Hi Karl, > For reasons explained in my Orgdown-related articles[1] I would > propose to use this chance to introduce a different term for the > Org-mode lightweight markup language in contrast to the Org-mode > Elisp implementation in order to push the syntax in a tool-agnostic > way. Personally, I don’t see the need for a split. If anything, it seems harmful to me. What I’ve taken to doing is referring to org-mode files outside Emacs simply as Org files, and I think this works well for a number of reasons, not least because: ⁃ It creates a 1-1 corespondency with the file extension, think about how markdown is often referred to as “MD” due to the .md file extension. ⁃ I also see other people naturally talking about “Org files” online, so this is partway to being a de-facto convention ⁃ I think it’s less confusing having “Org” be related with “org-mode” than “OrgDown” (or similar), and should people familiar with one come across mention of the other it should thus reduce the chance of confusion. What I do see the need for is the development of more resources on the format itself (like the org-syntax document). Done right this should be a boon to both org-mode and Org outside Emacs. > We should not think only of GNU Emacs because there is a > rising number of tools that do support text files in Org-mode > syntax[2] which is also a huge advantage for users of GNU Emacs: > collaboration, public awareness of the syntax, more tool support, I’m glad to hear we’re of a similar mind! I’ve long argued that this direction is worthwhile even for people who only ever touch Org inside Emacs via. flow-on effects. > I proposed the term Orgdown for the Org-mode syntax and also > proposed various levels in order to provide sub-sets of Org-mode > syntax[3] that are realistic to implement with finite effort. Using > those OD-levels to come up with a formal definition (EBNF?) might > play perfectly well with different parameters of the MIME type[4]. > > In my opinion, this would be a huge step forward for the whole > ecosystem that supports the same Org-mode syntax. > > If we do not keep the MIME type independent from the GNU Emacs > Org-mode implementation, the overall use would be much smaller in > the long run. I find myself holding a contrary position, that we should keep the notion of an “Org” format under the org-mode project to keep everything under one umbrella, as it were. Regarding the EBNF, I’m not sure about that. I plan on talking/working more on parsers later. We already state on that: “The de facto mimetype for Org files is text/org”. > Let’s use that to establish a broad base for this great lightweight > markup language syntax! I have a rough plan which is slowly unfolding, along these lines: ⁃ Stabilise the Org format and syntax document (I’m currently here) ⁃ Reformate the Syntactic features of Org into a DAG[1] ⁃ Possibly also add some editing/export-y features as a DAG interleaved with the syntactic DAG[1] ⁃ Identify sensible subgraphs as sub-formats, and publish ⁃ Either enabling org-mode’s syntax tests () to be used with other parsers or building a language/test-framework independent set of tests. ⁃ A few other things Footnotes ───────── [1] See the attachments for a sample of what I’m talking about when I say “syntactic DAG” etc. All the best, Timothy -- Timothy (‘tecosaur’/‘TEC’), Org mode contributor. Learn more about Org mode at . Support Org development at , or support my work at .