Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hello list,

I've bought an Adroid phone and (of course) installed and set up
MobileOrg.  Two things make me wonder whether I've found a bug or not.

1. I tried to use encryption (by means of (setq
org-mobile-use-encryption t)), but it didn't work.

2. When I choose the menu and then "Outline", I can see the outline.
But when I choose menu and then "Agenda", I see nothing but the title
("Agenda") and a "plus" button in the upper right corner.

(a) Shouldn't there be an agenda on the screen?

(b) What does the "+" button here do?

Regards,

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

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[John Hendy]

On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 8:52 PM, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> I've bought an Adroid phone and (of course) installed and set up
> MobileOrg.  Two things make me wonder whether I've found a bug or not.
>
> 1. I tried to use encryption (by means of (setq
> org-mobile-use-encryption t)), but it didn't work.

I posted about this a couple months ago. I think this thread will set
you on the right path:
- https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2013-01/msg00587.html

>
> 2. When I choose the menu and then "Outline", I can see the outline.
> But when I choose menu and then "Agenda", I see nothing but the title
> ("Agenda") and a "plus" button in the upper right corner.
>
> (a) Shouldn't there be an agenda on the screen?
>

I had this working, but stopped using it as I just found it too hard
to use efficiently. Thus, I don't remember all the various settings
very well. Checking around, though, you may have to set which agenda
view you want pushed:
- https://github.com/matburt/mobileorg-android/wiki/FAQ#why-do-i-need-to-use-org-mobile-push-before-synchronizing

See this post (the one from Henning followed by Robin's reply) for
support for that theory and a hopefully helpful example of what you
might need to add to .emacs:
- https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mobileorg-android/qAvUIMWOv5Y/tLxM_5Pm_gEJ


Good luck!
John

> (b) What does the "+" button here do?
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Marcin Borkowski
> http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
> Adam Mickiewicz University
>

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-03-23, o godz. 21:04:58
John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> > 2. When I choose the menu and then "Outline", I can see the outline.
> > But when I choose menu and then "Agenda", I see nothing but the
> > title ("Agenda") and a "plus" button in the upper right corner.
> >
> > (a) Shouldn't there be an agenda on the screen?
> >
> 
> I had this working, but stopped using it as I just found it too hard
> to use efficiently. Thus, I don't remember all the various settings
> very well. Checking around, though, you may have to set which agenda
> view you want pushed:
> -
> https://github.com/matburt/mobileorg-android/wiki/FAQ#why-do-i-need-to-use-org-mobile-push-before-synchronizing

Thanks a lot,

the key seems to be "too hard to use efficiently"...  I am afraid that
MobileOrg for Android) is indeed much more difficult to use than the
Emacs version.  The strength of Org is that it is easy to use (and
efficient in terms of keystrokes etc.).

I am just wondering...  What is the rationale behind all the syncing
stuff?  Assume that I have all my org files dropboxed - why not just
edit them directly in the mobile version?  I was thinking about it for
some time, and can't see any disadvantages with this approach.  In
fact, since I'm considering learning to write Android apps, I am very
much tempted to use an "org-lite" app (say, just TODOs or capture for
the beginning) as my first project.

Regards,

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

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[David Rogers]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

> the key seems to be "too hard to use efficiently"...  I am afraid that
> MobileOrg for Android) is indeed much more difficult to use than the
> Emacs version.  The strength of Org is that it is easy to use (and
> efficient in terms of keystrokes etc.).
>
> I am just wondering...  What is the rationale behind all the syncing
> stuff?  Assume that I have all my org files dropboxed - why not just
> edit them directly in the mobile version?  I was thinking about it for
> some time, and can't see any disadvantages with this approach.  In
> fact, since I'm considering learning to write Android apps, I am very
> much tempted to use an "org-lite" app (say, just TODOs or capture for
> the beginning) as my first project.

I have felt the same way. Is the reason it's not already done (and the
pitfall for you if you take on a project like this) that "re-write major
chunks of Emacs" is a pretty big job?

There is already Emacs ported to Android; it isn't very convenient nor
working that well yet IMO. Maybe that project could use some help to
make it work well enough to use for this??

-- 
David R

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-04-07, o godz. 14:16:54
David Rogers <davidandrewrogers@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:
> 
> > the key seems to be "too hard to use efficiently"...  I am afraid
> > that MobileOrg for Android) is indeed much more difficult to use
> > than the Emacs version.  The strength of Org is that it is easy to
> > use (and efficient in terms of keystrokes etc.).
> >
> > I am just wondering...  What is the rationale behind all the syncing
> > stuff?  Assume that I have all my org files dropboxed - why not just
> > edit them directly in the mobile version?  I was thinking about it
> > for some time, and can't see any disadvantages with this approach.
> > In fact, since I'm considering learning to write Android apps, I am
> > very much tempted to use an "org-lite" app (say, just TODOs or
> > capture for the beginning) as my first project.
> 
> I have felt the same way. Is the reason it's not already done (and the
> pitfall for you if you take on a project like this) that "re-write
> major chunks of Emacs" is a pretty big job?

Well, it seems that it actually *is* done, though not for a
touchscreen: I hear that Vimperator supports some subset of Org's
functionality in Vim.

Remember that the purpose of something like such an app (as opposed to
Org-mode proper) would not be *editing* of text, but (primarily)
*entering* texts (and short ones, for that matter), entering
timestamps (which is quite convenient with any pointing device,
including touchscreens) and things like changing todo states and
clocking in and out - and that's basically it.  In other words, a very
small subset of Org-mode is needed here (at least for me).

> There is already Emacs ported to Android; it isn't very convenient nor
> working that well yet IMO. Maybe that project could use some help to
> make it work well enough to use for this??

I don't think so.  I'm not a usability expert, but the UI philosophies
behind a keyboard and a touchscreen seem to be so different that this
doesn't seem to make much sense.

Regards,

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

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[David Rogers]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

> Dnia 2013-04-07, o godz. 14:16:54
> David Rogers <davidandrewrogers@gmail.com> napisał(a):

>> I have felt the same way. Is the reason it's not already done (and the
>> pitfall for you if you take on a project like this) that "re-write
>> major chunks of Emacs" is a pretty big job?
>
> ...
> Remember that the purpose of something like such an app (as opposed to
> Org-mode proper) would not be *editing* of text, but (primarily)
> *entering* texts (and short ones, for that matter), entering
> timestamps (which is quite convenient with any pointing device,
> including touchscreens) and things like changing todo states and
> clocking in and out - and that's basically it.  In other words, a very
> small subset of Org-mode is needed here (at least for me).

I see what you mean. That makes more sense than what I said, and I like
your idea.

The part that I want most from Org-mode on Android is being able to
automatically get audible reminders for all my appointments, whether
through a transfer into the phone's own calendar or some other way. The
current MobileOrg doesn't quite do the job, since it doesn't yet parse
things like this:

<%%(org-class 2013 03 01 2013 06 22 5 52 1 12 13)>

... In fact, last time I checked, it didn't even parse date stamps that
weren't in the headline...

... so my whole Org file has to be specially formatted, and some of
Org-mode's extremely useful features avoided, if I am going to satisfy
MobileOrg's requirements.

Being able to edit is nice, but that doesn't take advantage of what I
really have the phone with me for - I see my phone as mainly a reminder
machine, not mainly an editing machine, and would love to see MobileOrg
(or some new project) gain the ability to parse every possible agenda
feature used in Org files, so that I can actually receive reminders for
all the items in my Org-mode agenda. If it came with a better way of
simple editing, that would be even better.

