[ANN] org-icons.el

[ANN] org-icons.el

[Nicolas Girard]

Hi all,

a while ago, David mentionned that at least two people from the
#org-mode IRC channel would be interested in having pretty icons in
org-mode buffers. I have to confess I'm the second one :-)

After a little experimentation, I ended up with the results shown in
these screenshots [1] [2].

The code can be found on github [3]. Currently, it is not based
on overlays, like David's linkd.el, but on display properties. It is
still unclear which of the approach is the best, but as David
offered his help and is by far more skilled in elisp than I,
hopefully these kind of implementation details will be solved
quickly and the code will become actually useable.

As for the icons, I make them from scratch using Inkscape and the
Tango [4] colour palette.

So, what do you think ? Is this a direction you'd want org-mode
to go ? Please, share your feedback & suggestions !

Also, I was thinking that putting such kind of screenshots in org-mode's
website could make us gain a little more votes...

Cheers,
Nicolas

[1] http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/blob/20ab287cd6ab5a5bb3fc8dfc6524f3dd1ab29b2e/example/screenshot1.png
[2] http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/blob/20ab287cd6ab5a5bb3fc8dfc6524f3dd1ab29b2e/example/screenshot2.png
[3] http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/tree/master
[4] http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines

Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Xin Shi]

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Hi Nicolas,

That looks impressive!  Especially the colors for different meanings.

Xin


On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Nicolas Girard <nicolas.girard@nerim.net>wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> a while ago, David mentionned that at least two people from the
> #org-mode IRC channel would be interested in having pretty icons in
> org-mode buffers. I have to confess I'm the second one :-)
>
> After a little experimentation, I ended up with the results shown in
> these screenshots [1] [2].
>
> The code can be found on github [3]. Currently, it is not based
> on overlays, like David's linkd.el, but on display properties. It is
> still unclear which of the approach is the best, but as David
> offered his help and is by far more skilled in elisp than I,
> hopefully these kind of implementation details will be solved
> quickly and the code will become actually useable.
>
> As for the icons, I make them from scratch using Inkscape and the
> Tango [4] colour palette.
>
> So, what do you think ? Is this a direction you'd want org-mode
> to go ? Please, share your feedback & suggestions !
>
> Also, I was thinking that putting such kind of screenshots in org-mode's
> website could make us gain a little more votes...
>
> Cheers,
> Nicolas
>
> [1]
> http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/blob/20ab287cd6ab5a5bb3fc8dfc6524f3dd1ab29b2e/example/screenshot1.png
> [2]
> http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/blob/20ab287cd6ab5a5bb3fc8dfc6524f3dd1ab29b2e/example/screenshot2.png
> [3] http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/tree/master
> [4] http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines
>
>
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> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
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Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Bastien]

Nicolas Girard <nicolas.girard@nerim.net> writes:

> After a little experimentation, I ended up with the results shown in
> these screenshots [1] [2].

Actually you convinced me that icons can be nicely blended into on Org
buffer.  Would you be okay if I post these screenshots on the dedicated
Worg page (org-screenshots.org) or you prefer to post better ones later?

Thanks,

-- 
 Bastien

Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[David O'Toole]

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Hi everyone,

I really like Nicolas' icons, and I am developing an Emacs color-theme that
coordinates with them (screenshots soon!) I've also agreed to help out with
the code, since I wrote some similar stuff a while back.

Carsten: right now this code requires a patch to org.el, but I'm not sure
how much effect it has on other code---can you peek at the patch and see if
this icons code could be made to run on a stock org.el by integrating the
patch?

On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Nicolas Girard <nicolas.girard@nerim.net>wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> a while ago, David mentionned that at least two people from the
> #org-mode IRC channel would be interested in having pretty icons in
> org-mode buffers. I have to confess I'm the second one :-)
>
> After a little experimentation, I ended up with the results shown in
> these screenshots [1] [2].
>
> The code can be found on github [3]. Currently, it is not based
> on overlays, like David's linkd.el, but on display properties. It is
> still unclear which of the approach is the best, but as David
> offered his help and is by far more skilled in elisp than I,
> hopefully these kind of implementation details will be solved
> quickly and the code will become actually useable.
>
> As for the icons, I make them from scratch using Inkscape and the
> Tango [4] colour palette.
>
> So, what do you think ? Is this a direction you'd want org-mode
> to go ? Please, share your feedback & suggestions !
>
> Also, I was thinking that putting such kind of screenshots in org-mode's
> website could make us gain a little more votes...
>
> Cheers,
> Nicolas
>
> [1]
> http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/blob/20ab287cd6ab5a5bb3fc8dfc6524f3dd1ab29b2e/example/screenshot1.png
> [2]
> http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/blob/20ab287cd6ab5a5bb3fc8dfc6524f3dd1ab29b2e/example/screenshot2.png
> [3] http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/tree/master
> [4] http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
>

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Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Nicolas Girard]

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2009/6/24 Bastien <bastienguerry@googlemail.com>

> Nicolas Girard <nicolas.girard@nerim.net> writes:
>
> > After a little experimentation, I ended up with the results shown in
> > these screenshots [1] [2].
>
> Actually you convinced me that icons can be nicely blended into on Org
> buffer.


Now, *this* is a good news !


> Would you be okay if I post these screenshots on the dedicated
> Worg page (org-screenshots.org) or you prefer to post better ones later?


Please do whatever you want with any of the present or forthcoming
screenshots.
I don't intend to create additional icons in the next few days ; but I'll be
more than happy to produce additional screenshots on request. Just send me
the .org file.

Cheers,
Nicolas

PS: the mail server didn't allow me to attach my screenshots to my original
mail :-/

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Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[David O'Toole]

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I'm sorry, the patch is in Nicolas' github repo:
http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/blob/b8be3d85b87c4fe6ce31cdc931fd1b77bb170a5c/lisp/org-icons.patch

On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 7:11 PM, Bastien <bastienguerry@googlemail.com>wrote:

> "David O'Toole" <dto1138@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Carsten: right now this code requires a patch to org.el, but I'm not sure
> how
> > much effect it has on other code---can you peek at the patch and see if
> this
> > icons code could be made to run on a stock org.el by integrating the
> > patch?
>
> (David, I think you forgot the patch...)
>
> --
>  Bastien
>

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Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Bastien]

Nicolas Girard <nicolas.girard@nerim.net> writes:

> Now, *this* is a good news !
>  
>
>     Would you be okay if I post these screenshots on the dedicated
>     Worg page (org-screenshots.org) or you prefer to post better ones later?
>
> Please do whatever you want with any of the present or forthcoming screenshots.
> I don't intend to create additional icons in the next few days ; but I'll be
> more than happy to produce additional screenshots on request. Just send me the
> .org file.

Great - I pushed a change on Worg adding those screenshots.

> PS: the mail server didn't allow me to attach my screenshots to my original
> mail :-/

Yes, better only link them to limit bandwidth usage...

-- 
 Bastien

Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Carsten Dominik]

Could you guys please first explain the


  ;; This part is buggy (sorry)

comment in the patch?

Thanks.

- Carsten

On Jun 24, 2009, at 1:16 AM, David O'Toole wrote:

> I'm sorry, the patch is in Nicolas' github repo: http://github.com/ngirard/org-icons/blob/b8be3d85b87c4fe6ce31cdc931fd1b77bb170a5c/lisp/org-icons.patch
>
> On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 7:11 PM, Bastien  
> <bastienguerry@googlemail.com> wrote:
> "David O'Toole" <dto1138@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Carsten: right now this code requires a patch to org.el, but I'm  
> not sure how
> > much effect it has on other code---can you peek at the patch and  
> see if this
> > icons code could be made to run on a stock org.el by integrating the
> > patch?
>
> (David, I think you forgot the patch...)
>
> --
>  Bastien
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
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Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Nicolas Girard]

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2009/6/24 Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>

> Could you guys please first explain the
>
>
>  ;; This part is buggy (sorry)
>
> comment in the patch?


Err... this just reflects my current lack of expressiveness in elisp...
don't make me blush :-/

What David meant was not to ask you to integrate a ready-to-go patch, but
just to ask you to have a first look at the changes need to be made to
org.el, and tell us if you'd be inclined to accept them, when they are
ready.

The changes only consists in adding more hooks to org's font locking
mechanism --- at least that's the idea ; the probability of mistakes in my
implementation is above 100%...

Nicolas

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Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Carsten Dominik]

On Jun 24, 2009, at 11:41 AM, Nicolas Girard wrote:

> 2009/6/24 Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>
> Could you guys please first explain the
>
>
>  ;; This part is buggy (sorry)
>
> comment in the patch?
>
> Err... this just reflects my current lack of expressiveness in  
> elisp... don't make me blush :-/

I am not complaining, no need to blush.

The patch looks good.  It does not add any hooks though, it
moves some of the font-lock functionality into special functions
that will then be overwritten by the org-icons package.  A bit of
a brute force approach, but it may actually be the right thing
for this purpose.

I think I can easily apply the patch - I even like the fact that
it cleans up the font locking a bit and moves stuff into functions.

But if this patch is preliminary, keep working on it and give me
a more complete version when done.

Best wishes

- Carsten

>
> What David meant was not to ask you to integrate a ready-to-go  
> patch, but just to ask you to have a first look at the changes need  
> to be made to org.el, and tell us if you'd be inclined to accept  
> them, when they are ready.
>
> The changes only consists in adding more hooks to org's font locking  
> mechanism --- at least that's the idea ; the probability of mistakes  
> in my implementation is above 100%...
>
> Nicolas
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
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Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Nicolas Girard]

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2009/6/24 Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>

>
> On Jun 24, 2009, at 11:41 AM, Nicolas Girard wrote:
>
>  2009/6/24 Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>
>> Could you guys please first explain the
>>
>>
>>  ;; This part is buggy (sorry)
>>
>> comment in the patch?
>>
>> Err... this just reflects my current lack of expressiveness in elisp...
>> don't make me blush :-/
>>
>
> I am not complaining, no need to blush.
>
> The patch looks good.  It does not add any hooks though, it
> moves some of the font-lock functionality into special functions
> that will then be overwritten by the org-icons package.


Actually I tried to mimic the already existing code, e.g.
org-font-lock-add-priority-faces.



> A bit of
> a brute force approach, but it may actually be the right thing
> for this purpose.


I'm unsure it's the best approach either. I'm wondering that all these
(while (re-search-forward)) could slow things down.

I'm not sure I fully understand the font-locking code, but it seems like it
performs several -- possibly many -- regexp searches on one part of the
buffer, alternatively adding or removing text properties, right ?

I'm just wondering, could this be rewritten as one or several state
machines, that would trigger text properties addition/removal only once for
a given part of the buffer ?


>
>
> I think I can easily apply the patch - I even like the fact that
> it cleans up the font locking a bit and moves stuff into functions.
>
> But if this patch is preliminary, keep working on it and give me
> a more complete version when done.


Well, thanks for your support !
By the way, you didn't give your opinion on using icons yourself. Please
confess us, are you a text-only addicted kind of guy, or a flashy, glossy
icons amateur...?


Nicolas

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Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Carsten Dominik]

On Jun 24, 2009, at 12:13 PM, Nicolas Girard wrote:

>
>
> 2009/6/24 Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>
>
> On Jun 24, 2009, at 11:41 AM, Nicolas Girard wrote:
>
> 2009/6/24 Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>
> Could you guys please first explain the
>
>
> ;; This part is buggy (sorry)
>
> comment in the patch?
>
> Err... this just reflects my current lack of expressiveness in  
> elisp... don't make me blush :-/
>
> I am not complaining, no need to blush.
>
> The patch looks good.  It does not add any hooks though, it
> moves some of the font-lock functionality into special functions
> that will then be overwritten by the org-icons package.
>
> Actually I tried to mimic the already existing code, e.g. org-font- 
> lock-add-priority-faces.
>
>
> A bit of
> a brute force approach, but it may actually be the right thing
> for this purpose.
>
> I'm unsure it's the best approach either. I'm wondering that all  
> these (while (re-search-forward)) could slow things down.

I don't think these functions should do a while regexp search.  Finding
the next match, leaving the cursor after it, and returning t if  
something
was found should be enough, font-lock will then call the function  
multiple
times if needed to address the entire visible part of the screen.

Also, searching for the special keywords could maybe be combined into
a single regexp.  Might be faster.

>
> I'm not sure I fully understand the font-locking code, but it seems  
> like it performs several -- possibly many -- regexp searches on one  
> part of the buffer, alternatively adding or removing text  
> properties, right ?

Yes.  And font-lock decides about the region to cover.

>
> I'm just wondering, could this be rewritten as one or several state  
> machines, that would trigger text properties addition/removal only  
> once for a given part of the buffer ?

This is how font-lock works.  While typing, it constantly
rechecks the current line and stuff close to it, but not
the entire buffer.  Sometimes more is needed, for example
inserting a double quote makes the entire rest of the buffer
a string......

>
> I think I can easily apply the patch - I even like the fact that
> it cleans up the font locking a bit and moves stuff into functions.
>
> But if this patch is preliminary, keep working on it and give me
> a more complete version when done.
>
> Well, thanks for your support !
> By the way, you didn't give your opinion on using icons yourself.  
> Please confess us, are you a text-only addicted kind of guy, or a  
> flashy, glossy icons amateur...?

To be honest, I was not excited when I first saw David's icons.
Yours look a lot better - but I don't expect to use them myself.

But others seem to think differently, and I am not going
to stand in the way if the impact on normal Org-mode
performance is unnoticeable.

- Carsten

Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Sebastian Rose]

Hi Nicolas,


I just took the two minutes to clone your repo and install the
patch. It's working great. Easy install, no delay in re-display. Cool
stuff! 


This is what all that I found to complain about so far:

It should be `org-icons-default-directory' in the docs on the frontpage? 




Nicolas Girard <nicolas.girard@nerim.net> writes:
> Well, thanks for your support !
> By the way, you didn't give your opinion on using icons yourself. Please
> confess us, are you a text-only addicted kind of guy, or a flashy, glossy
> icons amateur...?


As for me, I see saw between "eye candy is great" and console-only :)
The last one, because eye candy slows my old machine down in many cases,
which org-icons does not.

Minor quirk: The TODO states are less visible with the default
theme. This is because the org-headline faces I use. The stars of a
headline are the same size as the icons.


Good work :) - thanks!



Best wishes

    Sebastian

Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[David O'Toole]

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> On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 7:56 AM, Carsten Dominik <
carsten.dominik@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> To be honest, I was not excited when I first saw David's icons.
> Yours look a lot better - but I don't expect to use them myself.

Well I'm no visual artist :) I like nicolas' icons better too. I've even
changed my color theme to match them!

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Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Daniel Clemente]

> So, what do you think ? Is this a direction you'd want org-mode
> to go ? Please, share your feedback & suggestions !

  I think that the main interest of this will not only be to make a
buffer pretty, but to show information in ways which are easier or
more comfortable to understand.
  For instance:
 - showing completion status of a task: icons could form a progress
bar, like [XXXX..], green if >50%, red elsewhere
 - marking the tasks with a color from a gradient which represents
something; for instance: the more recently you have clocked a task,
the redder (hotter) it is
- the amount of children/text a collapsed tree has (a big lack I have
noticed in org-mode). The icon could try to offer a
mini-representation of whether the tree has little content, some
content, or much content
- in agenda view, an „only icons“ view would be able to show much
information in little space. For instance, the distribution of
projects/categories/tags in a month


Just some ideas.

Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Carsten Dominik]

On Jun 25, 2009, at 1:28 AM, Daniel Clemente wrote:

>> So, what do you think ? Is this a direction you'd want org-mode
>> to go ? Please, share your feedback & suggestions !
>
>  I think that the main interest of this will not only be to make a
> buffer pretty, but to show information in ways which are easier or
> more comfortable to understand.
>  For instance:
> - showing completion status of a task: icons could form a progress
> bar, like [XXXX..], green if >50%, red elsewhere

Nice.

> - marking the tasks with a color from a gradient which represents
> something; for instance: the more recently you have clocked a task,
> the redder (hotter) it is

Well, not so useful, I think.

> - the amount of children/text a collapsed tree has (a big lack I have
> noticed in org-mode). The icon could try to offer a
> mini-representation of whether the tree has little content, some
> content, or much content

Very useful, but expensive to implement.

> - in agenda view, an „only icons“ view would be able to show much
> information in little space. For instance, the distribution of
> projects/categories/tags in a month
>
>
> Just some ideas.

I am beginning to see that this could in fact be useful,
thanks for your post.

- Carsten

Re: [ANN] org-icons.el

[Richard Riley]

Could someone provide a little more detail on how to use this please? I
can see one has to clone the git repo, but then what? The readme just
says to "patch the org mode code". Which version of the org code? What
is the org.el in the org-icons lisp dir? How does one patch?

Thanks for any help,

r.



Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com> writes:

> On Jun 25, 2009, at 1:28 AM, Daniel Clemente wrote:
>
>>> So, what do you think ? Is this a direction you'd want org-mode
>>> to go ? Please, share your feedback & suggestions !
>>
>>  I think that the main interest of this will not only be to make a
>> buffer pretty, but to show information in ways which are easier or
>> more comfortable to understand.
>>  For instance:
>> - showing completion status of a task: icons could form a progress
>> bar, like [XXXX..], green if >50%, red elsewhere
>
> Nice.
>
>> - marking the tasks with a color from a gradient which represents
>> something; for instance: the more recently you have clocked a task,
>> the redder (hotter) it is
>
> Well, not so useful, I think.
>
>> - the amount of children/text a collapsed tree has (a big lack I have
>> noticed in org-mode). The icon could try to offer a
>> mini-representation of whether the tree has little content, some
>> content, or much content
>
> Very useful, but expensive to implement.
>
>> - in agenda view, an „only icons“ view would be able to show much
>> information in little space. For instance, the distribution of
>> projects/categories/tags in a month
>>
>>
>> Just some ideas.
>
> I am beginning to see that this could in fact be useful,
> thanks for your post.
>
> - Carsten
>
>
>
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