Re: Xiki framework (wiki and tree emacs features)

[Craig Muth <craig.muth@gmail.com>]

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> Looks like you're reproducing OrgMode (http://orgmode.org/).

There's definitely some overlap, but a large amount that doesn't overlap, I
think.  (I'm no authority on org mode though.)  Xiki doesn't do the cool
scheduling and using a tree as a general html or latex editor stuff, for
example.  And I don't think OrgMode has much in the way of general
filesystem navigation or searching features, though I could easily be
mistaken.  Xiki has a free-form wiki syntax for navigable file trees, file
contents, searches, and running shell commands in them such as:

- /tmp/
  - foo/
    - foot.txt
      | Some lines in the file
      | Some lines in the file
  ! ls -l
  - ##food/
    - fool/
      - foof.txt
        | A line that contains "food"
        | Another food line lower down in the file

(The "-" bullets are optional, but allow you to use the mouse to
expand/collapse.)

If you watch the web development screencast (
http://xiki.org/screencasts/web_development.html) I think you'll recognize
many things that aren't in or differ quite a bit from org mode.  Also the 2
screencasts show only a subset of features in xiki.  If there's interest
there are about 6 more screencasts I could do.

Where there is overlap (taking notes, etc) xiki takes a very different,
less-structured approach.

> Why would an OrgMode user be interested in Xiki?

There are some innovative things in xiki that could potentially be borrowed
and merged into org mode, at the very least.

I don't foresee many OrgMode users switching to xiki.  Though, any features
could probably augment each other quite nicely.  Like having your notes in
Org's format and building up xiki filesystem trees within them.  Or, maybe
just using xiki's plugins to generate Merb/Rails apps and browse/maniplate
couchdb, for example, or to control Firefox (reloading, sending javascript
to it etc.)  or committing to git during web development.

Emacs has a lot of respect / adoption in the ruby community.  Among emacs
users who find themselves more proficient in ruby than elisp and have
interest in using their code/gems/apps within emacs (a potent combination) I
think xiki will be interesting.  Note xiki owes much of its ruby-interaction
features to el4r, which it's built on top of.  If you have simple ruby code
that accesses an api it is trivial to create a tree-based UI, like the ones
for git/couchdb/merb that are shown in the screencasts.

--Craig


On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Mark A. Hershberger <mah@everybody.org>wrote:

> Craig Muth <craig.muth@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Interested in hearing your feedback about my framework.  It adds
> free-form
> > wiki and tree features (and many others) to emacs.
>
> Looks like you're reproducing OrgMode (http://orgmode.org/). Why would
> an OrgMode user be interested in Xiki?
>
> Mark.
>
> --
> http://hexmode.com/
>
> The only alternative to Tradition is bad tradition.
>                          — Jaraslov Pelikan
>

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