-- 
David

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-04-07, o godz. 21:33:41
David Rogers <davidandrewrogers@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:
> 
> > Dnia 2013-04-07, o godz. 14:16:54
> > David Rogers <davidandrewrogers@gmail.com> napisał(a):
> 
> >> I have felt the same way. Is the reason it's not already done (and
> >> the pitfall for you if you take on a project like this) that
> >> "re-write major chunks of Emacs" is a pretty big job?
> >
> > ...
> > Remember that the purpose of something like such an app (as opposed
> > to Org-mode proper) would not be *editing* of text, but (primarily)
> > *entering* texts (and short ones, for that matter), entering
> > timestamps (which is quite convenient with any pointing device,
> > including touchscreens) and things like changing todo states and
> > clocking in and out - and that's basically it.  In other words, a
> > very small subset of Org-mode is needed here (at least for me).
> 
> I see what you mean. That makes more sense than what I said, and I
> like your idea.
> 
> The part that I want most from Org-mode on Android is being able to
> automatically get audible reminders for all my appointments, whether
> through a transfer into the phone's own calendar or some other way.
> The current MobileOrg doesn't quite do the job, since it doesn't yet
> parse things like this:
> 
> <%%(org-class 2013 03 01 2013 06 22 5 52 1 12 13)>
> 
> ... In fact, last time I checked, it didn't even parse date stamps
> that weren't in the headline...
> 
> ... so my whole Org file has to be specially formatted, and some of
> Org-mode's extremely useful features avoided, if I am going to satisfy
> MobileOrg's requirements.
> 
> Being able to edit is nice, but that doesn't take advantage of what I
> really have the phone with me for - I see my phone as mainly a
> reminder machine, not mainly an editing machine, and would love to
> see MobileOrg (or some new project) gain the ability to parse every
> possible agenda feature used in Org files, so that I can actually
> receive reminders for all the items in my Org-mode agenda. If it came
> with a better way of simple editing, that would be even better.

Of course, /every possible agenda feature used in Org files/ is out of
question, since you can (AFAIR) embed /arbitrary Elisp code/ there;).
So we can only hope for a reasonable subset (unless we go for an Emacs
variant of Greenspun's tenth rule;)).

I agree with what you said about a phone usage, but simple editing
should be, well, simple to add, and from my point of view capture is
very useful if not essential.

Still, I'm completely new to Java and Android (though quite
determined;)), so it's currently still vaporware...

Best,

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

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[James Harkins]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork <at> wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

> > 2. When I choose the menu and then "Outline", I can see the outline.
> > But when I choose menu and then "Agenda", I see nothing but the
> > title ("Agenda") and a "plus" button in the upper right corner.
> >
> > (a) Shouldn't there be an agenda on the screen?

No, not yet. This is a new feature, in which you define agenda views in 
MobileOrg, and MobileOrg will refresh those agendas dynamically based on its 
own database. You'll see your MobileOrg edits immediately, without syncing 
back to emacs. (This also means John's guess about choosing agenda views to 
push from emacs is not correct. "Pushed" agendas appear under the Agendas 
heading in the outline. Dynamic agendas are separate.)

If you don't define dynamic agendas within MobileOrg, then the list of 
available dynamic agendas would be empty. What's missing is explanatory text 
onscreen.

This feature indeed has some serious bugs in the currently released version 
(beta, btw -- pre-1.0) but I just saw a notice on the MobileOrg Android 
mailing list that a fix was just checked into the source repository.

> the key seems to be "too hard to use efficiently"...  I am afraid that
MobileOrg for Android) is indeed much more difficult to use than the
Emacs version.  The strength of Org is that it is easy to use (and
efficient in terms of keystrokes etc.).

It might be appropriate to discuss specific use cases that could be improved, 
instead of just stating "it's not efficient." (That's more polite, but it 
conveys about the same amount of useful information as "it sucks" -- i.e., 
none at all).

You did mention syncing. MobileOrg uses a database internally. Maybe that's 
easier to manage in java? I'm only speculating, don't know the reason for 
sure. It's a reasonable guess that parsing org files in java could be more 
difficult than in ELisp. Anyway, I haven't found the syncing requirement to be 
especially onerous. At least, the benefits of MobileOrg are significant enough 
for me that syncing does not negate them.

E.g., my department sent a sms to my phone explaining upcoming holiday 
schedules. I copied the text into a new node (while away from the computer) 
and later, synced. When some students asked what was up with the schedule, it 
was just a couple of taps on my phone to navigate the headings and read it.

The point being, MobileOrg is actually quite useful for capturing notes, 
adding calendar events etc on-the-go, and integrating that into the emacs org 
files.

hjh

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-04-08, o godz. 01:20:34
James Harkins < jamshark70@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> Marcin Borkowski <mbork <at> wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:
> 
> > > 2. When I choose the menu and then "Outline", I can see the
> > > outline. But when I choose menu and then "Agenda", I see nothing
> > > but the title ("Agenda") and a "plus" button in the upper right
> > > corner.
> > >
> > > (a) Shouldn't there be an agenda on the screen?
> 
> No, not yet. This is a new feature, in which you define agenda views
> in MobileOrg, and MobileOrg will refresh those agendas dynamically
> based on its own database. You'll see your MobileOrg edits
> immediately, without syncing back to emacs. (This also means John's
> guess about choosing agenda views to push from emacs is not correct.
> "Pushed" agendas appear under the Agendas heading in the outline.
> Dynamic agendas are separate.)
> 
> If you don't define dynamic agendas within MobileOrg, then the list
> of available dynamic agendas would be empty. What's missing is
> explanatory text onscreen.
> 
> This feature indeed has some serious bugs in the currently released
> version (beta, btw -- pre-1.0) but I just saw a notice on the
> MobileOrg Android mailing list that a fix was just checked into the
> source repository.

I see.

> > the key seems to be "too hard to use efficiently"...  I am afraid
> > that
> MobileOrg for Android) is indeed much more difficult to use than the
> Emacs version.  The strength of Org is that it is easy to use (and
> efficient in terms of keystrokes etc.).
> 
> It might be appropriate to discuss specific use cases that could be
> improved, instead of just stating "it's not efficient." (That's more
> polite, but it conveys about the same amount of useful information as
> "it sucks" -- i.e., none at all).

I know - but I didn't include the details because I can't remember them
now (I uninstalled MobileOrg a while ago).  Of course, I can check it
and report on the MobileOrg mailing list.

> You did mention syncing. MobileOrg uses a database internally. Maybe
> that's easier to manage in java? I'm only speculating, don't know the
> reason for sure. It's a reasonable guess that parsing org files in
> java could be more difficult than in ELisp. Anyway, I haven't found
> the syncing requirement to be especially onerous. At least, the
> benefits of MobileOrg are significant enough for me that syncing does
> not negate them.

Well, it would be true, if syncing worked...  But (at least for me) it
didn't - more often than not it crashed with a mysterious error message
and I lost my captures.  I will try to reinstall MobileOrg and try to
reproduce it and report, too.

For the database vs text files: I'm still not convinced.  But life has
taught me that if something is done in some way, there might be a
reason for that I don't know or understand, so I'm not claiming that
the syncing stuff is a bad idea - only that *I* don't get the rationale
behind it.  (The argument with a database does not convince me, though
it might be an efficiency issue - *that* would be some argument, but
I'm also speculating here.)

> E.g., my department sent a sms to my phone explaining upcoming
> holiday schedules. I copied the text into a new node (while away from
> the computer) and later, synced. When some students asked what was up
> with the schedule, it was just a couple of taps on my phone to
> navigate the headings and read it.
> 
> The point being, MobileOrg is actually quite useful for capturing
> notes, adding calendar events etc on-the-go, and integrating that
> into the emacs org files.

