[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 7387 bytes --] Hello: I only started learning about org-mode in the last few days. I have been reading documentation about it and am very impressed by the system. I have been wondering about the possibilties if using org-mode and git to run an improved style of wiki. I will give some details below. This could be a point of discusion here in the mailing list, or else some of us could quickly try to set something up along these lines. If people here express interest I may set up one myself. I will open discussion by noting some background about myself. I had heard of wikis in general for some time and had read some and followed them. Then in the last couple of weeks I started two wikis of my own, in Wkispaces. You can link to those from my web page in the signature below. After a small bit of writing into my Wikispaces wikis I explored around in the world of wikis, and came upon org-mode, from the point of view of running it as a wiki. I am very impressed by org-mode, I think it is the best wiki style system I have seen so far. I was thinking what an impovement it would be over regular wikis, if they could be running in org-mode, with all the outlining features. And how great for the writer to be composing messages in emacs instead of a crude online editor, such as the one at Wikispaces. Then it occurred to me there would such an easy way to get all that with existing programs. Unlike a true wiki, don't read it over the web. Instead have a local copy, so your own local emacs in org-mode can process it, even for reading. That way, the writer is allowed to assume the readers will have all the org-mode functionality in reading. Use git for transport. The "wiki" would be distibuted across a peer-to-peer network, with git pushes and pulls. So you don't need to be an instution like Wikisaces to set this up. You don't need a server. An ordinary pc could seed the wiki by providing a first node. The distrbution would give redundancy and security, ie against data loss. Wikis in general need history and version control. So why not make it the best (in my opinion anyway) version control with git. So make the wiki the best editor (emacs) and make the version control be the best version control (git). And the best wiki system (org-mode). I found in the org-mode home page the worg project, which is smilar to this. A git repository, and writers contribute to worg through git. But worg publishes the org-mode as html and in the end serves it up as a web page. I propose we never go to html. Stay in emacs and org-mode the whole time. So you know your readers have the full functionality of org-mode to be reading your writing. I could see this as taking over the world. Not realistically, I know in the real world there is too much intertia and most people are slow to change. But in terms of making a usable system that I would like to use in a community. For example, instead of conventional email, with individuals who I was already closely collaborasting with, I would like to have a shared space like this with only the pair of us having read and write access. In a group of only two we could have push and pull permission with each other. So instead of sending an email, you would write a note into a new file or edit it into an esiting one, commit and push. On the other side, there could be scripts to alert you when that dedicated git repositiry has been updated, giving you the equaivalent of "you have new mail". But all the collarabateed email would be together in an org directory, and we could use org to organaze it and structure it, including by refactoring after the fact. So the final result could be more strcutred than a mailbox. It would be easy to forward mail. Each mail corrspondent could have their own directory of org-mode files in a git repostory. To forward mail, you open both respositrories, each ion their own firectory, then just use emacs to copy an org-mode file between directories. Or if you did individual messages inside a larger file as a heading, yank that and copy to another buffer into another directory. Then commit and push in the second directory. You could have a main index org file in the mail directory, which would be like a mail box lisitng in refular email. And the users could manually put an opening line linking to the new message. These could be editted in manually blog style at the top of the list. So the recipeitn could easily find new messages. And as tyhe index grew it could be archived by org-mode. making a permanent index of all mail. But other indexes could be added later grouping like messages tofether by making new lists of links. Or use org-mode tags. The full power of org-mode to refactor. What you don't have in ordinary email. And git provides protection against mistakes or bad deletions and so on. Similarly a small group could make a group version of this. A group of friends who want to share all messages. Or a work group. And similarly, a system like this could replace mailing lists or discussion groups. For susbsription only groups, and adminstrator could give out permissions for appropriate git access. For an open puiblic group, just put up the url for the git repository in a public place, likie a web page, or in messages of other newsgroups and so on. Anyone reading that link to the respository, if they are willing to run the correct software (git, emacs, org-mode) could pull and read. Writing is a bit triickier. The group could include members that would list themselves as volunteers to welcome newbies. They could include email addresses, and newbie could email in a request for a pull, giving their own public respositry they set up. The old timers would be crosslinked with a systems of pulls and pushes. Or else a special resosptiry coukld be set up the universal push permission. Once a newbie has written once into the "wiki", they could include their repo in a list in the wiki, and then they are in better. You could have many of these, on specialized topics. As with forwardiong email, articles could be moved betweren them by individuals. Or it would be easy to use git to merge two of these into one. You could also readily fork them, again using git. I could see systems like this as ideally replacing email, news, mailiong lists, regular wikis, and blogs. All the blogging functionality could be readily copied over into editting appropriately in org-mode. And new functions could be written for inside org-mode to automate certain uses like that. Of course big changes like that don't really happen. So what I really