Re: combine orgmode and file system browsing

From: Sebastian Rose <sebastian_rose@gmx.de>
To: Andreas Burtzlaff <andy13@gmx.net>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: combine orgmode and file system browsing
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 03:20:37 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <878wmz4nwq.fsf@kassiopeya.MSHEIMNETZ> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20090321041113.686f8bba.andy13@gmx.net> (Andreas Burtzlaff's message of "Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:11:13 +0100")

Hi Andreas,

I like the idea of it.

Might be a nice way to jump to a file quickly since I could find the
link with `C-s' or `C-c o'. Maybe this helps in the TODO file of
small/medium project. I'll keep it and probably use it :-)

Regards,

  Sebastian

Andreas Burtzlaff <andy13@gmx.net> writes:
> Hello everyone,
>
> while using orgmode to organize data that is strongly bound to files
> and directories, I came to the point where in addition to linking from
> the orgfile to the target file/directory I longed to have it the other
> way round, i.e. getting information about the files/directories
> from the orgfile while browsing the filesystem. That led to the
> following idea:
>
> Orgmodes folding and linking capabilities are easily combined to
> make rudimentary but comfortable file system browsing:
>
> * [[file:test/dirA][dirA]]
> ** [[file:test/dirA/subdirA][subdirA]]
> *** [[file:test/dirA/subdirA/some_file][some_file]]
> ** [[file:test/dirA/another_file][another_file]]
> * [[file:test/dirB][dirB]]
>
> Attached is a bash-script that generates this representation from a
> given subtree of the filesystem as a proof of concept.
>
> For each file/directory displayed search for any link to it in a
> given orgfile and
>    - provide links back to these occurrences
>   and/or
>    - display the tags and associated content (read-only).
>
> The obvious weakness inherited from linking itself is synchronization on directory
> structure changes. A possible solution would be to store ids as
> hidden files for each directory or even for each file that is referred to.
>
> Does anybody else see the benefits of such a mode?
>
> Andreas
>
> #!/bin/bash
>
> DIR=$1
>
> function toOrgRec {
> local BUFFER=""
> for d in $( echo "$(find $1 -maxdepth 1 -type d )" | tail -n +2 ); do
>
> BUFFER="${BUFFER}
> * [[file:${d}][$(basename ${d})]]"
>
> toOrgRec ${d}
> BUFFER=${BUFFER}$( echo "${RETURN_BUFFER}" | sed "s/^\*/**/" | sed "s/^ /  /" )
>
> done
>
> for f in $(find $1 -maxdepth 1 -not -type d); do
>
> BUFFER="${BUFFER}
> * [[file:${f}][$(basename "${f}" )]]"
>
> done
>
> RETURN_BUFFER=${BUFFER}
> }
>
> toOrgRec ${DIR}
> echo "$( echo "${RETURN_BUFFER}" | tail -n +2 )"
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Sebastian Rose, EMMA STIL - mediendesign, Niemeyerstr.6, 30449 Hannover
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