Yes and no.  I don't mean that "it sucks" (and by all means I don't
want to be impolite to anyone!), I meant that if I were doing it, I
would probably do it another way.  (It doesn't even mean that I'm wiser
than the developers of MobileOrg - after all, they did it and I did
not, and I have at least two versions - one, imaginary, in my mind, and
another one, written by them - I can compare them mentally etc.  They
were the first ones - the pioneers - and even if I manage to write my
own version (which I'm going to try to do anyway, as a learning
project), I can use the experience accumulated in the current version
of MobileOrg, which gives me a head start.)

> hjh

Regards,

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

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Gareth Smith]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:
> Well, it would be true, if syncing worked...  But (at least for me) it
> didn't - more often than not it crashed with a mysterious error message
> and I lost my captures.  I will try to reinstall MobileOrg and try to
> reproduce it and report, too.

Until recently, I was using an old version of MobileOrg which often
crashed on sync with some sort of dropbox error. When I got the latest
version from https://github.com/matburt/mobileorg-android/wiki (I don't
currently have marketplace access[1]) that issue went away.

For me, MobileOrg is now much more useful than it was, though I still
have plenty of config experiments to do before I'm happy. In particular,
I haven't yet figured out how to get any kind of calendar view of my
data without signing up to google calendar[1]...

G

[1] I have nothing particularly against google services, I'm just
currently experimenting to see if it's possible to live happily without
them.

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[James Harkins]

As it happens, one of the lead developers of mobileorg started a
thread on the MobileOrg-Android mailing list asking for issues that
need to be addressed, and features that are needed, before it's ready
for 1.0.

For instance, John Hendy said:

~~
Being able to edit is nice, but that doesn't take advantage of what I
really have the phone with me for - I see my phone as mainly a reminder
machine, not mainly an editing machine, and would love to see MobileOrg
(or some new project) gain the ability to parse every possible agenda
feature used in Org files, so that I can actually receive reminders for
all the items in my Org-mode agenda. If it came with a better way of
simple editing, that would be even better.
~~

Good idea (up to a point, as Marcin pointed out), but writing it here
is of limited utility :) There's a chance of some of it being
implemented if you take the comment to the mobileorg-android issue
tracker.

I'm using MobileOrg and enjoying it in general. I find it terribly
useful and not especially cumbersome. The initial setup was a bit of a
trek for me, because I don't have access to dropbox where I live
(mainland China). Ultimately, because of unreliable connections to
Ubuntu One, I ended up running my own WebDAV server locally and
syncing at home over the WLAN.

Otherwise, the only thing I had to adapt in my org/emacs usage was to
schedule appointments (C-c C-s) instead of using timestamps for them
(C-c .). I'm actually not crazy about that -- I'd rather use
timestamps -- but it does work. (Come to think of it, I should propose
that as one of the 1.0 issues... or check if it's changed since the
last time I tried.) Items with scheduled or deadline timestamps appear
in the Android calendar, and there is a preference in MobileOrg to
attach reminders automatically. (One remaining point here -- another
1.0 issue -- is that creating a new node in MobileOrg with a schedule
or deadline doesn't show up in the phone calendar until after
syncing. I'll bring that up on the M/O mailing list.)

I find that creating new nodes and minor editing of existing ones is
not at all inconvenient. I don't see a big issue for the workflows
that Marcin subsequently identified as being critical for this kind of
app. They're already there.

hjh

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-04-08, o godz. 06:52:02
James Harkins <jamshark70@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> As it happens, one of the lead developers of mobileorg started a
> thread on the MobileOrg-Android mailing list asking for issues that
> need to be addressed, and features that are needed, before it's ready
> for 1.0.

Well, I didn't know about the existence if that list;).

> I'm using MobileOrg and enjoying it in general. I find it terribly
> useful and not especially cumbersome. The initial setup was a bit of a
> trek for me, because I don't have access to dropbox where I live
> (mainland China). Ultimately, because of unreliable connections to
> Ubuntu One, I ended up running my own WebDAV server locally and
> syncing at home over the WLAN.
> 
> Otherwise, the only thing I had to adapt in my org/emacs usage was to
> schedule appointments (C-c C-s) instead of using timestamps for them
> (C-c .). I'm actually not crazy about that -- I'd rather use
> timestamps -- but it does work. (Come to think of it, I should propose
> that as one of the 1.0 issues... or check if it's changed since the
> last time I tried.) Items with scheduled or deadline timestamps appear
> in the Android calendar, and there is a preference in MobileOrg to
> attach reminders automatically. (One remaining point here -- another
> 1.0 issue -- is that creating a new node in MobileOrg with a schedule
> or deadline doesn't show up in the phone calendar until after
> syncing. I'll bring that up on the M/O mailing list.)
> 
> I find that creating new nodes and minor editing of existing ones is
> not at all inconvenient. I don't see a big issue for the workflows
> that Marcin subsequently identified as being critical for this kind of
> app. They're already there.
> 
> hjh

As I wrote in my other email, I'll give it a try - but I'm very much
tempted to try to write my own implementation, for the sake of learning.

Best,

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

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Matthew Jones]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3854 bytes --]

Hey guys, I'm one of the maintainers of MobileOrg for Android.  We've
worked really hard to try to implement as many of the features of org-mode
as we can and make it comfortable to use for the majority of people.  A
couple of points:

- Originally we were just storing the org files and parsing those on demand
instead of using a database.   This proved extremely cumbersome when we
wanted to add more features, and it really did not scale well when people
had very large org files.  We made a decision a while ago to switch to a
database almost exclusively for this reason, but there were a lot of other
smaller reasons that also made it worthwhile.

- The reason we do syncing the way that we do is to fit into org-mode's
org-mobile-* concept.  Keeping multiple sets of plain text files in sync
with emacs in the loop is no simple task.  The org-mobile-* functions were
already defined and well used when I started writing the Android port of
MobileOrg.  It may be suboptimal but currently it is the best and easiest
(from the development side) way to keep a remote device and an instance of
emacs in sync.  I'm actually not even sure if the org-mobile-* routines are
even maintained anymore.  The synchronization problem is not as easy as
just overwriting the files, however.

- If you have issues and you don't tell us then we have no way of helping
you and the problem might not go away.  We try to stay on top of
showstopping issues for our users (we have an email address and a bug
tracker linked to in the app store) unfortunately some folks just leave a 1
star review and uninstall and never contact us.


