Yeesh. Please don’t complain about your poorly-researched laundry list of preferences not being upvoted. Come on, nobody cares what editor you yourself do or don’t use.

I was commenting on the snap responses, my goal was just to avoid an editor war.

I brought up post score relative to comment rate only because in my experience high engagement with no votes generally means I probably just started an argument.

* GitHub does render .org files just like Markdown!

* I've heard people of people being really happy with Orgzly on Android. I personally run Emacs on my Android phone through Termux. It works really well for me. Other solutions include using a SSH client to connect to a server running Emacs, or simply using GitHub directly on mobile web or their app if your notes are on GitHub.

* I've made the switch from Vim to Emacs (+ evil-mode) because of org-mode and have been extremely happy with it. It truly changed my life.

I've built an org mode editor that connects to git repo and works form the browser, it looks like this: https://demo.filestash.app/login?next=/view/org/emacs.org#ty...

Pages can be exported in a wiki that is rendered dynamically by emacs like this: https://demo.filestash.app/api/export/hn/text/html/emacs.org or if you prefer pdf: https://demo.filestash.app/api/export/hn/application/pdf/ema...

The code is on github: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash

This looks awesome! It mentions “full text search” but I wasn’t able to get it to work in the demo. Does it support searching though all your org files?

FTS is only available when you host your own as it relies on crawl + index and such operation can be expensive when used against a storage backend like S3 where API calls and bandwidth aren't free. On the demo server, the search is stateless and does recursive call with a timeout

sadly GitHub's version of org-mode parser haven't been updated for a while, there is a fair amount of very annoying issues :( https://github.com/novoid/github-orgmode-tests

> I personally run Emacs on my Android phone through Termux. It works really well for me.

Do you use a bluetooth keyboard? I can't imagine using Vim (my primary driver) over a phone.

It's unlikely I would ever move away from (Neo)Vim as my 'main' (i.e., programming) editor, as I find it much more intuitive and comfortable.

Instead, I think of Emacs + org-mode as a single, separate entity solely for to-do tracking and plain text hierarchical note taking. I find that the conveniences of org-mode for these specific tasks outweighs the otherwise unintuitive (from the perspective of my muscle memory) interface.

The good thing about NeoVim getting a real language for its plugins now is that it can start diving into and making uber complex and and uber awesome plugins like org-mode [0]

Another good thing is now that org-mode is likely to have a popular and maybe hopefully almost complete second implementation, it'll probably get a proper spec.

[0] https://github.com/kristijanhusak/orgmode.nvim

I do the same thing. I use Emacs solely for org-mode (that includes org-roam and org-journal)

Aside from editing on mobile devices, I think Emacs isn't as hard to pick up as it once was. It's certainly not easy but tools like Spacemacs or Doom make it much simpler to get started and really limit the need to create and edit a complicated little library of your Elisp code.

http://spacemacs.org

https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs

I'm not sure such Emacs "distributions" really convince people that don't like it on a fundamental level. I've tried it a few times, but it always feels like it gets in my way because a large part of its assumptions and settings go against my expectations. And changing that seems like a multi-year project because the whole program is just so huge and complex and still growing.

If Emacs was faster and much smaller I'd probably love it. But in its current state all I can do is slap more plugins and modes on it until it almost grinds to a halt.

The native compilation feature that is now in the development branch makes this experience much better.

That is a good point, it's still Emacs after all.

These distributions do provide the ability to add the features you might need (Org-Mode, python or ruby support, etc.) without having to download a bunch of files of Elisp and code up a configuration file from scratch. Many require some binaries to be installed (like ruby or python) but a lot of people will have them installed already.

At a fundamental level, emacs is difficult because the crowd says it is difficult.

Oddly, I am not even claiming it isn't true. But it is the same fear that folks have in avoiding computers entirely. Not wrong, but fairly easy to overcome.

I don't feel like it was hard to pick up* so much as it was just not the right tool for me.

*Relative to my expectations when trying a new editor for a short period

So I discovered recently that if you set up git-auto-commit mode with an org directory tree, then configure it to auto-push to gitlab on add/change, I get nicely formatted documents for free.

Later on I can convert them via pandoc to docx or markdown so they can end up in sharepoint/confluence and I only minimally have to touch either of those horror shows.

I was writing some docs yesterday, and my colleague who's always bagging me about my use of nothing but emacs and terminals complimented how nice it looked rendered in gitlab.

Could you share specifics on how to set this up?

I’m interested in having a “local” personal knowledge base (currently using Obsidian—>Hugo site —> GitHub —>AWS Amplify / Netlify)

Your setup sounds extremely useful. I haven’t tried Emacs / org-mode / org-roam, but the more I read about it, the more curious I am getting. If you have advice, I’d love to hear it.

I had to look it up but this lives in `.dir_locals.el` in the root of the git repo. Including the comments of what to put in .emacs I think that's everything needed:

    (
     ( nil .
           ((eval git-auto-commit-mode 1))
           )
     )

    ;; and chuck this in your .emacs
    ; (setq-default gac-ask-for-summary-p t)
    ; (setq-default gac-automatically-push-p t)

Mobile: “Organice” is by far my favorite org mode editor on a mobile device. And it’s not even a native app, it’s a PWA. https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice

Like others have mentioned, you don’t have to switch to Emacs. 99% of what I do in Emacs is in org mode. You don’t have to stick to one editor. I use NeoVim when in a shell, Jetbrains when I’m at work, VS Code when trying out other languages…

Awesome - I gotta check out that tool. 1E3 than for the info!

