a while:
         | 
         | https://github.com/vscode-org-mode/vscode-org-mode
        
           | rootnod3 wrote:
           | If it doesn't support Babel or Agenda, it loses 90% of the
           | reason to use it.
        
         | rootnod3 wrote:
         | The biggest strength is not the file format or basically the
         | org mode markdown flavor. The strength comes from integrating
         | it with all the other Emacs stuff. Org-babel for example, think
         | of it as a suped up Jupyter notebook. And it integrates with
         | the emacs calendar/agenda. The closest you can get is maybe
         | Obsidian's Dataview plugin, but it absolutely pales in
         | comparison to Emacs Org.
         | 
         | It is one of THE main reasons for me to use Emacs.
        
         | kashyapc wrote:
         | Like someone else mentioned in this thread, I'm not a
         | "traditional" Emacs user. I use Emacs only for Org Mode; for
         | the rest I use Vim, or occasionally something else. (For the
         | rest of your question, there are some good responses from
         | others.)
        
         | eawgewag wrote:
         | Orgmode isn't really just a MD equivalent. It's the integration
         | into Emacs and the entire platform that makes it so incredible
         | and powerful. I would love an alternative because as TS
         | developer I don't use Emacs anymore (non VSCode LSP is a
         | nightmare to run) but it just doesn't exist :(
        
       | anthk wrote:
       | Org-Mode with Hyperbole it's like doing computing in 2070, but
       | without bullshit AI LLM's. Try it and you'll understand.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFdgpb0TeQo
       | 
       | If you are a Lisp programmer, you can OFC use ob-lisp with it
       | (and maybe there's ob-elisp to learn Elisp in a literate way).
       | 
       | This is like a Jupyter netbook, with steroids. Org Babel:
       | 
       | https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/
       | 
       | Supported languages:
       | 
       | https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/index.h...
        
         | aquariusDue wrote:
         | Hyperbole is the weirdest thing ever (in a good way), I can't
         | exactly describe it to people either because it's a monolithic
         | package that is made up of a number of packages (like the one
         | for window control) but once you start using it and adopting it
         | gradually you reach an epiphany. At that point the usefulness
         | of Hyperbole is evident but until then nada, it seems more
         | hassle than it's worth (though there are moments when it has
         | bugs relating to other packages, like org, but those are
         | quickly fixed by the maintainers in my experience).
         | 
         | Though a downside is that you end up curating a workflow that
         | is so tailored to you that it seems weird from the outside, if
         | it ever leaks, i.e. weird notation in git commit messages.
         | That's due to sprinkling implicit and explicit "buttons"
         | (pieces of text roughtly) throughout text (source code or
         | otherwise).
        
           | tra3 wrote:
           | Can you share some of your use cases? Been on my radar for a
           | while..
        
             | aquariusDue wrote:
             | The most straightforward would be opening URLs in various
             | places. Sure, org-mode has something like this built-in and
             | there's the Embark package that even has the embark-dwim
             | command which saves you a keystroke basically, but I still
             | prefer Hyperbole for this bit and it doesn't interfere with
             | Embark either. Same goes for file and folder paths.
             | 
             | There's also more fine grained stuff like opening specific
             | commits on GitHub for example. E.g. throw a
             | gh#rswgnu/hyperbole/5ae3550 and when you M-RET on that
             | "button" it automagically opens it in your browser.
             | 
             | You can insert "buttons" with labels on the fly in a buffer
             | interactively by going through a menu like {C-h h i c} and
             | specifying a label, its type and so on from a list of
             | previously defined button types with their own properties.
             | Those buttons in turn can call any command with preset
             | arguments.
             | 
             | I can go to a file or hunk from the Magit status buffer by
             | pressing the aforementioned Action button (binded to M-RET
             | or a side mouse button too in my case).
             | 
             | I barely scratched the surface really.
        
       | silcoon wrote:
       | I wish there's something like Obsidian with the same support for
       | org-mode that Emacs has. A few pros:
       | 
       | - Organize notes in org-mode is much quicker - The best support
       | for lists (and I do list most of the times) - Tags and properties
       | - Perfect integration with agenda - Great TODOs support - Code
       | blocks with highlights, execution and results
        
         | medstrom wrote:
         | Logseq has buggy syncing and imposes some odd constraints on
         | your files if you want to keep it easy to edit the same file
         | from both Logseq and Emacs, but in principle, it's all there!
         | 
         | Not sure if it can execute code blocks tho.
        
         | ubermonkey wrote:
         | After a few attempts over the years to move to emacs -- all
         | them failures -- what finally got me to use it consistently was
         | Org. The funny thing is I still don't use it for coding or
         | other writing; emacs is on my computer as the org platform.
         | 
         | I am VERY interested in Obsidian, which seems like it could
         | definitely support an org-like system. It's _almost_ there as
         | far as my own use cases are concerned, and the seamless sync to
         | mobile is really enticing.
         | 
         | But goddammit, my fingers now know how to move through org
         | buffers pretty well, and Obsidian lags on that front, so I may
         | be stuck. ;)
        
         | kleinishere wrote:
         | What specific features / functions are most compelling for
         | lists? Of course moving a tree around with different header
         | levels. But anything specifically great with lists?
        
         | dbmikus wrote:
         | Check out Org-Roam: https://www.orgroam.com/
         | 
         | It has some Obsidian-like features inside Org Mode.
         | 
         | So, if you're looking for an easier-to-use UI, it's not it, but
         | if you're looking for Obsidian-like linking and backlinking, it
         | has that.
        
       | moi2388 wrote:
       | I tried several times, but I just can't get EMacs or org mode
       | working.
       | 
       | It's like every single functionality only works 90%, and breaks
       | on the last 10% required to actually be a valid alternative :(
        
         | nanna wrote:
         | I think a hurdle one has to make to adopt Emacs is to stop
         | expecting things to work as you might have come to expect them
         | from other programmes. Sometimes this is for historical
         | reasons, but the main reason is that Emacs just has it's own
         | logic, which may seem counterintuitive at first but often has
         | very good reasons behind it. Try to persist past through that
         | final 10% and you may find there are reasons why they're as
         | they are. And when you need help use the channels out there...
        
         | everybodyknows wrote:
         | Try asking your favorite LLM.
         | 
         | ChatGPT4o has been a godsend for adding helpful snippets of
         | Elisp to my own ~/.emacs file.
        
       | jrm4 wrote:
       | Funny, I just posted a standalone question but I'll repeat it
       | here:
       | 
       | Anyone out there using Generative AI to modify their environment
       | et al? Basically to attack the whole "lisp" thing?
       | 
       | I see the potential in the power and would love to get back into
       | it (I used Org-Mode for about a year then gave up on it) and
       | wondering if anyone else has tried.
        
         | Kiboneu wrote:
         | Yes! I experimented with it on my EXWM setup. After some back
         | and forth via Aider, it made me a module to help me control and
         | monitor tasks on my timewarrior setup, giving me a pomodoro-
         | like indicator on my taskbar (changing colors as it approaches
         | one hour).
         | 
         | It was a cool experience! I had it evaluate the code via
         | commands to the emacs daemon, without reloading EXWM (ballsy,
         | but I was prepared for failure).
         | 
         | EXWM is extremely flexible, but there is a high barrier of
         | entry to using and customizing it. Having an LLM embedded to a
         | live-evaluate desktop environment makes the interface more
         | approachable without reducing its flexibility as much.
         | 
         | It also allows you to create explicit controls that map to the
         | user's muscle memory and sub-symbolic sensing of the
         | environment, while staying out of the way during normal usage
         | -- a different paradigm than embedding an agent as an interface
         | in its own right to control the environment (via speech or
         | text).
         | 
         | Since open source software is readily modifiable, maybe soon it
         | will unironically be the year of the linux desktop.
        
       | Scarblac wrote:
       | Is there are good way to share org files between a laptop and a
       | phone? I want to mark to-dos as done, add new ones and notes etc
       | from both.
        
         | dargscisyhp wrote:
         | Syncthing, maybe?
        
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