On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 5:28 AM, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>wrote:

> Dnia 2013-04-08, o godz. 06:52:02
> James Harkins <jamshark70@gmail.com> napisał(a):
>
> > As it happens, one of the lead developers of mobileorg started a
> > thread on the MobileOrg-Android mailing list asking for issues that
> > need to be addressed, and features that are needed, before it's ready
> > for 1.0.
>
> Well, I didn't know about the existence if that list;).
>
> > I'm using MobileOrg and enjoying it in general. I find it terribly
> > useful and not especially cumbersome. The initial setup was a bit of a
> > trek for me, because I don't have access to dropbox where I live
> > (mainland China). Ultimately, because of unreliable connections to
> > Ubuntu One, I ended up running my own WebDAV server locally and
> > syncing at home over the WLAN.
> >
> > Otherwise, the only thing I had to adapt in my org/emacs usage was to
> > schedule appointments (C-c C-s) instead of using timestamps for them
> > (C-c .). I'm actually not crazy about that -- I'd rather use
> > timestamps -- but it does work. (Come to think of it, I should propose
> > that as one of the 1.0 issues... or check if it's changed since the
> > last time I tried.) Items with scheduled or deadline timestamps appear
> > in the Android calendar, and there is a preference in MobileOrg to
> > attach reminders automatically. (One remaining point here -- another
> > 1.0 issue -- is that creating a new node in MobileOrg with a schedule
> > or deadline doesn't show up in the phone calendar until after
> > syncing. I'll bring that up on the M/O mailing list.)
> >
> > I find that creating new nodes and minor editing of existing ones is
> > not at all inconvenient. I don't see a big issue for the workflows
> > that Marcin subsequently identified as being critical for this kind of
> > app. They're already there.
> >
> > hjh
>
> As I wrote in my other email, I'll give it a try - but I'm very much
> tempted to try to write my own implementation, for the sake of learning.
>
> Best,
>
> --
> Marcin Borkowski
> http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
> Adam Mickiewicz University
>
>

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Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-04-09, o godz. 14:24:24
Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> Hey guys, I'm one of the maintainers of MobileOrg for Android.  We've
> worked really hard to try to implement as many of the features of
> org-mode as we can and make it comfortable to use for the majority of
> people.  A couple of points:

Hi, thanks for this answer!

> - Originally we were just storing the org files and parsing those on
> demand instead of using a database.   This proved extremely
> cumbersome when we wanted to add more features, and it really did not
> scale well when people had very large org files.  We made a decision
> a while ago to switch to a database almost exclusively for this
> reason, but there were a lot of other smaller reasons that also made
> it worthwhile.

I see.  OTOH, one argument *against* a database (as opposed to parsing
text files) might be exactly preserving the formatting etc. of files (of
course, with all the syncing stuff this is not important anyway).

> - The reason we do syncing the way that we do is to fit into
> org-mode's org-mobile-* concept.  Keeping multiple sets of plain text
> files in sync with emacs in the loop is no simple task.  The
> org-mobile-* functions were already defined and well used when I
> started writing the Android port of MobileOrg.  It may be suboptimal
> but currently it is the best and easiest (from the development side)
> way to keep a remote device and an instance of emacs in sync.  I'm
> actually not even sure if the org-mobile-* routines are even
> maintained anymore.  The synchronization problem is not as easy as
> just overwriting the files, however.

That's interesting.  I would be very glad to learn what might the
pitfalls of "just overwriting files" be; it may be the case that "just
overwriting" would work well with *my personal* use pattern of
Org-mode, and that would be why I don't understand MobileOrg's approach.

And I guess that the decision was in fact made by the devs of MobileOrg
for iOS (which I guess predates the Android app).

> - If you have issues and you don't tell us then we have no way of
> helping you and the problem might not go away.  We try to stay on top
> of showstopping issues for our users (we have an email address and a
> bug tracker linked to in the app store) unfortunately some folks just
> leave a 1 star review and uninstall and never contact us.

I know, I know, I'm sorry.

But:

* Yes, I did uninstall, but I've reinstalled MobileOrg again after
  reading this thread.  I'll try to set it up again.  I installed from
  the Google Play; is it better to use the github repo?  It says
  "0.9.7" in the release notes on the wiki, Google Play says it's
  0.9.8, and maybe it would be better to use master or even 0.9.10
  (looking at the branches on github)?  Where do I find the info about
  installing the bleeding edge version from github on my phone (I'm
  quite new to Android, as I mentioned.)

* I did not leave a one-star review; I guess I'm too lazy for that, but
  also it would be a bit unfair without further investigation of my
  problems.

* I am very busy these days, but I'll try hard to start using MobileOrg
  and (if the problems I had persist), I'll try to report them on
  MobileOrg's mailing list.  In fact, my problems were twofold:
  firstly, syncing didn't "Just Work™" (sometimes I got errors on
  MobileOrg, sometimes in Emacs), and some of the UI choices *did*
  suck.  As soon as I find some time, I'll try to describe exactly what
  I mean by this, so that either it could get improved or I could get
  convinced that it's my usage that sucks (which is obviously possible,
  especially given my lack of experience).

Best,

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

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Matthew Jones]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4952 bytes --]

On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>
wrote:

> I see.  OTOH, one argument *against* a database (as opposed to parsing
> text files) might be exactly preserving the formatting etc. of files (of
> course, with all the syncing stuff this is not important anyway).
>

Certainly at the beginning it was easier to rely on our file parser and we
tried to stick with that for as long as we could because in some ways it is
just easier!  We ran into some really nasty problems as we went along,
though, and the further we got into our desired feature list the worse it
became simply relying on that file parser.  I was initially very skeptical
about going the database route but it is easily one of the best decisions
we have made with regard to refactoring of the project and it has enabled
some of the great features we have today.

>
>
> That's interesting.  I would be very glad to learn what might the
> pitfalls of "just overwriting files" be; it may be the case that "just
> overwriting" would work well with *my personal* use pattern of
> Org-mode, and that would be why I don't understand MobileOrg's approach.


So imagine this... in the morning you synchronize you org files to your
mobile device but then make a change in one of those files and forget to
push it up to your mobile.  Later in the day you make a change to the same
node, or even somewhere else in the file while on your mobile device and
then push that file up.   In the evening you get back to your computer
running emacs and pull your remote changes in.   What do you want to
happen?  Should the one still on your computer that you last changed this
morning take precedence?  or the one on the mobile device?   The answer is
probably that you want to merge those changes... that is something that
emacs can do, but as is the case with most patch-work it can't always do
that in automated fashion.   That's why the org-mobile-* functions exist.
 Now it can be argued that there is a better way and I'd probably agree
with that statement but it's not an easy problem to solve.

Here's another case... if you are editing a file in emacs and the file
changes outside of emacs what happens?  emacs doesn't like it at all... so
you need some sort of built in emacs mechanism for being able to merge
changes in a safe way, and it needs to not surprise the user when that's
happening.

These are the kinds of issues we are all struggling to solve in one way or
another but the general consensus is that "just overwriting" is the worst
of the possible options, even if it is technically the easiest.

> * Yes, I did uninstall, but I've reinstalled MobileOrg again after
>   reading this thread.  I'll try to set it up again.  I installed from
>   the Google Play; is it better to use the github repo?  It says
>   "0.9.7" in the release notes on the wiki, Google Play says it's
>   0.9.8, and maybe it would be better to use master or even 0.9.10
>   (looking at the branches on github)?  Where do I find the info about
>   installing the bleeding edge version from github on my phone (I'm
>   quite new to Android, as I mentioned.)

Google Play is always up to date... usually we'll only post an updated
changeset on github if something major has changed, if it's just a bug fix
then you probably won't see it mentioned.   If you can't access Google
play, as mentioned in the wiki, you can always find the latest and past
release here:

http://matburt.net/files/MobileOrg/

> * I did not leave a one-star review; I guess I'm too lazy for that, but
>   also it would be a bit unfair without further investigation of my
>   problems.

I didn't mean to suggest that you personally did... but it happens a lot
more than I wish it did.  We also get faulted a lot for the perception of
complexity of the way the we have to handle synchronization but as I've
mentioned above... it's a little more complex than just pushing the files
to the device or pulling them off the device.

> * I am very busy these days, but I'll try hard to start using MobileOrg
>   and (if the problems I had persist), I'll try to report them on
>   MobileOrg's mailing list.  In fact, my problems were twofold:
>   firstly, syncing didn't "Just Work™" (sometimes I got errors on
>   MobileOrg, sometimes in Emacs), and some of the UI choices *did*
>   suck.  As soon as I find some time, I'll try to describe exactly what
>   I mean by this, so that either it could get improved or I could get
>   convinced that it's my usage that sucks (which is obviously possible,
>   especially given my lack of experience).

