Re: My reference data management approach with org and emacs

[Claus Klingberg <cjk@pobox.com>]

[sorry for the dupe, forgot to cc the list on first shot]

Jan,

thanks for sharing your setup, which got me intrigued. Is there a
place where a interested person can take a look at your (org-)
configuration-files, esp. the two template-sources you mentioned?

Thanks,
Claus


On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 1:31 AM, Jan Böcker <jan.boecker@jboecker.de> wrote:
> [The following text has gotten quite long. Sit comfortably and get a cup
> of your preferred drink if you want to proceed.]
>
> That is an interesting setup you describe there. I had considered
> something similar myself, but found it a hassle to come up with a file
> name for every new piece of information (although unix does allow
> everything except "/" in a file name, I want my file names to be lower
> case, short and without spaces where feasible).
>
> To paraphrase what you said, putting things into files just makes you
> loose time thinking about file names (which I also consider structure).
>
> In the end, I settled upon one big org file ("reference.org"). Each
> piece of reference information is in its own top-level node. When I want
> to find something there, I use isearch and/or search for a specific tag
> (in virtually every case, a simple isearch for one or two words is
> sufficient).
>
> This is way faster than navigating the file system! I also share your
> dislike of categories (which a strictly hierarchical file system would
> force me to use).
>
> I have two remember templates to add an entry to reference.org.
>
> The first template asks me for tags ("%^g") and a title for the
> headline. After filing it (at the top of reference.org) with C-c C-c,
> Org jumps to the location it was just filed ("%&" in the template), in
> case I want to use C-c C-c again to readjust the tags.
>
> I use this first template to keep data that can be expressed in plain
> text (including all the powerful tools Org gives me to work with plain
> text, such as outlines, links and tables).
>
> The second template is a little more complex; it calls a custom elisp
> function to do all the work.
>
> When I call this second template, I am asked for the following:
> - a title for the headline
> - a date (I mostly use this template to file scanned letters, invoices
> and the like, so it helps to be able to change the date from the default
> of today.)
> - a folder name (defaulting to YYYY-MM-DD.S, i.e. the previously
> specified date followed by a sequence number to make the folder name
> unique). Normally, I do not customize the folder name, because I only
> need to find the reference data via Org and do not need to navigate to
> it using e.g. the "open" dialog of any other program (and I do not want
> to change it in the future, which might make a folder name containing a
> date obsolete).
> - where the original went (defaults to "Trash"). This is stored as an
> attribute in the outline node.
>
> A new subfolder with the specified folder name is created in ~/org/data/
> and set up as this node's attachment directory. The ID of the node is
> set to data-<folder name>, so I can link conveniently to this entry from
> project notes.
>
> The custom elisp function also installs a hook that automatically calls
> org-attach-attach-mv if I try to file the template without having added
> any attachment, so I do not forget this.
>
> I use this second template when I have to attach a file to the entry,
> because it cannot be represented in Org. This mostly applies to scanned
> paper of any sort (letters, invoices, etc).
>
> I have a shell script which I use to scan directly to PDF files (I do
> not use OCR, the PDF just serves as a container for possibly multiple
> scanned pages, so that browsing and printing the whole document is
> convenient).
>
> If it was an important document where I might need the original in the
> future, I specify "Filed" when asked where the original went, write the
> folder name/ID number in the top right corner of the document with a
> pencil (in case of very important documents or certificates I use a
> post-it note), and file it on top of a normal paper file folder.
> When keeping the original, I do not change the folder name from its
> default. Should I have to dig out the original for any reason, I can
> manually execute a binary search on my  chronologically sorted file
> folder(s).
>
> I have been using this system for a few weeks now, and it has worked
> great so far. Its main design goal was not simplicity of implementation,
> but simplicity of use: it has to be so simple (and require as few
> decisions as possible) to file something that I actually do it instead
> of postponing it.
>
> The system actually evolved along with the aforementioned shell script
> for scanning while I was scanning and filing about 20 exercise sheets
> (about four to twelve pages each) from the last semester to access them
> conveniently when preparing for the exams.
>
> I also noticed a while ago that very long org files become less
> intimidating once you learn to love C-x n s (org-narrow-to-subtree),
> which helped with my decision for one big file over many small ones. One
> big file also avoids cluttering the buffer list.
>
> - Jan,
>  who really should start a blog to do more detailed write-ups of this
> and similar things, because they are so much fun to write.
>
>
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