Personally, I wouldn't recommend setting up org-roam at first. It's excellent, but it's just going to be too daunting for a beginner when combined with all the other things. I'd start by just learning emacs and org-mode. Core org-mode has enough functionality built-in to start building knowledgebases, and the org-mode manual is excellent. You can add-in org-roam later. (And you might find that org-roam is overkill and something like howm mode to get backlinks is enough.) The beauty of emacs is that you can move your notes from one system to another easily.
<meta>-x close-buffer will do the job.
Actually, using <meta>-x allows you to execute any emacs function, whether it has a key binding or not.
Even better, emacs will suggest completions (and once you are down to a single potential completion, tab completion works nicely) as you type the function name.
And if you don't know the name of the function you want/need, <meta>-x apropos will allow you to search for what you want -- with regexp support.
All that said, depending on your use case, it mightn't even be necessary to modify your init file at all.
I'm not a previously frustrated newbie (I started with Lugaru's epsilon[0] back in the early 1980s, moved to straight-up emacs in the late 1980s and never looked back), but I'd be happy to help.
That said, using emacs' built in help/info/apropos tools, not to mention just using <meta>-x <start typing function names> would almost certainly be a better way to figure out how things work than asking me (but don't let that stop you from doing so). And definitely better than googling/ddging/whatevering what you're looking for. '<meta>-x info' and/or <meta>-x help are good places to start.
HTHAL.
Definitely a lot of ways to go about this.
If you haven't already, I'd suggest checking out what the creator of org-roam does for publishing his own notes: https://github.com/jethrokuan/braindump
It works quite well, and might be exactly what you want as far as publishing goes.
> end up in weird jams where Emacs has opened up 3+ panes (buffers), and I can’t figure how to even close/quit them
Typically 'q' will close Doom's popup windows (+popup/quit-window), otherwise you should be able use plain ol' Emacs 'C-x k' or Doom's '<leader> b k' (also 'b d') to kill a buffer.
If you actually want to keep the buffers, and you just want the windows out of the way, you can use winner-undo / winner-redo to cycle through past window configurations.
> bottom-up guide for personal information systems
AFAIK, this does not exist. But there is, I'm sure you've seen, a variety of independent users continually working out interesting new ways to process and link information using Emacs. For example, outside of bloggers in the Roam/Zettelkasten camp, you can always glean insights from John Kitchen's work [0][1], although it leans more towards research/academic use than PIM/PKM.
> my brother is writing a book - he’s not super technical but can get around
If it's technical/academic writing, you can honestly get astonishingly far just using org-mode's LaTeX export.
I personally have started using logseq.com though, it is a good fully open source file system based approach. It supports markdown and org mode, and I store the files in an iCloud Drive folder so I can access stuff on my phone (though it’s not quite as slick as craft, and setting up an auto deployed website would have to be done manually whereas craft does it for you)
I’ve taken a couple swings at setting up Emacs… oof, but as a newbie to the ecosystem, but frankly its just been tough to plow through. Each guide/tutorial seems to have a whole different set of packages, settings, etc; then we get into Doom emacs, etc. I’ve got keyboard shortcuts printed out - but I still end up in weird jams where Emacs has opened up 3+ panes (buffers), and I can’t figure how to even close/quit them.
Truly, it reminds me of when I jumped head first in the Java ecosystem, trying to figure out (1) java, (2) intelliJ, (3) Spring boot. Too many simultaneous brain battles…
What I’m hoping to find is a “Zero to Functioning personal information system (notes, todo, contacts, calendar, kb)” guide. I suppose, written for a willing & motivated newb?
From reddit, online tutorials, walkthru videos - it SEEMS the pieces are out there. But I’m hoping to find the guy who figured this all out a year ago, documented a functional-but-opinionated stack / workflow, and I could follow that for awhile (as training wheels).
Can anyone suggest something like this? I’d be even be willing to pair up with someone and document/publish this, if it doesn’t exist.
I mentioned it on another Emacs HN thread: I’m convinced of the power of this stack, but I’m hoping someone does the “Unix —> NeXT -> MacOS”, and puts together the Easy Button of this.
For example, my brother is writing a book - he’s not super technical but can get around. I can tell that he would benefit from this system - but I can’t fairly recommend it, because hell - I haven’t been able to coherently get it to work, and doubting he would want to be modifying init files and all that.
Hoping this plea for Emacs help reaches a previously frustrated newbie who figured it out, who can help me out (and others). Thanks!