Yep... the only way we know that it "sucks" is if people tell us what sucks
about it.  UI/UX has been an iterative process where we have to take
feedback from our users.  It's a real challenge to build a UI that works
for the most people and we want to make the most people happy.

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Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-04-09, o godz. 16:51:47
Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Marcin Borkowski
> <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
> 
> > I see.  OTOH, one argument *against* a database (as opposed to
> > parsing text files) might be exactly preserving the formatting etc.
> > of files (of course, with all the syncing stuff this is not
> > important anyway).
> >
> 
> Certainly at the beginning it was easier to rely on our file parser
> and we tried to stick with that for as long as we could because in
> some ways it is just easier!  We ran into some really nasty problems
> as we went along, though, and the further we got into our desired
> feature list the worse it became simply relying on that file parser.
> I was initially very skeptical about going the database route but it
> is easily one of the best decisions we have made with regard to
> refactoring of the project and it has enabled some of the great
> features we have today.

I believe, though can't see it myself.  (Just wondering though: now
that the official Org-mode syntax exists, does it change anything in
this department?)

> > That's interesting.  I would be very glad to learn what might the
> > pitfalls of "just overwriting files" be; it may be the case that
> > "just overwriting" would work well with *my personal* use pattern of
> > Org-mode, and that would be why I don't understand MobileOrg's
> > approach.
> 
> 
> So imagine this... in the morning you synchronize you org files to
> your mobile device but then make a change in one of those files and
> forget to push it up to your mobile.  Later in the day you make a
> change to the same node, or even somewhere else in the file while on
> your mobile device and then push that file up.   In the evening you
> get back to your computer running emacs and pull your remote changes
> in.   What do you want to happen?  Should the one still on your
> computer that you last changed this morning take precedence?  or the
> one on the mobile device?   The answer is probably that you want to
> merge those changes... that is something that emacs can do, but as is
> the case with most patch-work it can't always do that in automated
> fashion.   That's why the org-mobile-* functions exist. Now it can be
> argued that there is a better way and I'd probably agree with that
> statement but it's not an easy problem to solve.
> 
> Here's another case... if you are editing a file in emacs and the file
> changes outside of emacs what happens?  emacs doesn't like it at
> all... so you need some sort of built in emacs mechanism for being
> able to merge changes in a safe way, and it needs to not surprise the
> user when that's happening.
> 
> These are the kinds of issues we are all struggling to solve in one
> way or another but the general consensus is that "just overwriting"
> is the worst of the possible options, even if it is technically the
> easiest.

I see now.  Since I'm using Dropbox to synchronize, and it works more
or less transparently and instantaneously, that seems to be a no-issue
for me. But I agree that not all people are in this situation, and maybe
even I'm in a minority.

> > * Yes, I did uninstall, but I've reinstalled MobileOrg again after
> >   reading this thread.  I'll try to set it up again.  I installed
> > from the Google Play; is it better to use the github repo?  It says
> >   "0.9.7" in the release notes on the wiki, Google Play says it's
> >   0.9.8, and maybe it would be better to use master or even 0.9.10
> >   (looking at the branches on github)?  Where do I find the info
> > about installing the bleeding edge version from github on my phone
> > (I'm quite new to Android, as I mentioned.)
> 
> Google Play is always up to date... usually we'll only post an updated
> changeset on github if something major has changed, if it's just a
> bug fix then you probably won't see it mentioned.   If you can't
> access Google play, as mentioned in the wiki, you can always find the
> latest and past release here:
> 
> http://matburt.net/files/MobileOrg/

OK, so I'll stick with Google Play version, at least for now.

> > * I did not leave a one-star review; I guess I'm too lazy for that,
> > but also it would be a bit unfair without further investigation of
> > my problems.
> 
> I didn't mean to suggest that you personally did... but it happens a

Of course, but I wanted to stress that anyway;).

> lot more than I wish it did.  We also get faulted a lot for the
> perception of complexity of the way the we have to handle
> synchronization but as I've mentioned above... it's a little more
> complex than just pushing the files to the device or pulling them off
> the device.

That's a very general problem.  People want software (and in fact,
everything) to Just Work™ without any effort.  I guess many of us have
tons of sad stories confirming this...

> > * I am very busy these days, but I'll try hard to start using
> > MobileOrg and (if the problems I had persist), I'll try to report
> > them on MobileOrg's mailing list.  In fact, my problems were
> > twofold: firstly, syncing didn't "Just Work™" (sometimes I got
> > errors on MobileOrg, sometimes in Emacs), and some of the UI
> > choices *did* suck.  As soon as I find some time, I'll try to
> > describe exactly what I mean by this, so that either it could get
> > improved or I could get convinced that it's my usage that sucks
> > (which is obviously possible, especially given my lack of
> > experience).
> 
> Yep... the only way we know that it "sucks" is if people tell us what
> sucks about it.  UI/UX has been an iterative process where we have to
> take feedback from our users.  It's a real challenge to build a UI
> that works for the most people and we want to make the most people
> happy.

Of course.  As I said earlier, I can't remember now, but I'll do my
best to come back in some time with a detailed report.  I'll treat this
as a way to pay back the community for the great tool;).  (Though I'll
still consider buying the "donate" version - but for that, I'll have to
configure the payment options on my phone, and I won't do it very soon.)

Best regards,

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

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[John Hendy]

On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 1:24 PM, Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey guys, I'm one of the maintainers of MobileOrg for Android.  We've worked
> really hard to try to implement as many of the features of org-mode as we
> can and make it comfortable to use for the majority of people.  A couple of
> points:
>
> - Originally we were just storing the org files and parsing those on demand
> instead of using a database.   This proved extremely cumbersome when we
> wanted to add more features, and it really did not scale well when people
> had very large org files.  We made a decision a while ago to switch to a
> database almost exclusively for this reason, but there were a lot of other
> smaller reasons that also made it worthwhile.
>
> - The reason we do syncing the way that we do is to fit into org-mode's
> org-mobile-* concept.  Keeping multiple sets of plain text files in sync
> with emacs in the loop is no simple task.  The org-mobile-* functions were
> already defined and well used when I started writing the Android port of
> MobileOrg.  It may be suboptimal but currently it is the best and easiest
> (from the development side) way to keep a remote device and an instance of
> emacs in sync.  I'm actually not even sure if the org-mobile-* routines are
> even maintained anymore.  The synchronization problem is not as easy as just
> overwriting the files, however.
>

I posted this suggestion at the github site:
- https://github.com/matburt/mobileorg-android/issues/63#issuecomment-11391116

I think syncing over git, especially while piggybacking on the merge
driver that was developed to help deal with Org syntax, might be
exceptional. I can't use Dropbox since my org files at work contain
confidential information and don't particularly enjoy fiddling with
apache/WebDAV setup, so git and automagically knowing where to put
updates from the device would be fantastic.