Not really for OP, but I've found a couple of really great iOS apps that work well with Emacs org-mode, Beorg[1] and FlatHabits[2]. They're actually both good apps in their own right, that use org-mode files as a backend for their features.

[1]: https://beorgapp.com/ [2]: https://flathabits.com/

Thanks, this is incredibly helpful!

I was looking into org-mode a few years ago but ditched it because the only iOS app I could find at that time couldn't really sync with other devices without a lot of effort, and automatic, reliable synchronization is a deal breaker for me. beorg OTOH seems to be designed with syncing in mind.

Nice to see Flat Habits mentioned.

I’m working on another org-based iOS app for quickly adding/searching tasks https://twitter.com/xenodium/status/1423397014646177792?s=21

It sounds like you are looking for an excuse to give org-mode a chance.

Github will render org-mode documents now, so there's that.

Don't be afraid to give emacs a test drive, it's very possible to avoid getting sucked into the ecosystem and configuration if you aren't interested.

Either you'll decide it's what you've been looking for, or you prefer your current approach. Win-Win.

> Github will render org-mode documents now, so there's that.

Is that actually working now, or just mostly kind of working? Last time I tried (maybe one year ago), I had so many issues that I just gave up and reverted to markdown.

If you had to suggest a “get started on Emacs org-mode” guide to a newbie, which would your recommend? Might kick the tires this weekend…

For the syntax, I'd recommend https://orgmode.org/quickstart.html :)

I’ve been a plain-text fiend for about the past 3 years: there is no other experience which can come near org-mode in emacs. Absolutely none. Markdown feels like a toy compared to org.

> I sometimes view on or want to share documents over sites like Github/Gitlab.

If nobody else edits the documents you could first export them to Markdown or HTML. Pandoc handles that reasonably well.

> My desktop editor of choice is not and likely never will be emacs

That only matters if you want to use the more interactive features of Emacs' org-mode. I only use Vim and still write everything in .org files. I just like how it's got a simple syntax and also enough flexibility to handle everything. I set up a keybinding that lets me convert the file to a PDF by calling Emacs in batch mode (unfortunately there's no other correct and complete parser).

In the end Markdown isn't bad, but I don't like how basically every platform and tool adds their own special flavor.

> That only matters if you want to use the more interactive features of Emacs' org-mode. I only use Vim and still write everything in .org files.

I did something similar for awhile but felt like I was net negative in effort to gains.

> In the end Markdown isn't bad, but I don't like how basically every platform and tool adds their own special flavor.

Yeah I stick to a known safe subset, including legacy newline behavior, and only a few extensions to that. (highlight and checkbox off the top of my head)

I think you'll always get a subpar experience if you try to use the org format without Emacs. I would not recommend org if Emacs is a deal breaker.

I'd love to see Org to be picked up as a universal format. The overlap with LaTeX is probably too big though.

But can you get the full org experience without emacs? I love the principles of org mode, but it seems to be too dependent on a particular editor. For it to be universal it should be 100% un-tied to emacs. As in, the most popular org mode tutorial should not mention emacs at all. So far this does not yet seem feasible.

EDIT: to clarify, there's nothing wrong with emacs. But if Org mode is tied to it, you cannot help interpreting promotion of Org as promotion of emacs. Which is alright, but it feels a bit sneaky. Just be upfront about it: promote emacs (plus some packages).

There's a strong effort to implement Org for Neovim (https://github.com/kristijanhusak/orgmode.nvim) and I'm thinking of trying to make an Org LSP server in the future.

GitHub does render Org-mode documents to an extent. I haven't done a comparison with its Markdown rendering though.

There do exist mobile apps for Org-mode, but it's been a while since I've used them.

I agree with your third point and wish that Org-mode support was better in non-Emacs editors.

> My desktop editor of choice is not and likely never will be emacs

That is a shame. Why?

I hesitate to answer because I sense an editor war incoming, but I'm going to assume your question was in earnest and not evangelical or judgemental.

Also to be clear, because I know people can be touchy about editor preferences: I say this only as an analogy for the feeling I get, not as an analogy for users who use emacs or other tools.

For whatever reason emacs just feels like I'm using left-handed scissors, and I'm not left handed.

It doesn't mean I don't think people should use emacs, it just doesn't feel right in my hands.

Nothing wrong with using emacs for just org-mode if you want to use more of the interactive features. You give up something vs someone who’s “all in” on emacs, but it’s workable.

I’m teaching my son to code and we use emacs only for magit. He may get more and more exposure down the road, but for now that’s enough to justify what little bare minimum learning curve is needed to get a great git porcelain.

> It doesn't mean I don't think people should use emacs, it just doesn't feel right in my hands.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with your opinion. Do you like to tinker with things in general? That is a common personality trait that I have seen amongst many of fellow Emacs users. I enjoy tinkering with all kinds of things, so Emacs fits my personality well.

Though, sometimes it's easy to get distracted tinkering instead of actually doing productive work (for me, at least). I still say that my Emacs config has been my single longest running "project."

No OP but I personally prefer the simplicity of VS Code's diff and conflict resolution point-and-click tooling to using ediff/smerge. I also work in a project with some very deep directory structures and like the VS Code sidebar much more.

I want to use org at work but the performace of emacs on windows is beyond unusable. also copy paste just doesn't work without pulling teath. its such a dissapointment.

I have been using emacs on windows for years. The only thing that is unusably slow for me is magit.

>also copy paste just doesn't work without pulling teath.

What do you mean?