plain text best practice?

plain text best practice?

[scrawler]

howdy guys,

I want to use org-mode for writing documents that don't necessarily
have very many headings or sub-headings.

I could do:

* Chapter One
 lots of text
* Chapter Two
lots more text

or:

* Chapter One
  - lots of text
* Chapter Two
  - lots more text

or:

* Chapter One
** paragraph 1
   lots of text
** paragraph 2
   lots of text
* Chapter Two

...but I'm not sure which to use. It almost seems like the last format
is the best, but I don't want to type paragraph headings. Maybe the
first few words of the paragraph could be a heading after the fact, but
not as I write.

Apologies for such a basic question, but I how can I leverage org-mode
to just write? What do you do?

thanks

Re: plain text best practice?

[Christopher Schmidt]

scrawler@gmail.com writes:

> * Chapter One
>   - lots of text
> * Chapter Two
>   - lots more text

These are lists (info "(org)Plain lists").  I do not think you want
that.

> * Chapter One
> ** paragraph 1
>    lots of text
> ** paragraph 2
>    lots of text
> * Chapter Two

This is exactly what org-indent-mode is for.  Check
(info "(org)Clean view").

        Christopher

Re: plain text best practice?

[William LÉCHELLE]

I'd go the first way if you don't need/use much markup, but if you want to
structure more deeply your document, you can have subheadings without actually
giving them a title (just the stars and a blank space are enough for a heading)

It's also a matter of what you want to do with the document, if you plan to
export it, the subheadings will change the result in ways you may like or dislike.

(You don't seem to have any usage of lists, so simply don't go for them.)

At Tue, 5 Jun 2012 22:38:13 -0500,
scrawler@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> howdy guys,
> 
> I want to use org-mode for writing documents that don't necessarily
> have very many headings or sub-headings.
> 
> I could do:
> 
> * Chapter One
>  lots of text
> * Chapter Two
> lots more text
> 
> or:
> 
> * Chapter One
>   - lots of text
> * Chapter Two
>   - lots more text
> 
> or:
> 
> * Chapter One
> ** paragraph 1
>    lots of text
> ** paragraph 2
>    lots of text
> * Chapter Two
> 
> ...but I'm not sure which to use. It almost seems like the last format
> is the best, but I don't want to type paragraph headings. Maybe the
> first few words of the paragraph could be a heading after the fact, but
> not as I write.
> 
> Apologies for such a basic question, but I how can I leverage org-mode
> to just write? What do you do?
> 
> thanks
> 
> 
> 
> 

Re: plain text best practice?

[Nick Dokos]

scrawler@gmail.com wrote:

> howdy guys,
> 
> I want to use org-mode for writing documents that don't necessarily
> have very many headings or sub-headings.
> 
> I could do:
> 
> * Chapter One
>  lots of text
> * Chapter Two
> lots more text
> 
> or:
> 
> * Chapter One
>   - lots of text
> * Chapter Two
>   - lots more text
> 
> or:
> 
> * Chapter One
> ** paragraph 1
>    lots of text
> ** paragraph 2
>    lots of text
> * Chapter Two
> 
> ...but I'm not sure which to use. It almost seems like the last format
> is the best, but I don't want to type paragraph headings. Maybe the
> first few words of the paragraph could be a heading after the fact, but
> not as I write.
> 
> Apologies for such a basic question, but I how can I leverage org-mode
> to just write? What do you do?
> 

Use the first form. If you feel that the chapter needs to be split up,
use second level headings to split it up into sections. If a section
gets too big, use third-level headings for subsections. And so on...

Org-mode is not buying you much in this case: you can navigate easily
between chapters and you can hide the contents of all the other chapters
while leaving exposed the one you are working on. But it doesn't cost
anything either. And if you ever decide to publish the thing (on paper,
as a PDF on the web, as HTML on the web, etc.), you will be able to
trivially do it. So just write and don't sweat it too much.

Nick

Re: plain text best practice?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

On Wed, Jun 06 2012, scrawler@gmail.com wrote:

> howdy guys,
>
> I want to use org-mode for writing documents that don't necessarily
> have very many headings or sub-headings.
>
> I could do:
>
> * Chapter One
>  lots of text
> * Chapter Two
> lots more text

Is there anything wrong with this approach? I've used Org for novel
translations, and do it just like this. If there are no logical
divisions within chapters you probably don't want additional markup, it
will just get in the way.

If navigation is the problem, getting accustomed to keybindings like C-c
C-n, C-c C-p, and C-c C-u can be very helpful. Also look at the
docstring for `org-cycle', and you might consider binding a few
outline-mode commands (like `hide-other') to your own keys, to help keep
navigation and visibility under control.

Keep it simple!

Eric

> or:
>
> * Chapter One
>   - lots of text
> * Chapter Two
>   - lots more text
>
> or:
>
> * Chapter One
> ** paragraph 1
>    lots of text
> ** paragraph 2
>    lots of text
> * Chapter Two
>
> ...but I'm not sure which to use. It almost seems like the last format
> is the best, but I don't want to type paragraph headings. Maybe the
> first few words of the paragraph could be a heading after the fact, but
> not as I write.
>
> Apologies for such a basic question, but I how can I leverage org-mode
> to just write? What do you do?
>
> thanks
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
GNU Emacs 24.1.50.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.10)
 of 2012-06-06 on pellet
7.8.10

Re: plain text best practice?

[Eric S Fraga]

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> On Wed, Jun 06 2012, scrawler@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> howdy guys,
>>
>> I want to use org-mode for writing documents that don't necessarily
>> have very many headings or sub-headings.
>>
>> I could do:
>>
>> * Chapter One
>>  lots of text
>> * Chapter Two
>> lots more text
>
> Is there anything wrong with this approach? I've used Org for novel
> translations, and do it just like this. If there are no logical
> divisions within chapters you probably don't want additional markup, it
> will just get in the way.
>
> If navigation is the problem, getting accustomed to keybindings like C-c
> C-n, C-c C-p, and C-c C-u can be very helpful. Also look at the
> docstring for `org-cycle', and you might consider binding a few
> outline-mode commands (like `hide-other') to your own keys, to help keep
> navigation and visibility under control.

And don't forget that emacs has many other features beyond org which
work nicely with org.  In particular, if you want navigation without the
headings, you can use bookmarks ((emacs) Bookmarks).  I use these all
the time.  You don't need subheadings etc for these to work.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 24.1.50.1
: using Org release_7.8.11-69-ga2fd96