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Re: [O] Some struggles of mine with org-mode
From: |
Eric S Fraga |
Subject: |
Re: [O] Some struggles of mine with org-mode |
Date: |
Wed, 8 Feb 2012 16:30:19 +0000 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.130002 (Ma Gnus v0.2) Emacs/24.0.92 (gnu/linux) |
<address@hidden> writes:
> [This post concerns what have become, for me, conflicts between the
> scopes of org-agenda-files and the universe I would like to search
> within all org files, in particular. I hope I will be forgiven for
> drifting substantially from that focused topic]
>
> Org-mode is well entrenched into my daily work flow, in many
> ways.
>
> - Miscellaneous notes
> - Capturing ideas and articles
> - On-the-fly structured captures of several kinds
> - Todo lists
> - Remembering deadlines and activities
> - Collecting project information from diverse sources
> - Exporting any of the above, just about anything at all, as
> clean PDF files.
> - The occasional Beamer presentation
>
> For all that org-mode has become my go-to tool of choice, there are
> a number of things I still struggle with. I want to post this
> message as, I suppose, too much of a blanket request. Here are
> some of the things I don't get:
>
> - Firefox or other browser integration
What kind of integration are you looking for. For some versions of
Firefox, it is possible to link to org-capture.
> - Email. Some very elegant (in complicated ways) solutions have
> been generated, but all I need it simple text-based email. I
> would be willing to install sendmail or postfix, if need be,
> but I don't really wish to send html based email. See the next
> item.
Again, what exactly are you looking for? You can turn on orgstruct-mode
and orgstruct++-mode in one of the mail hooks (mail-setup-hook or
message-setup-hook). e.g. I have
(add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'turn-on-orgstruct++)
in my gnus configuration file. This adds very useful list and table
functionality to the standard message composition mode.
> - Addresses/Contacts. I like Gnus, and I like BBDB, but I've
> never been completely comfortable with them. I used to keep
> contacts in EDB, a database I designed myself, and it worked
> really, really well. I've posted about his subject before, and
> I can see it didn't strike a chord on this list. I tried
> org-contacts, but it seems idiosyncratic, and limited.
I do sympathise. I use bbdb and have learned to live with it but I
definitely don't /love/ it, probably because I use only a small subset
of its capabilities. Mind you, bbdb has been going through a complete
rewrite for version 3, I believe, so the user experience may be improved
there. I haven't tried that yet. I also haven't tried org-contacts,
mostly because my gnus+bbdb configuration works well enough for me so I
don't feel the pressure to change.
> - Setting up birthday alerts, for example. I feel intimidated
> every time I am about to try to put a new birthday in a
> list. Ideally, I would do this with a capture template. The
> best so far is to keep birthdays in a list in .emacs.el
You can get birthday alerts with bbdb integrated with org although again
this requires using bbdb! Check out
,----[ C-h v org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist RET ]
| org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist is a variable defined in `org-bbdb.el'.
| Its value is shown below.
|
| Documentation:
| How different types of anniversaries should be formatted.
| [...]
`----
> - Searching. One thing I really like about Org-mode is the
> ability to keep a large number of kinds of information straight
> in various ways---either in separate files, or for related
> topics, in different headlines of the same file. I need all
> of these files to be searched. The best searching seems to
> reside in the agenda interface. But it seems illogical, to
[...]
> So, to summarize, org-agenda-files should reflect those files I
> need to access because they have TODOs, Deadlines, Happenings, or
> Reminders in them. My search Universe should be constrained
> enough to result in instant searches, but not so constrained as
> org-agenda-files that need to be processed to produce a daily
> agenda.
I agree with you here. It would be nice to have an alternative search
procedure that is not limited to agenda files. Because of this, I have
my general catch-all notes.org file as one of the entries in
org-agenda-files. IMO, it doesn't belong there as I have separate
tasks.org and diary.org files for agenda related items.
However, note that you *can* use the searching capabilities in
individual files. Not what you want but very useful nonetheless.
HTH,
eric
--
: Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 24.0.92.1
: using Org-mode version 7.8.03 (release_7.8.03.325.g5847)