Dear Kaushal,

The real treat is to read your nice message and to be a member of such a
fantastic group of people!

Following your advice to stick to a stable release I searched for info on
how to install it and I found instructions in
http://orgmode.org/org.html#Installation telling me to run "M-x
package-install RET org RET" from within emacs.  I did it and it all looked
like everything was running smoothly untill I was issued the messages:

WARNING: No org-loaddefs.el file could be found from where org.el is
loaded.  You need to run "make" or "make autoloads" from Org lisp directory

I am used to this since I first tried the cloned git version, but I noticed
that there is no Makefile in the directory containing the newly dowloaded
files (~/.emacs.d/elpa/org-20171113/), so I got stuck.

I noticed that in the above installation instructions it is mentioned that:

Important: you need to do this in a session where no .org file has been
visited, i.e., where no Org built-in function have been loaded. Otherwise
autoload Org functions will mess up the installation.

so I repeated the process right after starting emacs with the
--no-init-files option, then I added the line "(package-initialize)" to my
initialization file but it still does not work, namely the old org-mode is
loaded upon starting emacs.  It is curious that I now have two org-mode
entries in the top Emacs-Info node, one for the old version (7.9.3f) and
another one for the new one (9.1.2 (release_9.1.2-37-g3f8d67)).

Could I have premanently messed up my emacs installation by not following
the above Important advice?

Regards,
Ruy Exel

On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 12:50 AM, Kaushal Modi <kaushal.modi@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello Ruy,
>
> First of all, thanks for confirming that this worked for you.
>
> Secondly, no question is a newbie question :) This mailing list is one of
> the friendliest mailing lists I've participated in. So don't worry about
> upsetting someone, or getting offended. So I am continuing this thread on
> the mailing list.
>
> Feel free to ask any kind of Org question you might have, and there are
> many folks here to help you out.
>
> Further comments are inline below.
>
> On Fri, Dec 8, 2017, 5:56 PM Ruy Exel <ruyexel@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> > #+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
>> > ,#+STARTUP: align shrink
>> > #+END_EXAMPLE
>>
>> Got it!  Thanks very much.
>>
>
> You're welcome.
>
> I am in fact a brand new user of org-mode and 7.9.3f is just the version
>> which was dormant in my computer before I updated to the GIT version.
>> Sometimes I use it for comparison.
>>
>
> If you are a brand new user, it's my personal opinion that that stick to
> the stable release. You get that by cloning the maint branch instead, or
> getting org or org-plus-contrib via Org Elpa.
>
> The master branch isn't unstable, it's perfectly fine as a daily driver,
> but some features could be in flux, which could get confusing if you just
> started using Org.
>
> However I noticed that the online manual at (http://orgmode.org/manual/Col
>> umn-width-and-alignment.html) is more compatible with that old version
>> than the GIT version.
>>
>
> The online version is synced with the stable releases of Org, which I
> mentioned above. It's not in sync with the version you think (7.9.3f), but
> with the latest stable release 9.1.4 (as of today).
>
> It just happens that the column shrink feature was recently (few months)
> added to the Org master branch. So you don't see its reference in the
> online manual. That feature will go out in the next major release of the
> stable version.. 9.2.
>
> Of course I do not expect to have a fully working manual for a changing
>> system such as the GIT version,
>>
>
> You're in for a treat here :). This is Emacs, and in my experience the
> best way to access the Info manuals.  The Info manuals that get built along
> with Org are always in sync with the respective versions.
>
> So,
>
> Org master > Manuals: Info (synced with Org master)
>
> Org maint > Manuals: Info, online (synced with Org maint)
>
> If you haven't used Info manuals, do C-h i h to learn how to use those
> from within Emacs. They are vastly better searchable than the online
> version. And you always access the correct version of the Org Info manual
> from within Emacs.
>
> but in case the above manual is superseded by some other one, I'd like to
>> know where it is.
>>
>
> As above, if using master branch Org, you get the correct version of the
> manual from within Emacs.
>
> PS:  I figure this newbie message is not relevant to the folks at
>> emacs-orgmode@gnu.org, so I'am not CCing it there anymore.
>>
>
> As I said in the beginning of the email, don't worry. We are all here to
> learn and share.
>
>> --
>
> Kaushal Modi
>