Another vote for .org files.

http://orgmode.org/

Of course not being an emacs user may make editing org mode files a little difficult. However, any system will do as long as its consistent. If not org-mode; txt2tags, markdown, etc can also serve in a pinch.

I think plain text is the de-facto universal format. There's also no restriction on presentation and interface. Your choice of tools are pretty wide open with plain text.

Orgmode also has an amazing extension babel, which allows Literate Programming (or just inserting code snippets).

Using the #+BEGIN_SRC <mode-name> tag will also allow you to edit any code snippet in its own major mode.

Not working for me. What version of org-mode?

  #+begin_src lisp
  (defun botsbuildbots () (botsbuildbots))
  #+end_src

Try moving your point to (defun... and pressing << C-c ' >>. It should work with org-mode bundled in Emacs 23; if not, you can get the newest version from http://orgmode.org.

With org-babel enabled, you can actually run this code, or use it in literate-programming style to write programs.

One think that you can do in the latest orgmode, is to write code snippets in the org documents, extract the code, compile it (if needed, like for C code), run it, and insert the result back into the org document.

This is really nice for writing code example.

org-mode alone makes it worth dropping any other text editor in favor of Emacs. It's that good. It's that impressive. Really.

It actually does. I used Vim for 6 years, then switched over to Emacs just so that I could do stuff with org-mode.

Vimwiki does an essentially equivalent thing, and there are numerous other tools for other environments. Your favored tool is really not that special. Sorry. =)

(Me, I just use Dropbox and vimwiki, and occasionally push it to a private Hg repo on BitBucket.)

  Your favored tool is really not that special. Sorry. =)

Vimwiki isn't in the same league as Org mode. Sorry. For example, how can I create and edit spreadsheets using Vimwiki?

Read the entire manual to understand Org mode's power. It has no equivalent that I know of, and I searched thoroughly before giving up and learning Emacs.

http://orgmode.org/manual/

I've read it. Hell, I've used it, before I discarded emacs. Perhaps I should amend it with "unless you want to bend one tool to do the job of the others". Which I guess is half the point of emacs in general, so I apologize and retract my statement--it's quite special.

Have you actually used org-mode to say that these are "essentially equivalent", or do you just say this because your favored tool cannot possibly be worse than someone else's favored tool?

From what I've seen, vim people generally are not really interested in creating enormous extensions as the emacs people are, so if they actually created something similar in power and complexity, I would be really surprised and impressed.

Sorry, I can't. I've tried, but I can't quite grok Emacs. I tried to for org-mode, because I need just such a tool.

But after using VimOrganizer and looking at vim-orgmode (both of which claim to be replacements), I'd just as soon settle for something else.

I really think Emacs is much easier to figure out than it looks. Meaning: you probably already grok it, but you _think_ you don't because it's Emacs, damn it!, it's supposed to be hard and complex and bend the fabric of space and time!

But its essence is actually quite simple: it's a toolbox for all things text. Not a _tool_, mind you; a toolbox. It _contains_ tools. Lots and lots of them. Oh, and it has funny keyboard shortcuts.

So here is Emacs in a nutshell:

1. "find-file" is a function;

2. you can "M-x any-function" to invoke it;

3. you can assign a shortcut like "C-x C-f" to any function;

4. you can define your own functions in the same language Emacs itself is written (i.e., you can really extend Emacs, not only call some simpleton API);

5. you customize Emacs' settings and behaviors by changing some variables ("please highlight the line the point is currently on").

That's pretty much it. Yes, there is a mountain of functions and variables and modes that are complicated and interconnected and you _will_ spend some time configuring everything. But the gist, the essence, the core -- that's it. You've already grokked Emacs. Now you can learn one function at a time and extend your knowledge of it little by little. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that.

The modes? Well, remember, Emacs is a toolbox. Each mode is a tool, specialized in some area of the Great Forest of Text Editing. There's a mode that will help you save keystrokes (yasnippet); there's a mode that will help you write code in the language X (x-mode); there's a mode that will help you open files and buffers easily (ido, anything); there's a mode that will help you with your todos and prose-like text (org-mode).

