Re: MobileOrg

[John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 10:34 PM, David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone using MobileOrg on iOS?  I can't figure out how to set it up from
> the documentation -- I think I'm missing something.  I have a number of
> questions:

Not on iOS, but I've been wanting to [re]setup MobileOrg for Android,
so I went through the steps just now. Hopefully they can translate
sufficiently to get you started...

I'm starting off with nothing. I have a directory containing some .org
files, Dropbox account, and nothing MobileOrg related in .emacs. Here
we go...

> 1. What needs to be setup for the first time push from Emacs to the
> Dropbox Apps/MobileOrg directory?

I added the following to .emacs:

#+begin_src .emacs

;; where are the .org files you want on your phone?
(setq org-directory "~/vault/personal/home-notes")

;; where is your sync directory going to be?
(setq org-mobile-directory "~/Dropbox/mobile-org")

;; if you make changes on your phone, where do you want the chnages
;; to live?
(setq org-mobile-inbox-for-pull "~/vault/personal/home-notes/mobileorg.org")

;; what files in org-directory do you want synced?
(setq org-mobile-files '("~/vault/personal/home-notes/home-notes.org"
                         "~/vault/personal/home-notes/personal.org"
                         "~/vault/personal/home-notes/todo.org"
                         "~/vault/personal/home-notes/whisky.org"))
#+end_src

> 2. What should the results of the first time push be that I should check
> to ensure that it worked?

I'm writing this is as I go... but here's what happened for me! I
ended up with the following directory structure:

$ tree --charset=ASCII ~/Dropbox/mobile-org/
/home/jwhendy/Dropbox/mobile-org/
|-- agendas.org
|-- checksums.dat
|-- home-notes.org
|-- index.org
|-- mobileorg.org
|-- personal.org
|-- todo.org
`-- whisky.org

> 3. What is MobileOrg looking for in the Dropbox directory?

The maintainer would better be able to answer this... but for one,
it's looking for the index.org file, which tells it about the files
contained. If you have custom agenda views, it will tell it about
those as well. I think the checksums.dat file has something to do with
whether or not things need to be re-synced or if they're up to date.

> 4. What do I need to configure in MobileOrg?

My steps (though, on Android, not iOS):

- Open MobileOrg, choose "I want to sync using: a Dropbox account"
- I'm taken to a login screen for Dropbox; click "Log in"
- Dropbox app opens and asks if I want to give permission to
MobileOrg; I choose "Allow"
- Like a silly pants, I didn't sync Dropbox after doing the above
step, so the folder isn't listed
- Start Dropbox on Linux and let it sync
- Click back a few times in MobileOrg and re-do the above steps to
refresh the directory list
- Choose my mobile-org directory from the list of available Dropbox
folders, click "Done"
- Then I'm taken to a sort of home screen with options: Setup Wizard,
Settings, Synchronize, Webstie
- Click "Synchronize"
- A list of my .org files pops up in the app and I can navigate around
and look at them


> 5. What will MobileOrg put back in the Dropbox directory?

I pressed the + in the upper right (again, Android app...) which
opened up a capture interface.

- I title the note "Test"
- There was a dropdown menu for the file to store it in; I chose
"Captures", which was automatically created for me.
- I added the following text:

#+begin_src mobile capture

* heading

** sub heading?

#+end_src

I pressed the synchronize icon in the upper right and... the
"Captures" file vanished!! Like I said, I was typing this in real time
:) I did the same thing (pressed the + symbol in the upper right to
create a capture), except this time, no "Captures" file was
created/suggested, and instead an already existing file,
home-notes.org, was the default. I left it as that and added a capture
titled "Test" with the content text, "stuff." I tapped to synchronize
again.

Back on the computer, I opened up mobileorg.org (where we told new
stuff to go) and found the following contents:

#+begin_src mobileorg.org

* Test

* a heading

** sub heading?

* F(edit:addheading) [[olp:home-notes.org][home-notes.org]]
** Old value

** New value
Test
stuff
** End of edit

#+end_src

So, looks like it did get my initial captures, along with some
interesting structure for what it's going to add to my home-notes.org
file.

> 6. What do I need to do to get Emacs to pull from the Dropbox directory?

Now that there was some content in mobileorg.org, I saved
home-notes.org as home-notes.org.bk (just to compare to for you) and
then ran `M-x org-mobile-pull`. It opened up home-notes.org, and the
message buffer printed out: 2 new, 1 edits, 0 flags, 0 errors

It also add this to the top of the file: #+LAST_MOBILE_CHANGE:
2014-03-01 21:01:22

At the very end of the file, sure enough, I got this:

#+begin_src added-stuff

* Test
stuff

#+end_src

Remember how I saved a backup? When running `diff`, it confirms that
the only change was that headline I added from my phone:

#+begin_src sh

cd ~/vault/personal/home-notes
diff --suppress-common-lines ~/Desktop/home-notes.org.bk ./home-notes.org

> #+LAST_MOBILE_CHANGE: 2014-03-01 21:01:22
>
> * Test
> stuff

#+end_src

Now... where did the "homeless" captures end up from the mobileorg.org
file? From what I can tell, they stayed homeless. home-notes.org was
the only file that changed in the directory holding my .org files
(which we set above with the variable `org-directory`). I re-visited
the mobileorg.org file from the org-mobile-directory, and the big that
had been destined for home-notes.org was now gone! So,
`org-mobile-pull` successfully "refiled" that bit into home-notes.org
(where we told it to put it from the phone) and left the orphans there
for, I suppose, manual refiling by me.

> And so on.  Are the maintainers of MobileOrg watching this mailing list?

They have commented in the past (at least I'm pretty sure), but I
don't know. Like Bastien suggested, you can definitely give it a whirl
through github or via the email/forum listed on their website here:
- http://mobileorg.ncogni.to/support/

I hope the above has been helpful! For any others who follow along
and/or use MobileOrg, was the above at all helpful or was setup fairly
obvious? MobileOrg questions have come up before and I could give a
shot at setting up a Worg page. I'd basically populate it with the
above and perhaps leave an open spot for someone to chime in with iOS
specific instructions. Or should we leave documentation to the
MobileOrg apps themselves?

The above was just for fiddling. I want to sync work files, which I
can't make public on Dropbox, so my final setup will be WebDAV. I've
done it before, but stopped using it for a while. When I redo all the
steps (apache, webDAV, phone setup), I'd plan to add that
documentation to Worg as well. Or if no one voices a desire for that,
I'll just put it on my blog...


John


>
> --
> David Masterson
>
>