> - If you have issues and you don't tell us then we have no way of helping
> you and the problem might not go away.  We try to stay on top of
> showstopping issues for our users (we have an email address and a bug
> tracker linked to in the app store) unfortunately some folks just leave a 1
> star review and uninstall and never contact us.
>

Agreed, and thanks for saying so. I try not to do this and while I
don't particularly enjoy pestering you on github all the time... still
choose to do so :)


Thanks for commenting over here!
John

>
> On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 5:28 AM, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>
> wrote:
>>
>> Dnia 2013-04-08, o godz. 06:52:02
>> James Harkins <jamshark70@gmail.com> napisał(a):
>>
>> > As it happens, one of the lead developers of mobileorg started a
>> > thread on the MobileOrg-Android mailing list asking for issues that
>> > need to be addressed, and features that are needed, before it's ready
>> > for 1.0.
>>
>> Well, I didn't know about the existence if that list;).
>>
>> > I'm using MobileOrg and enjoying it in general. I find it terribly
>> > useful and not especially cumbersome. The initial setup was a bit of a
>> > trek for me, because I don't have access to dropbox where I live
>> > (mainland China). Ultimately, because of unreliable connections to
>> > Ubuntu One, I ended up running my own WebDAV server locally and
>> > syncing at home over the WLAN.
>> >
>> > Otherwise, the only thing I had to adapt in my org/emacs usage was to
>> > schedule appointments (C-c C-s) instead of using timestamps for them
>> > (C-c .). I'm actually not crazy about that -- I'd rather use
>> > timestamps -- but it does work. (Come to think of it, I should propose
>> > that as one of the 1.0 issues... or check if it's changed since the
>> > last time I tried.) Items with scheduled or deadline timestamps appear
>> > in the Android calendar, and there is a preference in MobileOrg to
>> > attach reminders automatically. (One remaining point here -- another
>> > 1.0 issue -- is that creating a new node in MobileOrg with a schedule
>> > or deadline doesn't show up in the phone calendar until after
>> > syncing. I'll bring that up on the M/O mailing list.)
>> >
>> > I find that creating new nodes and minor editing of existing ones is
>> > not at all inconvenient. I don't see a big issue for the workflows
>> > that Marcin subsequently identified as being critical for this kind of
>> > app. They're already there.
>> >
>> > hjh
>>
>> As I wrote in my other email, I'll give it a try - but I'm very much
>> tempted to try to write my own implementation, for the sake of learning.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> --
>> Marcin Borkowski
>> http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
>> Adam Mickiewicz University
>>
>

Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE (was: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android)

[Karl Voit]

Hi!

* Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com> wrote:
> - If you have issues and you don't tell us then we have no way of helping
> you and the problem might not go away.  

I mainly use MobileOrg on my Android phone to capture URLs and
tasks and I am *very* thankfully for this possibility!


However, with Google getting untrustworthy (Reader, APIs, ...), I
want to get rid of Google Calendar as well. As you can read in [1],
many people are creating appointments by simply adding an active
time-stamp without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE or TODO states:

** <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00> this is an event/appointment   :rem15:

Unfortunately, MobileOrg does not seem to put such entries into the
Android calendar.

This is a very important issue to me such, that I can not use
MobileOrg agenda for my purpose at all. :-(


Another thing: My phone is mainly a reminding thing for me as well.
I would *love* to see something like when I tag something with
:rem15: I want to be reminded 15 minutes before its first time-stamp
(example above: at 2013-05-07 8:45). *This* would be very cool!


Thanks for improving so many peoples life's with MobileOrg!

  1. see Emails with subject "Re: OT: Android, external HW-keyboard
     and Emacs" (not on gmane yet)

-- 
mail|git|SVN|photos|postings|SMS|phonecalls|RSS|CSV|XML to Org-mode:
       > get Memacs from https://github.com/novoid/Memacs <

https://github.com/novoid/extract_pdf_annotations_to_orgmode + more on github

Re: Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE

[Rémi Vanicat]

Karl Voit <devnull@Karl-Voit.at> writes:

> Hi!
>
> * Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com> wrote:
>> - If you have issues and you don't tell us then we have no way of helping
>> you and the problem might not go away.  
>
> I mainly use MobileOrg on my Android phone to capture URLs and
> tasks and I am *very* thankfully for this possibility!
>
>
> However, with Google getting untrustworthy (Reader, APIs, ...), I
> want to get rid of Google Calendar as well. As you can read in [1],
> many people are creating appointments by simply adding an active
> time-stamp without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE or TODO states:
>
> ** <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00> this is an event/appointment   :rem15:

I use :

** this is an event/appointment   :rem15:
  <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00> 

And my android sync it with the agenda.

I Just confirmed by testing that the bug is with timestamp on the
headline line.


My main problem with mobilorg is that it do not translate

  <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00 +1w> 

in a recurring event, and I would really like this to be solved.
[...]


-- 
Rémi Vanicat

Re: Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE

[Eric S Fraga]

Rémi Vanicat <vanicat@debian.org> writes:

> Karl Voit <devnull@Karl-Voit.at> writes:
>
>> Hi!
>>
>> * Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> - If you have issues and you don't tell us then we have no way of helping
>>> you and the problem might not go away.  
>>
>> I mainly use MobileOrg on my Android phone to capture URLs and
>> tasks and I am *very* thankfully for this possibility!
>>
>>
>> However, with Google getting untrustworthy (Reader, APIs, ...), I
>> want to get rid of Google Calendar as well. As you can read in [1],
>> many people are creating appointments by simply adding an active
>> time-stamp without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE or TODO states:
>>
>> ** <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00> this is an event/appointment   :rem15:
>
> I use :
>
> ** this is an event/appointment   :rem15:
>   <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00> 
>
> And my android sync it with the agenda.

Yes but does it sync with the calendar app on the phone if you ask for
"calendar synchronisation"?

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D
: in Emacs 24.3.50.1 and Org release_7.9.3f-1199-g3a0e55

Re: Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE

[Rémi Vanicat]

Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> Rémi Vanicat <vanicat@debian.org> writes:
>
>> Karl Voit <devnull@Karl-Voit.at> writes:
>>
>>> Hi!
>>>
>>> * Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> - If you have issues and you don't tell us then we have no way of helping
>>>> you and the problem might not go away.  
>>>
>>> I mainly use MobileOrg on my Android phone to capture URLs and
>>> tasks and I am *very* thankfully for this possibility!
>>>
>>>
>>> However, with Google getting untrustworthy (Reader, APIs, ...), I
>>> want to get rid of Google Calendar as well. As you can read in [1],
>>> many people are creating appointments by simply adding an active
>>> time-stamp without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE or TODO states:
>>>
>>> ** <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00> this is an event/appointment   :rem15:
>>
>> I use :
>>
>> ** this is an event/appointment   :rem15:
>>   <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00> 
>>
>> And my android sync it with the agenda.
>
> Yes but does it sync with the calendar app on the phone if you ask for
> "calendar synchronisation"?

It was what the previous line meant, sorry If I was not clear enough. 

-- 
Rémi Vanicat

Re: Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE

[Henning Weiss]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1458 bytes --]

Hi,

On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 6:41 AM, Rémi Vanicat <vanicat@debian.org> wrote:

> Karl Voit <devnull@Karl-Voit.at> writes:
>
> > Hi!
> >
> > * Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> - If you have issues and you don't tell us then we have no way of
> helping
> >> you and the problem might not go away.
> >
> > I mainly use MobileOrg on my Android phone to capture URLs and
> > tasks and I am *very* thankfully for this possibility!
> >
> >
> > However, with Google getting untrustworthy (Reader, APIs, ...), I
> > want to get rid of Google Calendar as well. As you can read in [1],
> > many people are creating appointments by simply adding an active
> > time-stamp without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE or TODO states:
> >
> > ** <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00> this is an event/appointment   :rem15:
>
> I use :
>
> ** this is an event/appointment   :rem15:
>   <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00>
>
> And my android sync it with the agenda.
>
> I Just confirmed by testing that the bug is with timestamp on the
> headline line.
>
>
> My main problem with mobilorg is that it do not translate
>
>   <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00 +1w>
>
> in a recurring event, and I would really like this to be solved.
>

You are correct, repeating timestamps do not work yet. You can find the
associated issue here<https://github.com/matburt/mobileorg-android/issues/381>.
This is one of the next major things we'll be working on.

