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| author | Ashton Wiersdorf <ashton.wiersdorf@pobox.com> | 2023-01-11 16:15:53 -0700 |
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| committer | Ashton Wiersdorf <ashton.wiersdorf@pobox.com> | 2023-01-11 16:15:53 -0700 |
| commit | 8dfd51bbc1728dfb003daea031c8ec236abbe120 (patch) | |
| tree | cfdd2e0128629b4b67796d7a4bac4e9d4b0cff02 | |
| parent | 61504d92179f5f1940b25667a644d1f6fbc24838 (diff) | |
Write up draft on what org-mode can do
| -rw-r--r-- | mixins/org-intro.txt | 91 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | mixins/org.el | 20 |
2 files changed, 105 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/mixins/org-intro.txt b/mixins/org-intro.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca56bf4 --- /dev/null +++ b/mixins/org-intro.txt @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@ +Many people use Emacs just so they can use org-mode. If you're one of them, +welcome! + +This is a short introduction to get an overview of what org-mode does. + +Org-mode is hard to understand because there are broadly three different things +that org-mode does. They're related but distinct enough to make things +confusing. We'll focus on three different use cases for org-mode: + + - org-mode as markup + - org-mode as a task tracker + - org-mode as a computational notebook + +Org-mode as markup +================== + +Org-mode is first and foremost a lightweight markup language, just like +Markdown. (In fact, they were developed at around the same time.) There are a +few differences in syntax, but if you're already familiar with the ideas behind +Markdown you should be just fine. + +If you've never worked with something like Markdown before, you can think of it +as a system of special characters that indicate some formatting, e.g. you mark +text as being *bold*, _underlined_, or /italicized/ by surrounding it with +asterisks, underscores, and slashes respectively. + +Once you've authored a file with org-mode, you can use Emacs to export the +org-mode into another format, like HTML, Markdown, ODT, or PDF with LaTeX. Run +`org-export` to bring up the export menu. + +Org-mode as a task tracker +========================== + +Like Markdown, org-mode has headings. Instead of starting headings with one or +more "#" signs, org-mode uses asterisks. An org mode heading looks like this: + + * Heading + + Lorem ipsum… + + ** Subheading + + Dolor sit amet… + + ** Another subheading + + Magister Ludi… + + * Another top-level heading + + Quam elivit… + +*Any* heading can become a task. This might feel overwhelming, and rightly so. +For now, just start with a list of top-level headings with the TODO keyword. + + * TODO Do important thing + * TODO Take Yessica to get her haircut + * TODO Finish configuring Emacs + +You can associate deadlines, notes, tags, attachments, different TODO states, +etc. to these headlines. Read the org-mode manual for more information. + +While there are cases when you might want to put a TODO item in an arbitrary +file, most of the time these TODOs will go into an agenda file. + +The `org-directory` and `org-agenda-files` variables control where org-mode +looks to find TODO items to generate what's called an agenda: an agenda is a +view of all your headlines with TODO (or other states like WAITING, as +configured) status set. The agenda usually organizes these by date and makes it +easy for you to sort, filter, and modify these items. + +For now, just start with one org-mode file at `~/Documents/org/inbox.org`. Put +some headings with TODO keywords in that file and save it. Be sure to add a +deadline for today. (You can run `org-deadline` to do this automatically for +you.) Now invoke `org-agenda`. This should pull up a buffer with those headlines +you just added in it. + +There are too many ways you can configure this for me to describe here. Just +start small: have one or two files in the `org-agenda-files` list to act as +where you put your TODO items. Use the agenda to view and modify those TODOs. + +Org-mode as a computational notebook +==================================== + +You can use org-mode as a kind of computational notebook. Org-mode lets you have +blocks of source code in line, and then you can instruct org-mode to evaluate +those blocks of code for you. + +The setup varies from language to language, and I'm not going to try to explain +that here. If you're writing code, you should be familiar with reading +documentation, so I'll let you do that yourself. :) diff --git a/mixins/org.el b/mixins/org.el index 9966f04..1f708a0 100644 --- a/mixins/org.el +++ b/mixins/org.el @@ -10,6 +10,12 @@ ;;; ;;; We will configure Org-mode in phases. Work with each phase as you are ;;; comfortable. +;;; +;;; YOU NEED TO CONFIGURE SOME VARIABLES! The most important variable is the +;;; `org-directory', which tells org-mode where to look to find your agenda +;;; files. + +;;; See "org-intro.txt" for a high-level overview. ;;; Contents: ;;; @@ -32,12 +38,6 @@ ;;; Phase 1 variables -;; Advanced: Custom link types -;; This example is for linking a person's 7-character ID to their page on the -;; free genealogy website Family Search. -(setq org-link-abbrev-alist - '(("family_search" . "https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/%s"))) - ;;; Phase 2 variables ;; Agenda variables @@ -75,6 +75,14 @@ (setq org-roam-directory "~/Documents/org-roam/") (setq org-roam-index-file "~/Documents/org-roam/index.org") +;;; Optional variables + +;; Advanced: Custom link types +;; This example is for linking a person's 7-character ID to their page on the +;; free genealogy website Family Search. +(setq org-link-abbrev-alist + '(("family_search" . "https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/%s"))) + ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;; ;;; Phase 1: editing and exporting files |