Re: would take more than an org-mode strip-down.

[Rainer M Krug <r.m.krug@gmail.com>]

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On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi James.
>
> If you do not grok text its unlikely you will appreciate a text editor.
> emacs is not just a text editor its an exceptionally powerful text editor
> -- a power which is likely to alienate you even more.
> So the best suggestion to someone who wishes to get into orgmode but finds
> text (and text editors) unpleasant is to give up on orgmode, just dig into
> emacs' simpler uses for a while and when a little more comfortable (with
> emacs) try org again. Hopefully then your questions will be more focused to
> this list and the answers will be more useful to you.
>
> That said, there is some merit in (some of) what you say.
> org is so many different things at the same time that for a noob to find
> one's way through the documentation to make his usecase work with minimum
> pain seems to be unnecessarily hard.
>
>
> The beginner's customization guide:
> http://orgmode.org/worg/org-configs/org-customization-guide.html
> is of course a starting point.
>
> But I wonder if it would be possible to structure it into something like
> this outline so that different beginners could start at different places?
>
> * Brainstorming-n-outlining
>   TAB and the basic structure navigation and editing features
> * Exporting and Publishing
> *** html export
> *** Odt export
> *** Web publishing
> *** Latex publishing
> *** Presentations
> ***** Lightweight options
>   http://orgmode.org/worg/org-configs/org-customization-guide.html
> ***** Beamer
> * Babel
> *** For programming
> *** For teaching programming
> *** For doing science (R)
> *** For scientific publishing (R+Latex)
> * Time/project mgmt (GTD)
> *** Agenda
> *** Time tracking
> *** capture-archive
> *** Journalling
> *** org-habit
> * Tables and spreadsheets
> * Integration with other emacs uses
> *** gnus
> *** bbdb/ org-contacts
> *** firefox (org-protocol)
> *** graphics (R, ditaa...)
>
>
I would actually suggest to have a general introduction (what is org, what
can it do, what are the principles of org) and then go into different usage
scenarios and how to fulfill certain tasks. For example, I am using org-mode
exclusively for literate programming and some document writing, but not for
task management, calendar, email, etc. So at the beginning, I was really
confused by the whole agenda and publishing stuff, until I realized, that I
don't need it at all for what I am doing.

And after looking at your suggested outline, it is going into that
direction, but I would put e.g. "Exporting and Publishing" after the
different usage scenarios. so:

* Basic org
** what is it and what is it not
** what can it do
** principles and basics of org
*** org capture
* Usage scenarios
** Time Management
*** calendar
*** ...
** spreadsheets
*** ...
** task manager
** literate programming
*** general principles
*** examples for different programming languages
**** R
**** sh
**** ...

I like the headings "org for doing ...", but one has to be careful, that
they do not end uop in repeating to many things - so subheadings as links to
the relevant sections above would be quite useful.

Cheers,

Rainer


-- 
Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology,
UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)

Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology
Stellenbosch University
South Africa

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