Re: Basic orgmode tutorial

[Stefan Vollmar <vollmar@nf.mpg.de>]

Dear Dan,
dear Russell,
dear Carsten,

On 24.03.2010, at 20:07, Dan Davison wrote:

> Russell Adams <RLAdams@adamsinfoserv.com> writes:
> 
>> I discussed this with a few users off an on.
>> 
>> In the manual there are items required to setup org, keybindings, etc.
>> 
>> The idea would be to include:
>> 
>> - An Agenda file, which loads by default
>> - Init file which
>>   - Preconfigured keybindings
>>   - Remember keybinding for basic todo to agenda file
>>   - Configured auto-mode-alist
>>   - Recommended Global key maps
> 
> I think this sort of approach, perhaps as part of an org-mode emacs
> distribution, sounds like a very good idea.

I agree and I had in mind "distributions" for Windows and for MacOS X. Windows is not my favourite platform, however, this is also true for many users who have no choice. I have already played a little with the "official" GNU distribution over the last weeks: if one adds a recent Org-mode version (upgrading Org-mode on Windows is a bit of a pain and an efficient way to lose potential new users...) and (optionally) a standard Windows installer (we like http://nsis.sourceforge.net for our own projects), a little more "tweaking" will get you a long way towards a real out-of-the-box Org-mode on Windows.

There is also some work in progress on an Org-mode package for Aquamacs (MacOS X) here. The idea is that upgrading Aquamacs to the latest Org-mode release should be possible with a single click (or fairly few clicks anyway).

Both projects would benefit from and depend on suggestions on how to implement Russell's list. Let me emphasize that we have no ambition to create new "distributions" from scratch: I am quite confident that the existing Windows GNU version and Aquamacs will only need comparatively minor changes.

Once upon a time I would have found an approach involving "distributions" to upgrade only small portions of a large software package wasteful and inefficient. However, these days we have the bandwidth and, I feel, the advantages of potential new users outweigh the inelegance of this brute force method.

Any comments are welcome.
Warm regards,
 Stefan
-- 
Dr. Stefan Vollmar, Dipl.-Phys.
Head of IT group
Max-Planck-Institut für neurologische Forschung
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