Henning

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MobileOrg and repeating events (was: Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE)

[Karl Voit]

* Rémi Vanicat <vanicat@debian.org> wrote:
>
> My main problem with mobilorg is that it do not translate
>
>   <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00 +1w> 
>
> in a recurring event, and I would really like this to be solved.

Not a solution to your specific issue but this is how I deal with
recurring events: I use org-clone-subtree-with-time-shift and
periodically generate explicit copies (clones) for each occurrence.

This way, I am able to move one single instance, add notes to single
instances, and so forth. This way, it would also work for your
MobileOrg.

First, I was disappointed because Org-mode showed less flexibility
than my old Palm PDA. However, after I switched to the method
described above, I like it even more than flexible repeating
definitions.

HTH

-- 
mail|git|SVN|photos|postings|SMS|phonecalls|RSS|CSV|XML to Org-mode:
       > get Memacs from https://github.com/novoid/Memacs <

https://github.com/novoid/extract_pdf_annotations_to_orgmode + more on github

Re: Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE (was: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android)

[Henning Weiss]

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Hi,

I don't seem to have the full context for this thread, but I'll reply
anyway.

On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 12:50 PM, Karl Voit <devnull@karl-voit.at> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> * Matthew Jones <bsdmatburt@gmail.com> wrote:
> > - If you have issues and you don't tell us then we have no way of helping
> > you and the problem might not go away.
>
> I mainly use MobileOrg on my Android phone to capture URLs and
> tasks and I am *very* thankfully for this possibility!
>
>
> However, with Google getting untrustworthy (Reader, APIs, ...), I
> want to get rid of Google Calendar as well. As you can read in [1],
> many people are creating appointments by simply adding an active
> time-stamp without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE or TODO states:
>
> ** <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00> this is an event/appointment   :rem15:
>
> Unfortunately, MobileOrg does not seem to put such entries into the
> Android calendar.
>
> This is a very important issue to me such, that I can not use
> MobileOrg agenda for my purpose at all. :-(
>

Active timestamps are currently supported, but only in the payload of an
item. You can also try enabling "show done events" if the events are still
not added to the calendar. Timestamps in headings might be supported at
some point in the future (we have an open issue dealing with it).


> Another thing: My phone is mainly a reminding thing for me as well.
> I would *love* to see something like when I tag something with
> :rem15: I want to be reminded 15 minutes before its first time-stamp
> (example above: at 2013-05-07 8:45). *This* would be very cool!
>

Again, we have an open issue for this. Both issues are part of the next
major milestone.

Henning

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Re: Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE (was: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android)

[Karl Voit]

* Henning Weiss <hdweiss@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I don't seem to have the full context for this thread, but I'll reply
> anyway.
>
> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 12:50 PM, Karl Voit <devnull@karl-voit.at> wrote:
>
>> ** <2013-05-07 Tue 9:00-11:00> this is an event/appointment   :rem15:
>>
>> Unfortunately, MobileOrg does not seem to put such entries into the
>> Android calendar.
>
> Active timestamps are currently supported, but only in the payload of an
> item. You can also try enabling "show done events" if the events are still
> not added to the calendar. Timestamps in headings might be supported at
> some point in the future (we have an open issue dealing with it).

Glad to read this.

>> Another thing: My phone is mainly a reminding thing for me as well.
>> I would *love* to see something like when I tag something with
>> :rem15: I want to be reminded 15 minutes before its first time-stamp
>> (example above: at 2013-05-07 8:45). *This* would be very cool!
>
> Again, we have an open issue for this. Both issues are part of the next
> major milestone.

Awesome!

I am very much looking forward to the next releases! Thanks!

-- 
mail|git|SVN|photos|postings|SMS|phonecalls|RSS|CSV|XML to Org-mode:
       > get Memacs from https://github.com/novoid/Memacs <

https://github.com/novoid/extract_pdf_annotations_to_orgmode + more on github

Re: Android MobileOrg: appointments without SCHEDULED/DEADLINE

[Eric S Fraga]

Henning Weiss <hdweiss@gmail.com> writes:


[...]

> Active timestamps are currently supported, but only in the payload of an
> item. You can also try enabling "show done events" if the events are still
> not added to the calendar. Timestamps in headings might be supported at
> some point in the future (we have an open issue dealing with it).

Very strange.  When I initially started using MobileOrg (well, the
second time around, once I had a decent Android phone as opposed to the
really cr*p Samsung I initially had) a month or so ago, only scheduled
(and deadline) items seemed to be incorporated into my Google
Calendar.  I have just tried again and it works very well with all of my
active timestamps for appointments.  I must have done something really
stupid somewhere along the line. <blush>

Thanks!

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D
: in Emacs 24.3.50.1 and Org release_8.0.1-19-g9655a1

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Andreas Leha]

Hi all,

sorry for the OT post.

[...]

>> As it happens, one of the lead developers of mobileorg started a
>> thread on the MobileOrg-Android mailing list asking for issues that
>> need to be addressed, and features that are needed, before it's ready
>> for 1.0.
>
> Well, I didn't know about the existence if that list;).

I guess the list is
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/mobileorg-android

Can someone tell me how to read that list in gnus?  Is that possible?

- Andreas

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Bastien]

Hi Andreas,

Andreas Leha <andreas.leha@med.uni-goettingen.de> writes:

> I guess the list is
> https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/mobileorg-android
>
> Can someone tell me how to read that list in gnus?  Is that
> possible?

The list is also on Gmane:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.handhelds.android.mobileorg

-- 
 Bastien

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Andreas Leha]

Hi Bastien,

Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> writes:

> Hi Andreas,
>
> Andreas Leha <andreas.leha@med.uni-goettingen.de> writes:
>
>> I guess the list is
>> https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/mobileorg-android
>>
>> Can someone tell me how to read that list in gnus?  Is that
>> possible?
>
> The list is also on Gmane:
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.handhelds.android.mobileorg


thanks for that!  Somehow, I had missed that.

- Andreas

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[mobileorg-android]

Dnia 2013-04-08, o godz. 11:28:47
Marcin Borkowski <mbork-12VZH/wba7B4rM3dGMyr8Q@public.gmane.org> napisał(a):

> Dnia 2013-04-08, o godz. 06:52:02
> James Harkins <jamshark70-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> napisał(a):
> 
> > As it happens, one of the lead developers of mobileorg started a
> > thread on the MobileOrg-Android mailing list asking for issues that
> > need to be addressed, and features that are needed, before it's
> > ready for 1.0.
> 
> Well, I didn't know about the existence of that list;).

OK, so I'm reviving this old thread.

I tried to set up MobileOrg again and failed completely - again.  Sorry
for my post being a bit harsh, but I'm really frustrated with this
situation, especially that I hear people claiming it works for them...

1. I am still not convinced about the pros of all the "sync" stuff (as
opposed to relying on e.g. Dropbox to sync the files), since it just
Doesn't Work For Me, period. I try to edit something on my phone
("capture"), I can see my edits there, I click the "sync" icon on the
phone, wait for Dropbox on my computer to catch up, see the relevant
entry in my mobileorg.org file, then do an org-mobile-pull, and it just
doesn't work: my captured item doesn't appear *anywhere* (I grepped all
my org directory as well as the Dropbox sync directory), though it
claimed "0 new, 1 edits, 0 flags, 0 errors" (once it was "1 error",
don't know why). Pushing seems to work (most of the time - sometimes I
had to "reset the database" on the phone).

