Re: [O] Collaborative Team Project Management with Orgmode?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

John Kitchin <address@hidden> writes:

>>
>> Let's see... the org-contacts vs BBDB issue isn't a big deal, since
>> Gnorb doesn't actually do all that much with contacts right now. I'd be
>> happy to add tweaks to it to make it more org-contacts friendly.
>>
>> Email tracking is a bigger issue. Gnorb uses the Gnus registry to track
>> correspondences between messages and headlines, and obviously none of
>> that would work with mu4e.
>>
>> Earlier versions did tracking by storing message ids as a property on a
>> headline. I suppose I could go back to doing that in a mu4e-specific
>> library.
>
> Message id tracking is likely the way to do it in mu4e. mu4e links seem
> to store this for links.
>
> [[mu4e:msgid:address@hidden

Yup, I think most of the MUA links end up looking something like that.
Message IDs are the one constant across MUAs and (most) mail sources, so
everything in Gnorb is keyed to that.

>>
>> To me, the most useful thing about message tracking isn't the
>> identification and hinting of incoming emails. The two most useful
>> things (I think) are:
>>
>> 1. Taking a message and saying "this message should trigger a state
>>    change on that Org heading there"
>> 2. Seeing all messages associated with a heading in their own virtual
>>    "mailbox"
>>
>> Number one shouldn't be too difficult to implement for mu4e, as it would
>> mostly rely on Org's own mu4e support. Number two would be nearly
>> impossible, or at least impractical given my lack of familiarity with
>> mu4e.
>
> I am still learning many things about emails. mu4e has pretty powerful
> search capability via the underlying Xapian database.

Well, on second thought, maybe it wouldn't need to be that hard, then.
The Org heading would have its list of msg-ids, and if mu4e search has
an easy way of saying "search for all messages whose IDs are in this
list", then that it would be quite easy. Much easier than in Gnus, I
have to say! If that search works across mail accounts and folders, then
Gnorb wouldn't even have to care about messages being moved between
folders, which is one of the main uses of the registry.

>>
>> Another thing I find hugely useful is automatically transferring files
>> attached to incoming messages to Org headings (via org-attach).
>> Presumably mu4e has a way of getting at the attachments on a message, so
>> in theory this wouldn't be that hard, either.
>
> This sounds pretty interesting. I have never gotten that into
> attachments, but this might change my mind. There are functions in mu4e
> to view and save attachments, so this might not be hard.

Much of my work involves throwing attachments around (or rather,
receiving attachments and sending back plain text whenever possible),
so this is pretty crucial for me. While org-attach is very sound, I
found its surface-layer interface a bit cumbersome, and this makes it a
lot easier to use.

> I am pretty interested in pursuing this, but am pretty busy for a while
> so progress on my end will be slow ;(

Mine as well, ha!

BTW, mu4e still uses message mode for composition and sending, right?

>> Anyway, those are some thoughts on the issue. If you all had some
>> particular feature where you'd like mu4e support, let me know and I can
>> take a stab at it.
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>> On Sun, Aug 23, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Eric Abrahamsen
>>> <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>     John Kitchin <address@hidden> writes:
>>>
>>>     > unless those services have some kind of API, and you have the
>>>     desire to
>>>     > implement it in emacs, you might be out of luck.
>>>     >
>>>     > I am trying to figure out a way to do collaborative work via
>>>     email,
>>>     > where I am the project coordinator. The idea is to use my
>>>     email.el code
>>>     > to send headlines to people I need information or action from,
>>>     and then
>>>     > to have them reply to the email. Then, I would have some easy
>>>     way to get
>>>     > information out of the reply back to the heading (e.g. TODO
>>>     state
>>>     > change, info etc...). Probably I would embed some org-id link in
>>>     the email,
>>>     > and "train" the users not to delete it. This is only a
>>>     half-baked idea
>>>     > so far.
>>>     >
>>>     > It would integrate org-contacts, mu4e, and org-mode in my setup.
>>>
>>>     Sounds exactly like Gnorb! Except org-contacts instead of BBDB,
>>>     and mu4e
>>>     instead of Gnus :(
>>>
>>>     > depending in your role in the project, you might get something
>>>     like that
>>>     > to work too.
>>>     >
>>>     > Tory S. Anderson writes:
>>>     >
>>>     >> I've relied on Orgmode heavily for over half a decade, and I'm
>>>     >> loathe to leave it. But what solutions have been found out
>>>     there
>>>     >> for using it collaboratively (where others are not using
>>>     emacs),
>>>     >> rather than just for personal task management (where it
>>>     excels)?
>>>     >> It has some integration with Trello, I know; some of my
>>>     co-workers
>>>     >> are advocating BaseCamp (...) and PivotalTracker.
>>>     PivotalTracker
>>>     >> looks pretty good, but I would rather find a way to leverage
>>>     >> orgmode in a way that facilitates collaboration. What has
>>>     worked
>>>     >> for you?
>>>     >
>>>     > --
>>>     > Professor John Kitchin
>>>     > Doherty Hall A207F
>>>     > Department of Chemical Engineering
>>>     > Carnegie Mellon University
>>>     > Pittsburgh, PA 15213
>>>     > 412-268-7803
>>>     > @johnkitchin
>>>     > http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu
>
> --
> Professor John Kitchin
> Doherty Hall A207F
> Department of Chemical Engineering
> Carnegie Mellon University
> Pittsburgh, PA 15213
> 412-268-7803
> @johnkitchin
> http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu