Some struggles of mine with org-mode

Some struggles of mine with org-mode

[lngndvs]

   [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
     - 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. 
     - 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.
     - 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
     - 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
       me, to constrain searching to the same set of files as for an
       Agenda, except if I am only searching things I am currently
       keeping on todo lists.  I want a large subset of *.org files
       open for searches, but I may want to limit the number of files
       processed  for a daily or weekly agenda view.  Am I missing
       something? 

        A utility on the mailing list, org-occur-goto, searches any
       open files, an improvement.  But the very fact I am searching
       for something suggests this will require a greater search
       universe.  Ideally, that universe will include several
       large subtrees, even though within them, only a small number of
       files may be involved.  For example, one would like to have a
       directory, at some random location in the home "~/" tree, for
       recipes.  I want them to be kept together in an integral
       tree.  But I want some of the files to be kept under org-mode
       control.  Do I want these files in my agenda files?  

       I do not wish to have all of my action dumped together in ~/org
       or some such.   Examples  subdirectories might include:

       - ~/HEALTH-ISSUES/
       - ~/ARTICLES/tuning-the-guitar/
       - ~/PROJECTS/recipes/

       I have a large ~/WorkBench directory that includes all ongoing
       work.  I may not know on any  given day which existing projects I
       will be working on.  I like to scatter my TODOs among the
       project files, but I need to maintain instantaneous access to
       them, especially through the agenda views. 


    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.   

Re: Some struggles of mine with org-mode

[Eric Schulte]

>      
>      - 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.

Limiting to the one aspect of this email towards which I may have
something useful to contribute.  One option for text email is to use
org-mime from contrib/lisp/org-mime.el and then structure a subtree as
follows...

,----
| * send this to eric
|   :PROPERTIES:
|   :mail_to:  eric.schulte@foo.bar
|   :END:
| 
| Here is an Org-mode email which will be sent to me.
| 
| | 1 |
| | 2 |
| | 3 |
| | 4 |
| 
| 
`----

calling org-mime-subtree from within that subtree will result in a
message buffer holding the following (modulo your gnus/message setup)

,----
| To: eric.schulte@foo.bar
| Subject: send this to eric
| X-Draft-From: ("org-mode" 2692)
| From: Eric Schulte <eric.schulte@foo.bar>
| --text follows this line--
| Here is an Org-mode email which will be sent to me.
| 
| | 1 |
| | 2 |
| | 3 |
| | 4 |
`----

By default the resulting email is text generated using (I believe)
org-export-as-org.

[...]

>      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 me, to constrain searching
>      to the same set of files as for an Agenda, except if I am only
>      searching things I am currently keeping on todo lists.  I want a
>      large subset of *.org files open for searches, but I may want to
>      limit the number of files processed for a daily or weekly agenda
>      view.

The desire to separate searching from agenda views makes perfect sense
to me.  I've never used the searching features of Org-mode myself.  I
suppose I use rgrep when digging through my Org-mode ~/notes/recipes.

Cheers,

-- 
Eric Schulte
http://cs.unm.edu/~eschulte/

Re: Some struggles of mine with org-mode

[Richard Riley]

Eric Schulte <eric.schulte@gmx.com> writes:

>>      
>>      - 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.
>
> Limiting to the one aspect of this email towards which I may have
> something useful to contribute.  One option for text email is to use
> org-mime from contrib/lisp/org-mime.el and then structure a subtree as
> follows...
>
> ,----
> | * send this to eric
> |   :PROPERTIES:
> |   :mail_to:  eric.schulte@foo.bar
> |   :END:
> | 
> | Here is an Org-mode email which will be sent to me.
> | 
> | | 1 |
> | | 2 |
> | | 3 |
> | | 4 |
> | 
> | 
> `----
>
> calling org-mime-subtree from within that subtree will result in a
> message buffer holding the following (modulo your gnus/message setup)
>
> ,----
> | To: eric.schulte@foo.bar
> | Subject: send this to eric
> | X-Draft-From: ("org-mode" 2692)
> | From: Eric Schulte <eric.schulte@foo.bar>
> | --text follows this line--
> | Here is an Org-mode email which will be sent to me.
> | 
> | | 1 |
> | | 2 |
> | | 3 |
> | | 4 |
> `----
>
> By default the resulting email is text generated using (I believe)
> org-export-as-org.
>
> [...]
>
>>      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 me, to constrain searching
>>      to the same set of files as for an Agenda, except if I am only
>>      searching things I am currently keeping on todo lists.  I want a
>>      large subset of *.org files open for searches, but I may want to
>>      limit the number of files processed for a daily or weekly agenda
>>      view.
>
> The desire to separate searching from agenda views makes perfect sense
> to me.  I've never used the searching features of Org-mode myself.  I
> suppose I use rgrep when digging through my Org-mode ~/notes/recipes.
>
> Cheers,

On the subject I too tried org-contacts and found it novel but not
really a replacement for bbdb. I tried gnus sync with google contacts
too but that was too slow. I suspect the best way to handle this is to
simply use a google to bbdb importer and continue to use bbdb for
contact lookups as its nicely integrated already (well, in gnus it is)
and seems fast enough.

Re: Some struggles of mine with org-mode

[Max Mikhanosha]

At Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:16:02 -0800,
lngndvs@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>     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.   

Are you using `org-agenda-custom-commands' variable? You can specify
different sets of agenda files for different commands.

There is an `org-agenda-text-search-extra-files' variable, which when
bound, adds to the existing agenda files, and has a special value
'agenda-archives, which means all the .org_archive files with same
name as agenda files.

So assuming you have your regular org-agenda-files set to your
"minimum" universe, you can define extra searches like so:

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
      '(("/" "Occur with archives"
         ((search ""
                  ((org-agenda-text-search-extra-files '(agenda-archives))))))
        ("k" "Occur with archives + knowledge base"
         ((search ""
                  ((org-agenda-files (cons "~/kb/" org-agenda-files))
                   (org-agenda-text-search-extra-files '(agenda-archives))))))
                  ))

This will make C-c a / search your normal agenda files, plus their
archives, and C-c a k will in addition search all org files and their
archives in ~/kb/ directory.

Re: Some struggles of mine with org-mode

[Eric S Fraga]

<lngndvs@gmail.com> 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)