Re: [PROPOSAL] Quick and easy installation instructions

["Thomas S. Dye" <tsd@tsdye.com>]

On Sep 26, 2010, at 3:33 AM, Dan Davison wrote:

> I think that the documentation concerning installation should be made
> more user-friendly. My impression is that the Org manual makes all  
> this
> sound much harder than it needs to be, and I suspect that this is an
> entry-barrier for new Org users. For example, the first thing users
> encounter in the manual section is an instruction to edit a Makefile.
>
> I suggest we provide a "quick and easy installation" section to the
> manual, that shows people how to start using the latest version of
> Org-mode without messing about with compilation and installation (I
> rarely compile and have never "installed" Org-mode). It would also be
> helpful to include notes on how to find your ".emacs" file.
>
> This would involve the following changes to section 1.2 Installation:
>
> 1. The first thing it should say would be along the lines of
>   "A reasonably recent version of Org is included in Emacs. Are you
>   sure you need the latest version of Org?  If not, skip to the
>   Activation section and start using Org!"
>
> 2. Then we should lay out an easy route and a full route:
>   1. Quick and easy
>      Download, set your load-path and (require 'org-install)
>      Optionally compile (within emacs[1]?)
>      Suggested text below.
>   2. Full install
>      Based on existing instructions
>
>
> What do people think? Is it just the info files which are the issue?
> What does a single-user machine gain from installation other than info
> files?
>
> Dan
>
> Footnotes:
>
> [1] How about including in Org-mode a function `org-compile' based on
> http://orgmode.org/worg/org-hacks.php#compiling-org-without-make
> and `org-reload'
>
>
> Example quick and Easy installation text:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> 1. Download the latest version
>   .zip and .tar.gz version are kept at
>   http://orgmode.org/org-latest.zip
>   http://orgmode.org/org-latest.tar.gz
>
> 2. Extract the archived files
>   This will create a folder called "org-mode". Let's say that the
>   location of this folder is "~/path/to/org-mode" (for Windows see
>   footnote [1])
>
> 3. Add the following lines to your .emacs file (note that we're  
> pointing
>   to the "lisp" folder *within* the main "org-mode" folder):
>
>   (setq load-path (cons "~/path/to/org-mode/lisp" load-path)
>   (require 'org-install)
>
> That's it. However, this will not install the latest info files, so
> these will be out of date (corresponding to whatever version of Org
> shipped with your emacs). See XXXX for instructions on installing the
> info files.
>
> Now, Emacs should load whatever version of Org-mode you put at
> "~/path/to/org-mode". So to update Org in the future, simply delete  
> that
> folder and replace it with a new one (steps 1 and 2 above).
>
> Footnotes:
>
> [1] On Windows, this path might look something like
> "C:\\path\to\org-mode"

+1

Tom