Re: Some struggles of mine with org-mode

[Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk>]

<lngndvs@gmail.com> writes:

>    [This post concerns what have become, for me, conflicts between the
>    scopes of org-agenda-files and the universe I would like to search
>    within all org files, in particular.  I hope I will be forgiven for
>    drifting substantially from that focused topic]
>
>     Org-mode is well entrenched into my daily work flow, in many
>     ways.
>
>      - Miscellaneous notes
>      - Capturing ideas and articles
>      - On-the-fly structured captures of several kinds
>      - Todo lists
>      - Remembering   deadlines and activities
>      - Collecting project information from diverse sources
>      - Exporting any of the above, just about anything at all, as
>        clean PDF files.
>      - The occasional Beamer presentation 
>
>    For all that org-mode has become my go-to tool of choice, there are
>    a number of things I still struggle with.  I want to post this
>    message as, I suppose, too much of a blanket request.  Here are
>    some of the things I don't get:
>
>      - Firefox or other browser integration

What kind of integration are you looking for.  For some versions of
Firefox, it is possible to link to org-capture.

>      - Email.  Some very elegant (in  complicated ways) solutions have
>        been generated, but all I need it simple text-based email.  I
>        would be willing to install sendmail or postfix, if need be,
>        but I don't really wish to send html based email.  See the next
>        item. 

Again, what exactly are you looking for?  You can turn on orgstruct-mode
and orgstruct++-mode in one of the mail hooks (mail-setup-hook or
message-setup-hook).  e.g. I have

(add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'turn-on-orgstruct++)

in my gnus configuration file.  This adds very useful list and table
functionality to the standard message composition mode.

>      - Addresses/Contacts.  I like Gnus, and I like BBDB, but I've
>        never been completely comfortable with them.   I used to keep
>        contacts in EDB,  a database I designed myself, and it worked
>        really, really well.  I've posted about his subject before, and
>        I can see it didn't strike a chord on this list.  I tried
>        org-contacts, but it seems  idiosyncratic, and limited.

I do sympathise.  I use bbdb and have learned to live with it but I
definitely don't /love/ it, probably because I use only a small subset
of its capabilities.  Mind you, bbdb has been going through a complete
rewrite for version 3, I believe, so the user experience may be improved
there.  I haven't tried that yet.  I also haven't tried org-contacts,
mostly because my gnus+bbdb configuration works well enough for me so I
don't feel the pressure to change.

>      - Setting up birthday alerts, for example.  I feel intimidated
>        every time I am about to try to put a new birthday in a
>        list.  Ideally, I would do this with a capture template.  The
>        best so far is to keep birthdays in a list in .emacs.el

You can get birthday alerts with bbdb integrated with org although again
this requires using bbdb!  Check out

,----[ C-h v org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist RET ]
| org-bbdb-anniversary-format-alist is a variable defined in `org-bbdb.el'.
| Its value is shown below.
| 
| Documentation:
| How different types of anniversaries should be formatted.
| [...]
`----

>      - Searching.  One  thing I really like about Org-mode is the
>        ability to keep a large number of kinds of information straight
>        in various ways---either in separate files, or for related
>        topics, in different headlines of  the same file.  I need all
>        of these files to be searched.   The best searching seems to
>        reside in the agenda interface.   But it seems illogical, to

[...]

>     So, to summarize,  org-agenda-files should reflect those files I
>     need to access because they have TODOs, Deadlines, Happenings, or
>     Reminders in them.  My search Universe should be constrained
>     enough to result in instant searches, but not so constrained as
>     org-agenda-files that need to be processed to produce a daily
>     agenda.   

I agree with you here.  It would be nice to have an alternative search
procedure that is not limited to agenda files.  Because of this, I have
my general catch-all notes.org file as one of the entries in
org-agenda-files.  IMO, it doesn't belong there as I have separate
tasks.org and diary.org files for agenda related items.

However, note that you *can* use the searching capabilities in
individual files.  Not what you want but very useful nonetheless.

HTH,
eric

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 24.0.92.1
: using Org-mode version 7.8.03 (release_7.8.03.325.g5847)