Beginning to see the light with org-mode

Posted by jaslar
Dec 12, 2015 at 07:41 AM

CRIMPing emacs (a field report)

WHAT I WANTED

* A capable markdown editor
* Good editing commands
* The ability to fold subheadings and text
* The ability to navigate and rearrange by subtree
* The ability to work with more than one file at a time
* Spellcheck
* The ability to export into a variety of useful formats: html, odt, doc, pdf, OPML
* The ability to edit files from Dropbox on Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android

WHAT I GOT (in mostly emacs markdown-mode):

* On Windows, I got everything above except for the export functions from within markdown (although I could get html file and preview in Linux). But I’ve downloaded pandoc, which allows a separate command line program (not difficult syntax) to do a remarkable, and very fast job of all kinds of translations. I can also export from within org directly to most formats.

The key discoveries:

* I had to learn how to add a package to emacs. Short version: add some lines to the .emacs configuration file to call the “melpa” packages, issue the menu command to Option>Manage emacs packages > Click on and install markdown-mode. Now I can launch a file ending with .md or .markdown.

* Learn how to configure (through the use of /C-h v /programname/) two important variables: sentence-end-double-space (to change from two to one, giving me the ability to move the cursor by sentence), and ispell-program-name (Windows doesn’t have an ispell program, so I had to download aspell and tell emacs where it was—this step was unnecessary in Linux)

* Use the Option menu to set a new default font

* Use the Option menu to set line wrapping to visual line mode (soft wraps)

* Use the Option menu to swap the emacs cut/copy/paste option to the more usual C-x, C-c, C-v. This also allows the more usual select-and-replace process.

* Use the Option menu to save these customizations

* Use Manage emacs packages again to upgrade org itself, and customize org export backends (package-install RET org; and C-h v org-export-backends)

* Realize that I could indeed move whole subtrees - provided the last subtree was blank.

* Install Editorial on iOS and JotterPad on Android (although the latter does not support folding)

CONCLUSIONS:

Hey, hours of fun! A CRIMPers paradise.

A free and powerful application (if you don’t count, say, 40 hours of learning curve and experimentation).

By the end, a really seamless, capable editor that feels pretty good, and is better in many ways than haroopad (no spellcheck) and Smartdown (funny cursor movement by line). I think it gives WriteMonkey a run for its money, too, but that’s mainly (for me) because WriteMonkey doesn’t do folding. I could write a book with this.

Because the learning curve was so steep, I hope some of the steps here will help other CRIMPers who desire such tweaks. I have more detailed steps for those who want them.