Re: gnowsys-mode a major mode extending org

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

Hi Nagarjuna,

This sound very interesting indeed.  Thanks for sharing!

- Carsten

On Sep 30, 2009, at 2:19 AM, Nagarjuna G. wrote:

> Dear orgmode developers and users
>
> This is a note to share with you our adventure with org.
>
> We, at gnowledge.org, began a project that extends orgmode (without
> spoiling or loosing any of the orgmode features) to support
> collaborative knowledge organization and networking using the GNOWSYS
> storage on the server side.  This is work in progress.  I am writing
> this note to inform you about the on going work, as well as to thank
> you all, specially Carsten for creating an app that took Emacs to yet
> another level.
>
> * What we are doing with orgmode:
>
>  1. We use Emacs as a client to collaboratively create, update
>     knowledge networks in plain text.  The knowledge network is
>     created by adding nodes (rendered in orgmode as a note item) and
>     named relations between them (rendered in orgmode in the
>     properties drawer of the note item). The storage of the network
>     is compatible to RDF model of storing networks, though we do not
>     store or process XML either on the server side or on the client
>     side. Thus, every orgmode item is added in a form that can be
>     serialized as a RDF triple.  Some examples given below.
>
>  2. We are using xmlrpc (xmlrpc.el), a builtin feature in Emacs, to
>     connect to GNOWSYS server. GNOWSYS publishes its API as
>     webservice (which has an API to perform the authentication,
>     search the knowledge base, return and update the nodes and its
>     properties.)
>
>  3. Each node when returned from the GNOWSYS server to the client
>     opens in a org buffer (temporary) as a note item.  Since we
>     render the linkeddata in a text format orgmode renders everything
>     nicely.  We have defined more types of links, extending the ones
>     available already, so that the linked nodes' URI is always
>     available.
>
>  4. Any text written below the drawers is stored as the value of an
>     attribute 'content' of the current node on the server side.
>
>  5. We are adding more and more functions to complete the entire
>     application, thanks to orgmode and Emacs, where difficult tasks
>     are tamed to such an extent, we are obviously excited!
>
> * What missing feature of orgmode will be available in gnowsys-mode
>
>  We can do networking between items making frame based orgmode items
>  linked with any other items in any which way by explicitly naming
>  the relations.  This feature makes orgmode ready for semantic
>  web. We plan to use the properties drawer to hold all the metadata
>  of each node.  In-built version control of all notes as well as the
>  networks (a feature of GNOWSYS).  Orgmode with the extensions that
>  we are applying can demonstrate how complex application data can be
>  represented and manipulated in plain text including semantic web.
>
> * What this extension may mean to the users of orgmode and others.
>
>  These are the use cases for extended orgmode/gnowsys-mode:
>
>  1. Each note item (*) can be published at a remote server as a node,
>     with its content and properties stored as attributes.  Thus all
>     data gets published on the server, though optionally the user can
>     save all data as text files on his/her PC. Published nodes
>     can be read and edited by others, allowing collaborative
>     authoring.  Using this feature, we can use orgmode as a wiki
>     source file.
>
>  2. GNOWSYS supports version control of all changes made to the node,
>     thus changes can be tracked. No additional version control like
>     cvs, svn, git, bazaar etc. are required.  (GNOWSYS should soon
>     support more functions to improve this.) Nothing is deleted from
>     the server. Nodes can be delinked or marked deleted, nodes with
>     deleted mark still exist on the server after making a new
>     snapshot of the node.
>
>  3. Ontologies or application schema can be made and published
>     collaboratively.  This is useful as a semantic web
>     application. All this can be done without using XML on either
>     server side or client side, though we can import and export data
>     serialized in RDF format.  This makes it a pure text based app
>     for semantic web.
>
>  4. Complex documents like courses, manuals, books can be written in
>     orgmode collaboratively with bibliogrpahy support etc.  LaTeX and
>     DocBook export feature could make use of this to make orgmode as
>     a desktop publishing system supporting collaborative editing. (We
>     want to discuss this project with guidance from org team.)
>
>  5. Considering that a website is nothing but a set of complex
>     documents with internal as well as external hyperlinks, complete
>     website can be made, managed and published by orgmode with the
>     source code of the site completely encoded in text.
>
>  6. GNOWSYS is made for collaborative creation of semantic networks,
>     so this use case needs no more elaboration.  Concept graphs,
>     mindmaps included.
>
>
> We realize that much of the above use needs a good and advanced search
> facility on the GNOWSYS side.  Though crude search is possible now,
> and integrated within gnowsys-mode, a lot of improvement is possible
> here.
>
> The bleeding-edge gnowsys-mode can be obtained using "svn co
> svn://svn.savannah.gnu.org/gnowsys/gnowsys-mode".
>
> Divya (a student hacker) did this project as her GSoC 2009 under Rajiv
> and me as mentors. She keeps on updating with more and more functions
> regularly.  We will feel encouraged if some of you could try this and
> send us feedback. As first time emacs-lisp hackers our code may not be
> written elegantly.  If you detect blunders do let us know.  We already
> learned a lot from the existing examples.
>
> gnowsys-mode will be demonstrated at ISWC 2009 to be held this October
> near Washington for the semantic web community.  If any of you are
> aruond Washington/Virginia I would be glad to meetup.
>
> Thanks again for org!
>
> Nagarjuna
>
>
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