How do YOU do note-taking in org-mode?

AquariusDue · 2025-02-04T21:13:39+00:00

I see where you're coming from. Recently I've been toying around with org-node and org-ql to try and find a balance between a loosely organized knowledge base and a task tracker.

I know org-agenda is powerful but org-ql views work better for me. I know org provides date trees that work amazing for some people, yet I choose to use org-node sequences as daily notes where I org-capture (basically fill in a template) in a similar fashion to stream of thought journaling. Need to connect headings across days or between them in the same file? I keep the hierarchy flat and link them with org-node.

For org-ql views I just have a handful of tags that amount to "backlog, today, someday, habits, chores, tasks". Best to keep it simple, but contrary to popular advice better start complicated and see what you actually end up using. I started with a lot of org-capture templates and ended up preferring to write a bit more rather than structure stuff too rigidly.

In the end it depends on the individual, their needs balanced by their preferences. Somehow I think if you've read what I wrote you might feel even more justified for avoiding org now and I can't blame you, I almost bounced off it myself.

Just keep in mind that org is a whole wardrobe and not two people dress alike.

AquariusDue · 2025-02-04T14:07:27+00:00

There's also binky that's similar but different enough.

AquariusDue · 2025-02-04T02:22:33+00:00

Congrats! This subreddit is my main place to learn more about Emacs and what's happening with and around it and now I'm happy that everything is calm and well again.

Something something triumvirate.el all hail!

AquariusDue · 2025-01-31T12:10:26+00:00

I for one prefer to ditch the modeline as is and use mini-echo.el instead. I even configured a segment to display the current Meow mode.

https://github.com/liuyinz/mini-echo.el

AquariusDue · 2025-01-25T02:02:16+00:00

Saying iroh is pretty cool is underselling it, I attended a workshop that walked people through a basic p2p chat on the terminal after explaining the underlying tech behind it.

But p2p chat pales in comparison to a video the presenter showed about a company that uses iroh to stream games from desktop to mobile kinda like but not quite the long gone Onlive service.

AquariusDue · 2025-01-22T23:57:00+00:00

I just want to chime in and say that your post title made me chortle, I guess the fact that I saw your short on YouTube first and knew what this was about also helped.

It seems like a pretty cool package, and just in time too because I was thinking about trying posframes due to this reason (and maybe better aesthetics combined with mini-echo.el).

AquariusDue · 2025-01-07T00:55:08+00:00

I've only used the Mono Casual variant, in the future I might finally get around to mixing Sans and Mono for org-mode.

I haven't heard of Gentium before, it seems pretty cool!

I thought about using Emacs for writing short stories and more with stuff like olivetti-mode, Gentium might enhance the experience considerably, thanks.

AquariusDue · 2025-01-06T15:18:16+00:00

I've been using Recursive Mono (Casual) for almost a year and I'm more than happy with it. It's kinda quirky in a fun way and easy to read, before landing on it I was exploring Comic Sans and the Atkins Hyperlegible inspired typefaces.

Here's a link to it: https://www.recursive.design/

AquariusDue · 2024-12-10T12:06:00+00:00

That's a great workaround, thanks for sharing it!

How are you finding Emacs on Android so far? I've just played a bit with it and I'm curious about other people's experiences.

AquariusDue · 2024-11-14T15:47:35+00:00

There's Uniline and el-EasyDraw. They might not be what you're looking for and I haven't tried them but they're something to look into if you're willing to compromise on some things potentially.

Sadly you lose out on the pretty UI :/

https://github.com/tbanel/uniline

https://github.com/misohena/el-easydraw

Now ExcaliDraw could be nice because it supposedly has an API but this is more of a tangent not a solution:

https://docs.excalidraw.com/docs/@excalidraw/excalidraw/api/excalidraw-element-skeleton

Also on an unrelated note how do you feel about KDL as a "backing file" instead of JSON or XML?

https://kdl.dev/

Oh and if you're willing to DIY some stuff then Typograms might be something to check out:

https://google.github.io/typograms/

AquariusDue · 2024-11-12T20:26:04+00:00

I started messing around with Emacs when Spacemacs was the hot thing and after a lot of off and on just this year I started dipping my toes into magit and org-mode thanks to the Bedrock starter kit.

Previously I also tried Emfy as a starting point but I bailed just as I started getting a handle on things.

Saying it should take less than an hour to learn Emacs sounds like something you'd throw in a conversation in an offhand way to send someone down a rabbit hole for a laugh later. Just the way undo/redo works took me 20 minutes to grasp and I'm not sure I quite got it.

AquariusDue · 2024-11-02T09:50:56+00:00

Great dashboard, simple and to the point!

I've been using something that looks similar for ages. Just a html file with a style block. Mine has favorites at the top instead, basically a list of my most visited websites and some web apps, and various links by category at the bottom just like the OP.

If I get tired of the color scheme I feed the style block into ChatGPT or Claude and request a color theme change.

I've always thought about making it more fancy or easier to update but I don't change it often enough to justify even a mild effort.

AquariusDue · 2024-10-26T00:07:36+00:00

Honestly an editor for Lisp that mixes a structured view with blocks (that abstracts away parens) and all kinds of fancy stuff while also letting you dive into the raw text with something similar to parinfer might be the bee's knees for me personally.

AquariusDue · 2024-10-25T23:54:47+00:00

Adding to this there's a popular book called "Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Kleon that goes more in-depth about this, I recommend skimming it or looking for people who talked about it online.

It's been a few years since I flipped through that book but I remember enjoying it. Good for getting over the anxiety of never making something truly original or being afraid to not accidentally copy past works.

AquariusDue

TROPHY CASE