For the record: I have Org-mode 7.8.02 and these MobileOrg-related
settings in my .emacs:

(setq org-mobile-directory "~/Dropbox/MobileOrg")
(setq org-mobile-inbox-for-pull "~/org/mobileorg-inbox.org")

I also have some tags-related settings, but I guess they don't matter
in the situation where capturing (even without tags) doesn't work at
all.

2. Maybe I'm strange, but the UI seems to be really, really terrible
to me; but I can see no point describing the exact meaning of
"terrible" here (I have a clear understanding of what I dislike and
what I would like) since at my side, MobileOrg is just a poor UI without
a working app beneath anyway.  When it starts working for me, I'll be
happy to write an email about what I perceive are UI problems.

> > I find that creating new nodes and minor editing of existing ones is
> > not at all inconvenient. I don't see a big issue for the workflows
> > that Marcin subsequently identified as being critical for this kind
> > of app. They're already there.

As I've written above - for me, basically there's almost *nothing*
there (without capture, MobileOrg doesn't make much sense to me).
Still, I don't want to leave a one-star review, but... it just doesn't
work and I have no idea why.  (Also, subscribing to the mailing list
was nontrivial using a non-google account - it might be a good idea
to explain how to do that somewhere in the docs.)

> > hjh

I'm still hoping that I *will* be able to use MobileOrg some
day...  For now, it looks like a complete crap from my side, though I
can't believe it is the case - it must be something wrong with my setup
(or maybe my phone - I have a Samsung Galaxy Mini 2), since obviously it
seems to work for other people.

Best,

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

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Re: [mobileorg-android] Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[James Harkins]

> OK, so I'm reviving this old thread.
>
> I tried to set up MobileOrg again and failed completely - again.  Sorry
> for my post being a bit harsh, but I'm really frustrated with this
> situation, especially that I hear people claiming it works for them...

For the sake of completion, and so that MobileOrg doesn't get too bad
a rap, discussion of the MobileOrg/Android config issue continued on
the MobileOrg/Android mailing list.

One main point:

Any versions of MobileOrg (for android) with the new interface (I
think 0.9.5+, but I don't remember the exact version number) depend on
some new code in org-mode itself to handle pulling. Marcin was using
an older org version, which doesn't include the new stuff. This is
almost certainly the cause of the pull failures reported here.

I think it's only within the last 4-6 weeks that some org-mobile-pull
bugs were fixed in org, so in general, the newer the org version, the
better. For myself, with those bug fixes, pulling from mobile is "just
working."

I'll leave off any discussion of the interface issues, except to note
that the MobileOrg/Android developers are more than willing to listen
to user experiences. (I'm not one of those developers, just a
generally satisfied user.)

hjh

Re: [mobileorg-android] Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-05-13, o godz. 11:00:49
James Harkins <jamshark70@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> > OK, so I'm reviving this old thread.
> >
> > I tried to set up MobileOrg again and failed completely - again.
> > Sorry for my post being a bit harsh, but I'm really frustrated with
> > this situation, especially that I hear people claiming it works for
> > them...
> 
> For the sake of completion, and so that MobileOrg doesn't get too bad
> a rap, discussion of the MobileOrg/Android config issue continued on
> the MobileOrg/Android mailing list.

Thanks for resending it here, James - I certainly do not want to give
the impression that MobileOrg is a crap - as you write below, most
probably (as I expected) the problem lies at my side.

> One main point:
> 
> Any versions of MobileOrg (for android) with the new interface (I
> think 0.9.5+, but I don't remember the exact version number) depend on
> some new code in org-mode itself to handle pulling. Marcin was using
> an older org version, which doesn't include the new stuff. This is
> almost certainly the cause of the pull failures reported here.
> 
> I think it's only within the last 4-6 weeks that some org-mobile-pull
> bugs were fixed in org, so in general, the newer the org version, the
> better. For myself, with those bug fixes, pulling from mobile is "just
> working."
> 
> I'll leave off any discussion of the interface issues, except to note
> that the MobileOrg/Android developers are more than willing to listen
> to user experiences. (I'm not one of those developers, just a
> generally satisfied user.)

To confirm this, I have to admit (sadly) that despite the fact that I
acted like a complete jerk with my frustration-filled email, I got a
lengthy and detailed response from one of these devs there.  (And now
I'm working to rebuild my reputation there to level 0...)

> hjh

Best,

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

Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Itai kloog]

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Hi mark

I totally agree with everything you said. to me its also very difficult to
understand as a neewb.

A simple org editor/viewer to just view my org files in dropbox and simply
text edit them would be fantastic, would really love something like that

Best

Z

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Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[Jorge A. Alfaro Murillo]

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I think entries of the form
%%(org-class 2013 1 7 2013 4 27 2) 12:00pm-01:15pm TITLE
show up on MobileOrg.

I have org-mobile-agendas set up to 'default and they do for me.

Also the synchronization with Google Calendar is quite good in Android, you
can let then Google Calendar handles the remainders in your phone.

> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:
>
>> Dnia 2013-04-07, o godz. 14:16:54
>> David Rogers <davidandrewrogers@gmail.com> napisał(a):
>
>>> I have felt the same way. Is the reason it's not already done (and the
>>> pitfall for you if you take on a project like this) that "re-write
>>> major chunks of Emacs" is a pretty big job?
>>
>> ...
>> Remember that the purpose of something like such an app (as opposed to
>> Org-mode proper) would not be *editing* of text, but (primarily)
>> *entering* texts (and short ones, for that matter), entering
>> timestamps (which is quite convenient with any pointing device,
>> including touchscreens) and things like changing todo states and
>> clocking in and out - and that's basically it.  In other words, a very
>> small subset of Org-mode is needed here (at least for me).

> I see what you mean. That makes more sense than what I said, and I like
> your idea.
>
> The part that I want most from Org-mode on Android is being able to
> automatically get audible reminders for all my appointments, whether
> through a transfer into the phone's own calendar or some other way. The
> current MobileOrg doesn't quite do the job, since it doesn't yet parse
> things like this:

> <%%(org-class 2013 03 01 2013 06 22 5 52 1 12 13)>
>
> ... In fact, last time I checked, it didn't even parse date stamps that
> weren't in the headline...
>
> ... so my whole Org file has to be specially formatted, and some of
> Org-mode's extremely useful features avoided, if I am going to satisfy
> MobileOrg's requirements.
>
> Being able to edit is nice, but that doesn't take advantage of what I
> really have the phone with me for - I see my phone as mainly a reminder
> machine, not mainly an editing machine, and would love to see MobileOrg
> (or some new project) gain the ability to parse every possible agenda
> feature used in Org files, so that I can actually receive reminders for
> all the items in my Org-mode agenda. If it came with a better way of
> simple editing, that would be even better.
>
> --
> David

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Re: Agenda in MobileOrg for Android

[David Rogers]

"Jorge A. Alfaro Murillo" <jorge.a.alfaro@gmail.com> writes:

> I think entries of the form
> %%(org-class 2013 1 7 2013 4 27 2) 12:00pm-01:15pm TITLE
> show up on MobileOrg.
>
> I have org-mobile-agendas set up to 'default and they do for me.

Thank you! I'll try this.

> Also the synchronization with Google Calendar is quite good in Android, you
> can let then Google Calendar handles the remainders in your phone.

Yes, that's what I do. It was just getting them to show in MobileOrg that
was the problem. I'll change my org-class entries to match your format
and see if it works.

-- 
Thanks
David