Regarding org-mode specifically: you can spend weeks using only ONE shortcut, Shift-TAB, and already it will be extremely useful. Then you'll wish for some feature (like adding tags to headlines), and you'll find that it's already implemented. And that pattern will repeat, and repeat, and soon you'll be using lots of advanced features, and you won't even notice, because it'll have become a natural thing.

I hope this makes sense. And, just to be clear: I know a size does not fit all. I did not write this to say "everyone should like Emacs, look, I proved it". This is just my experience with it. I hope it's useful to someone.

There's also an outline mode for vim.

Even if it hurts your wrists? 'Good habits' of Emacs alone makes it worth dropping it for any other text editor.

What is the best way to use/access information from org-mode using a smart phone (iPhone, specifically, but Android solutions will be interesting to know too)?

Check out MobileOrg (http://mobileorg.ncogni.to/)

You can point it to an .org file on Dropbox or on your own server.

+1 on MobileOrg.

There is an Android port (https://github.com/matburt/mobileorg-android/wiki/) that is nearly identical to the iOS version as far as I can tell from using them both.

TiddlyWiki is a single self-contained, self-modifying HTML file that does not require any server whatsoever. Installing it is as simple as downloading initial template file to your disk. Being text file, it is searchable, mergeable, etc. Copy it on a USB stick, put it in a dropbox folder and you got your backups. But don't get fooled by the apparent simplicity, it is a full blown wiki, with themes and plugins, if you want them.

What happens if I have it open on two PCs at once, through the wonder of Dropbox? Does it cope?

No. I often have this problem just with two instances open accidentally. I.e. left one minimized, forgot then opened it again.

If you're using Chrome then keep it in a pinned tab. (Right click on tab, "Pin Tab")

Or Firefox. Firefox will also send you to the open tab if you try to go to an URL you already went to, instead of opening a second instance of the same page.

Last write wins. Although tiddlywiki does detect the situation when file was changed on disk, there is not much you can do at this point. Before tiddlywiki I used to use pmwiki on a server and it has the ability to merge changes (via diff3). I miss that dearly in tiddlywiki.

> Does it cope?

Probably not.

Ok, it is a text file, a web page, but why so complex an interface? I feel it is very weird to have the content of paragraphs inserted just below the TOC in http://www.tiddlywiki.com/ (I am guessing this page showcases TiddlyWiki, right?)

Simple anchor links should work much better, and would not break the back button.

One of the reasons I like Dokuwiki and use it for my team is the fact that it stores everything in .txt files.

You get to use wiki formatting and the features that wikis give you that text files don't (linking between related pages, etc), but it's still just a script writing to .txt files in a human-readable format. No lock-in and no database to worry about configuring or recovering from a crash.

I'm using MoinMoin, which I also like because it stores its data in text files. MoinMoin has a "personal wiki" configuration that requires hardly any configuration and runs its own built-in web server. It also has a full-blown wiki with user IDs, access control lists, etc. that you can run under Apache or other web servers. I'm using it at work to store some documentation for my work group. (http://moinmo.in)

Sounds like Confluence (http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/). I wish it required a server running only a couple hundred megabytes of RAM.

Oh, dear God. I broke out in "enterprisey hives" just looking at that.

It's evil.

+1

http://www.craphound.com/lifehacks2.txt is a good read, why plain text is still the favorite among geeks.

I'm doing .txt files, too -- but lately, I've been doing them via Dropbox and the Google Chrome add-on called "SourceKit". I now have a permanent tab in any of my PC's browsers that allow me to quickly open and edit these files.

I was doing the same thing, but moved over to this https://github.com/boyter/BATF (note I wrote it)

Mostly because I want to be able to access it from anywhere and have revisions accessible without requiring git/mercurial/svn etc...

I have been using it for a year or so now and still use it every day. I still think its the most useful 40 lines of code I have ever written.

Another vote. Easily editable, searchable via Spotlight or similar solutions; easy to present in a formatted way especially if you keep notes in Markdown; easy to edit on the go with something like PlainText (http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/plaintext); and, of course, easy to have available anywhere with Dropbox.

I use ReStructuredText mostly. Files start out as plain text and slowly grow more markup as they progress. Easy enough to read in plain text ... then can be thrown through rst2pdf to hand over to clients as "the documentation". Not pretty, but compared to the nightmare of keeping .odt docs up to date across branches and merges ...