mean is I could see a small community arising using this. Anf I would like to be doing that myself, partially replacubg all thiose fucntions that way for myself, for while I was interacting wioth others doing it. The org-mode page could link to such pages, with some instruction to newbies, much as they presently host worg. Even if the official org-mode page didn't want to be involved in something like that, it could be a worthwhile starting project for any small group of individuals. I have been googling org-mode and git. I find things a bit like this, but never this idea of doing a sort of wiki like system enitrely inside org-mode, without export to html. -- David Libert email : libert.david@gmail.com web: http://web.ncf.ca/ah170/ [-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 7898 bytes --] [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 204 bytes --] _______________________________________________ Emacs-orgmode mailing list Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. 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[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 387 bytes --] 2009/6/17 David Libert <libert.david@gmail.com> > I only started learning about org-mode in the last few days. I have been > reading documentation about it and am very impressed by the system. > > I have been wondering about the possibilties if using org-mode and git to > run an improved style of wiki. Hi David, what about Blorgit...? http://orgmode.org/worg/blorgit.php Nicolas [-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 727 bytes --] [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 204 bytes --] _______________________________________________ Emacs-orgmode mailing list Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2268 bytes --] On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 3:31 AM, Nicolas Girard <nicolas.girard@nerim.net>wrote: > 2009/6/17 David Libert <libert.david@gmail.com> > >> I only started learning about org-mode in the last few days. I have been >> reading documentation about it and am very impressed by the system. >> >> I have been wondering about the possibilties if using org-mode and git to >> run an improved style of wiki. > > > > Hi David, > what about Blorgit...? > http://orgmode.org/worg/blorgit.php > > Nicolas > Hi Nicolas: Thanks, blorgit was one of the ones I had encountered in search, but I looked clser at it just now after getting your reply. As I noted in the opening post, I wanted the readers to have org-mode running. Checking more closely into blorgit, I see it does that, even for readers coming in over the web through browsers. blorgit provides a rails plugin, act-as-org, to give org-mode functionality. It also provides an edit button, to let web readers edit your org-mode files. And it is maintained by git. So you could also advertise your reposititry from inside the blog, and let people pull it. Then you could pull back or let them push, to also give them git revisions, which they could do from insde emacs and org-mode. Or else let them edit online from the browser. So this sounds like ideally it could do a lot of what I wanted. And more, because it also presents a web interface to some, with org-mode features and editting of org-mode files. It might be difficult for me to use with my setup though, though maybe there is a way. I dual boot between sidux (a Linux disto) and XP. blorgit needs to have emacs server running to serve web pages. I have an ISP where I am allowed to put up static web pages. This point about being out of sidux sometimes makes a problem for my own version too. For that I was planning to find git hostiing for my git repository. Maybe there is web hosting where they could run the emacs server and rails? _______________________________________________ > Emacs-orgmode mailing list > Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. > Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode > > -- David Libert email : libert.david@gmail.com web: http://web.ncf.ca/ah170/ [-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 3407 bytes --] [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 204 bytes --] _______________________________________________ Emacs-orgmode mailing list Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
Hi David, Thanks for these reflections on using org-mode and git for collaborative work/writing. David Libert <libert.david@gmail.com> writes: > I found in the org-mode home page the worg project, which is smilar > to this. A git repository, and writers contribute to worg through > git. But > worg publishes the org-mode as html and in the end serves it up as a > web page. > > I propose we never go to html. Stay in emacs and org-mode the whole > time. So you know your readers have the full functionality of org-mode > to be reading your writing. You can read Worg online (in html), but you can also peruse the org source by cloning the git repository. In fact, I mainly consult Worg offline (via the org files). Some nice instructions on how to clone Worg can be found here: http://orgmode.org/worg/worg-git.php So the good news is: You can already do everything you mention with org-mode and git. Just clone a bare repository somewhere and allow others to push and pull from it. One can certainly dream, but I imagine the difficult task would be to convince co-workers to learn emacs and org-mode. ;) To be sure, version control systems like git, svn, bzr, etc. are the best tools for collaborative work I've ever found. But they are not exactly user friendly for non-coders and they are designed to work with plain text. And, alas, for the past three decades, software developers have worked very hard to make modern life needlessly complicated by inventing all sorts of incompatible binary file formats for storing text. Of course, that was before Carsten Dominik came along to show us just how much is possible in plain text! All this is to say that those who do anything other than coding will likely have to adapt to the web app, workflow, file format, or ticket tracker that others use. And those who do code may have an even more difficult time convincing vi users to try org-mode! The fallback option, of course, is to clip everything you need into org-mode and to let others wonder what is making you so efficient. :) Regards, Matt
Hi David,
Matthew Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org> writes:
> So the good news is: You can already do everything you mention with
> org-mode and git. Just clone a bare repository somewhere and allow
> others to push and pull from it.
I second Matthew on this. All the wiki-like features you mentioned can
be "emulated" with Emacs + Org-mode + a distributed versioning system.
As far as communication is concerned (i.e. your idea of people talking
to each others thru org-mode pages) I think it is possible to hook some
scripts to your "git push" command, then let the scripts decide whether
they should send an email to someone or not
Simple example: when pushing changes on a page where you are not the
main author (i.e. not in the #+AUTHOR line), send an email to these
author about the change. I'm sure Bernt can write such a script :)
The idea of communication only with org-mode files, I don't get it.
Email is powerful, why don't use it? Same for the HTML output of
org-mode+git pages, I don't see why we should live without it.
In any case, I would be delighted to see Worg clones, exploring
org-mode+git possibilities way beyond Worg!
best,
--
Bastien
Bastien <bastienguerry@googlemail.com> writes: > Hi David, > > Matthew Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org> writes: > >> So the good news is: You can already do everything you mention with >> org-mode and git. Just clone a bare repository somewhere and allow >> others to push and pull from it. > > I second Matthew on this. All the wiki-like features you mentioned can > be "emulated" with Emacs + Org-mode + a distributed versioning system. Hm - suppose your not at home, but abroad or working somewhere and you a) have internet access to your files through a browser only, b) use one of those cheep hosting packadges out there. How about editing *.org pages like this: - http://www.yvoschaap.com/instantedit/ (click anywhere and edit the text inline) - http://jqueryui.com/demos/datepicker/ - http://dojocampus.org/explorer/#Dijit_Inline Edit Box_Auto Save - ... What you need then, is an engine, that displays *.org files as HTML on the fly, creates locks as needed (concurrent edits), authorization and storage. In adition, one could use emacs + git/mtn/whatever to edit the wiki in her favourite editor (org-protocol://open-source://). I'd love to have a simple run-everywhere solution at hand (my laptop has died lately...). Sebastian
I've been poking about for something like this and i think the closest solution is something called wigit (http://el-tramo.be/software/wigit) I've not had a chance to do anything about it yet, but it is essentially a "wiki rendering engine php" file, and and a "git backed wiki markup edting php" file. I'm guessing it would not be much to re-work the markup rendering engine to render .org files. Of course the agenda functionality and such is a different kettle of fish... A thing called quickie might also worth mentioning as a webserver based org-rendering engine (http://quickie.sourceforge.net/) for those that have the time to play with it. Tim. 2009/6/22 Sebastian Rose <sebastian_rose@gmx.de>: > Bastien <bastienguerry@googlemail.com> writes: >> Hi David, >> >> Matthew Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org> writes: >> >>> So the good news is: You can already do everything you mention with >>> org-mode and git. Just clone a bare repository somewhere and allow >>> others to push and pull from it. >> >> I second Matthew on this. All the wiki-like features you mentioned can >> be "emulated" with Emacs + Org-mode + a distributed versioning system. > > > Hm - suppose your not at home, but abroad or working somewhere and you > > a) have internet access to your files through a browser only, > b) use one of those cheep hosting packadges out there. > > How about editing *.org pages like this: > > - http://www.yvoschaap.com/instantedit/ > (click anywhere and edit the text inline) > > - http://jqueryui.com/demos/datepicker/ > > - http://dojocampus.org/explorer/#Dijit_Inline Edit Box_Auto Save > > - ... > > What you need then, is an engine, that displays *.org files as HTML on > the fly, creates locks as needed (concurrent edits), authorization and > storage. In adition, one could use emacs + git/mtn/whatever to edit the > wiki in her favourite editor (org-protocol://open-source://). > > I'd love to have a simple run-everywhere solution at hand (my laptop has > died lately...). > > > > Sebastian > > > _______________________________________________ > Emacs-orgmode mailing list > Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. > Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode >