Re: Create course material with org-mode

[Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>]

Dnia 2013-03-11, o godz. 13:30:41
tftorrey@tftorrey.com (T.F. Torrey) napisał(a):

> Hello Thorsten,
> 
> Torsten Wagner <torsten.wagner@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Actually the topic is not exactly OT, I'm looking for a
> > "meta-system" which helps me to keep all those different things
> > together. Hopefully, in a way which allows me to generate different
> > kind of course material from the same sources.
> > I was wondering, can org-mode be such a "meta-system" e.g. could I
> > keep materials of a certain topic within a single org-file and use
> > (customized) exporters to create the desired outputs like a
> > interactive HTML version, a printable PDF, exercises and questions
> > for exams?
> >
> > E.g. a file structure like this
> >
> > * Theory
> > text text text
> >
> > ** Interactive example :HTML
> > Bable code
> >
> > ** more theory in detail
> > *** Images
> >
> > ** lecture slides :BEAMER
> >
> > ** Exercises
> > *** Solutions
> >
> > ** Exam questions
> > *** 1
> > *** 2
> > *** 3

Hi all,

I am quite new here - I subscribed to this list just yesterday - but I
read the OP in this thread on the web (in fact, I've sent a private
email to Torsten; for the sake of completeness, let me repeat the link
I've given to him here:
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/22269/comparing-packages-which-facilitate-typesetting-exercises-and-solutions-exercis).
Also, here is something which some of you might find interesting:
http://acrotex.net/ (tl;dr: it is a LaTeX-based, partly free, partly
commercial suite for producing educational materials, among others
interactive pdfs, and maintaining exercise databases).

In fact, I am not personally interested in Org-mode's LaTeX export -
being an Org-mode user for a little more than one year (or so) and a
long-time TeX user (almost 20 years), I'm comfortable authoring in
LaTeX.  I even did try to write a paper in Org, but soon moved backed
to LaTeX, where I seemed to be much more in control (which might not be
objectively true, but that is what I felt).

That said, I find Org-mode's note-taking/outlining and task management
features really, really great - I'd like to thank all developers for
this great tool!

And to get on-topic: I'd be very glad to see your setup, being also an
academic teacher.

Also, an interesting (I guess) thought struck me today.  While (as I
said) writing LaTeX documents in Org-mode feels awkward for me,
developing LaTeX packages using Org's "Babel" features seems like a
great idea.  In the LaTeX world, /the/ tool for developing packages is
the docstrip "suite", which lets the developer have the code and docs
interspersed in one .dtx file (literate programming) and also create
a few files, optionally sharing some code (denoted by special tags in
the .dtx file), from one source, with instructions to do this in an .ins
(installation) file. I imagine that Org-mode might make this process
much more convenient, due to its features, like structure folding,
hyperlinks, exporting etc.; what's more, I think that (at least) one
thing might be actually easier in Org-mode than in docstrip, namely
testing (I imagine having source code, comments, tests and example
LaTeX files all in one Org-mode file, and being able to tangle the
code, install it, compile an example and start a pdf viewer all with
one keystroke.)  (This is obviously possible just in Emacs + AUCTeX
and .dtx file, by means of some customization and simple elisp
programming, but my guts tell me that it might be a natural application
of Org-mode exporting feature.)

Please tell me whether the above paragraph makes any sense to you; if
yes, I might start thinking about how such a system might be
implemented.  (A necessary feature would have to be actually creating
"traditional" .dtx/.ins pair of files to make it possible to install
all this without emacs - some TeXackers are somehow happy with inferior
editors;).)

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Adam Mickiewicz University