An Org-mode clone for Vim

An Org-mode clone for Vim

[Herbert Sitz]

I've been working on a Vim plugin that is file-compatible with Org-mode and that
clones a good subset of features.  It's gotten to the point where I'd like to
put it up on Github and see if anyone wants to use it and/or help develop it
with me.  So far I've implemented a good subset of Org's functionality and,
though it has a few rough edges, right now it could be perfectly usable for
certain people out there who prefer Vim as a text editor, but who have been
drawn to Emacs' Org-mode because of its features.  My project isn't at the point
where it has all the features or the polish of Org-mode, but many Org-mode users
use only a small subset of Org.  For people who prefer Vim and have subsets
coinciding with my project it could be an option.

I've made a video showing what it looks like and demonstrating some of the basic
outlining stuff.  I just uploaded it to Vimeo, and it tells me it will be
available for viewing in a couple hours (i.e., around 3:15pm PST today, Friday
Nov. 5,2010).  When available it will be viewable at this link:
http://vimeo.com/16543959

For someone who asks, 'Why would you bother to do this for Vim when it's already
done in Emacs?", I would have these responses:

1.  A lot of people don't like Emacs.  It is of course an insanely powerful
piece of software, but a lot of people can never get accustomed to the chord-key
command system, or if they do get semi-accustomed they don't like it or it
causes them physical pain.
2.  Some people are of the opinion that, while Emacs is admittedly a great
operating system/development environment, it lacks a decent text editor.  ;)
3.  Emacs and Vim (or Vim and Emacs) are king and queen atop the pile of text
editors.  What one has the other should have to, to the extent possible.
4.  I consider myself a Vim person, but I moved to Org-mode and Emacs myself
(made almost palatable to me by Viper and Vimpulse) because I wanted to be able
to publish outlines to PDF and HTML.  Vim has a couple decent outliners but
nobody has bothered to create good export systems for quality output.  I had
written some (non-publishing-related) extensions for one of the Vim outliners
and I knew it wouldn't be that hard to write something in Vim that was
file-compatible with Org-mode, which would then be able to publish to PDF and
HTML simply by calling out to an Emacs server.  This was my original goal and
it's done and works great.
5.  As I did some work I became more curious about all the task management and
organization features in Org-mode, and how they might be implemented in Vim.  So
I started coding up stuff for the various Org searches, agenda views, sparse
trees, column views, date management, etc.  This is actually fun to do and Vim
is well-suited for doing it.  So I've kept going.  I'm hoping someone else might
have an interest in doing this with me.
6. As I said in 5., developing this stuff is fun.

That's about it.  If there's any interest I'll do more videos showing how other
Org-mode features have been implemented in the Vim plugin, and where they stand
right now in the Vim plugin compared to Org-mode.

Regards,

Herb Sitz
Seattle, WA 

Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[A. Ryan Reynolds]

onethingwell.org just finished a week's worth of coverage on vim
outliners. I don't use vim, so I'm not particularly invested, but
introducing another one to the vim people might be a hard sell; there
already seem to be quite a number of options available on that
platform. On the other hand, if you can replicate all of Org's
features I've no doubt you'll succeed in winning them over! And in any
case, doing something for fun is a reward by itself.

-- 
A. Ryan Reynolds

Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[John Hendy]

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On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 2:39 PM, Herbert Sitz <hsitz@nwlink.com> wrote:

> I've been working on a Vim plugin that is file-compatible with Org-mode and
> that
> clones a good subset of features...


> I've made a video showing what it looks like and demonstrating some of the
> basic
> outlining stuff.  I just uploaded it to Vimeo, and it tells me it will be
> available for viewing in a couple hours (i.e., around 3:15pm PST today,
> Friday
> Nov. 5,2010).  When available it will be viewable at this link:
> http://vimeo.com/16543959


Wow! This is pretty neat. You've done some really cool things.


>
> For someone who asks, 'Why would you bother to do this for Vim when it's
> already
> done in Emacs?", I would have these responses:
>
> 1.  A lot of people don't like Emacs.  It is of course an insanely powerful
> piece of software, but a lot of people can never get accustomed to the
> chord-key
> command system, or if they do get semi-accustomed they don't like it or it
> causes them physical pain.
>

I started learning emacs only for org-mode and have never really used vim
except for editing a few config files when nano is not available. Since I
started with emacs and it has what I want (org-mode), I can't think of a
reason to learn yet another program with it's own set of shortcut oddities
:) I can relate to the shortcuts... Sometimes two in a row involving ctrl
makes me scratch my head. Though with emacs I'm pretty sure you can
literally change *anything* you want.

Also, since you're using the export features of org-mode, and as you said
you can use vimperator or whatever to emulate vim keystrokes in emacs... is
there anything *really* that you can do with the vim version that emacs
can't do? I *completely* understand #5 below -- do it just to do it and it's
fun. Other than that, though, aside from some navigation differences and the
(#_of_lines) at the end of folded headers I was unsure what was to be
different. Now you work in vim and just call org-mode to export?


> 2.  Some people are of the opinion that, while Emacs is admittedly a great
> operating system/development environment, it lacks a decent text editor.
>  ;)
>

I've heard this but never understood what was being said.


>
> That's about it.  If there's any interest I'll do more videos showing how
> other
> Org-mode features have been implemented in the Vim plugin, and where they
> stand
> right now in the Vim plugin compared to Org-mode.
>
>
After watching the video, my favorites that might be cool to see in org-mode
were:
- (#_of_lines) instead of ... at the end of headings. Very, very cool. I
like that. I also like that they were right flushed instead of right after
the word. Kind of makes it quite easy to see where there is hidden
information. This has come up before as a potential liability. There are
workarounds, but I particularly liked yours!

- Navigation. I *definitely *feel the emacs shortcut pain for certain
things. I don't mind exporting. I'm so used to it that I do C-x C-s C-c C-e
p without blinking to publish to PDF. *But*, I highly dislike things like
C-c C-[n/p] or C-c C-[f/b] for navigating headlines. Your arrow navigation
was appealing, perhaps only because I'm not as used to these shortcuts as
others. I find myself using two finger scroll, pg[up/dn] and
crtl+[right/left arrow] to move around much more than the emacs built-in
shortcuts. As I said earlier, though, surely they can be changed...  I just
haven't.

Great work and very cool project. Thanks for sharing and I really enjoyed
the video!


John


> Regards,
>
> Herb Sitz
> Seattle, WA
>
>
>
>
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> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
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>

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Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[Herbert Sitz]

John Hendy <jw.hendy <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> 
> Wow! This is pretty neat. You've done some really cool things.
>  

John -- Thanks for the kind words.  I've responded to some of your comments
below to clarify just what my project is and what it isn't.

> 
> I started learning emacs only for org-mode and have never really used vim
>except for editing a few config files when nano is not available. Since I
>started with emacs and it has what I want (org-mode), I can't think of a 
>reason to learn yet another program with it's own set of shortcut 
> oddities :) I can relate to the shortcuts... Sometimes two in a row 
> involving ctrl makes me scratch my head. Though with emacs I'm 
> pretty sure you can literally change anything you want.
> 
> Also, since you're using the export features of org-mode, 
> and as you said you can use vimperator or whatever to 
> emulate vim keystrokes in emacs... is there
> anything really that you can do with the vim version that emacs 
> can't do? I completely understand #5 below -- do it just to 
> do it and it's fun. Other than that, though, aside from some 
> navigation differences and the (#_of_lines) at the
> end of folded headers I was unsure what was to be different. 
> Now you work in vim and just call org-mode to export?
>  

You've got it right.  For someone who is comfortable with Emacs 
and Org-mode there's no reason at all for them to be interested 
in what I'm doing.  The appeal of my project is pretty much 
limited to those people who have a strong preference for using 
Vim rather than Emacs.  Even the people who strongly 
prefer Vim, if they are heavy Org-mode users and depend on a 
wide range of it features and multitude of options, might 
have little use for my project in its current state.


> 2.  Some people are of the opinion that, while Emacs is admittedly 
> a great
> operating system/development environment, it lacks a decent text 
> editor.  ;)
> 
> I've heard this but never understood what was being said.
>  

That comment is mostly an often repeated joke. I think it gets to a 
major difference between Emacs and Vim, which is that Emacs is used 
by many to become the central application they use, with all their
sub-applications implemented in Emacs-lisp.   Vim isn't really used 
that way, partly because it's not as suitable for it, and partly 
because its main author has taken a
stance against that sort of use, in favor of a more Unixey-approach
of merely interacting with outside applications.

> 
> - Navigation. I definitely feel the emacs shortcut pain for certain 
> things. I don't mind exporting. I'm so used to it that 
> do C-x C-s C-c C-e p without blinking to publish to PDF. 
> But, I highly dislike things like C-c C-[n/p] or C-c C-[f/b] for 
> navigating headlines. Your arrow navigation was appealing, 
> perhaps only because I'm not as used to these shortcuts as 
> others. I find myself using two finger scroll, pg[up/dn] and 
> crtl+[right/left arrow] to move around much
> more than the emacs built-in shortcuts. As I said earlier, 
> though, surely they can be changed...  I just haven't.

Yes, I agree that having navigation keys as multi-keypress chord 
combination is sub-optimal.  I'm sure remappings could be done in 
Org, hard thing might be deciding on what key combinations.  
The section-moving commands in Org-mode are already mapped to 
keys similar to the ones I use, don't require multi-keypress
chords even now.

> 
> Great work and very cool project. Thanks for sharing and I 
> really enjoyed the video!
> 

Thanks again,

Herb

Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[suvayu ali]

Hi Herbert,

This is an amazing effort! I specially like the # of hidden lines on
the right and the read only headlines when folded. I also felt editing
the tree seemed more fluid in your version of "org-mode". I will let
my vim using friends know about this project. Do post back when you
put the code on some publicly accessible repository.


Hi John,

On 5 November 2010 14:50, John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> wrote:
> But, I highly dislike things like C-c C-[n/p] or C-c C-[f/b] for navigating
> headlines. Your arrow navigation was appealing, perhaps only because I'm not
> as used to these shortcuts as others. I find myself using two finger scroll,
> pg[up/dn] and crtl+[right/left arrow] to move around much more than the
> emacs built-in shortcuts. As I said earlier, though, surely they can be
> changed...  I just haven't.

Maybe this will help you tweak the navigation commands to your needs.
https://github.com/suvayu/.emacs.d/blob/master/lisp/org-mode-settings.el#L81

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[Carsten Dominik]

Hi Herbert,

this looks pretty amazing - I had no feeling for how much would
be possible in vim.  I believe that this will make some people
quite happy, and I also think that it is a smart move
to avoid publishing headaches by calling out to Emacs.
I too like the number of hidden lines instead of ellipses
for the outlining and some other little things.  I hope
that you'll keep us up to date here - it looks like we
will be able to learn a few things from your work.

Congratulations

- Carsten

On Nov 5, 2010, at 8:39 PM, Herbert Sitz wrote:

> I've been working on a Vim plugin that is file-compatible with Org- 
> mode and that
> clones a good subset of features.  It's gotten to the point where  
> I'd like to
> put it up on Github and see if anyone wants to use it and/or help  
> develop it
> with me.  So far I've implemented a good subset of Org's  
> functionality and,
> though it has a few rough edges, right now it could be perfectly  
> usable for
> certain people out there who prefer Vim as a text editor, but who  
> have been
> drawn to Emacs' Org-mode because of its features.  My project isn't  
> at the point
> where it has all the features or the polish of Org-mode, but many  
> Org-mode users
> use only a small subset of Org.  For people who prefer Vim and have  
> subsets
> coinciding with my project it could be an option.
>
> I've made a video showing what it looks like and demonstrating some  
> of the basic
> outlining stuff.  I just uploaded it to Vimeo, and it tells me it  
> will be
> available for viewing in a couple hours (i.e., around 3:15pm PST  
> today, Friday
> Nov. 5,2010).  When available it will be viewable at this link:
> http://vimeo.com/16543959
>
> For someone who asks, 'Why would you bother to do this for Vim when  
> it's already
> done in Emacs?", I would have these responses:
>
> 1.  A lot of people don't like Emacs.  It is of course an insanely  
> powerful
> piece of software, but a lot of people can never get accustomed to  
> the chord-key
> command system, or if they do get semi-accustomed they don't like it  
> or it
> causes them physical pain.
> 2.  Some people are of the opinion that, while Emacs is admittedly a  
> great
> operating system/development environment, it lacks a decent text  
> editor.  ;)
> 3.  Emacs and Vim (or Vim and Emacs) are king and queen atop the  
> pile of text
> editors.  What one has the other should have to, to the extent  
> possible.
> 4.  I consider myself a Vim person, but I moved to Org-mode and  
> Emacs myself
> (made almost palatable to me by Viper and Vimpulse) because I wanted  
> to be able
> to publish outlines to PDF and HTML.  Vim has a couple decent  
> outliners but
> nobody has bothered to create good export systems for quality  
> output.  I had
> written some (non-publishing-related) extensions for one of the Vim  
> outliners
> and I knew it wouldn't be that hard to write something in Vim that was
> file-compatible with Org-mode, which would then be able to publish  
> to PDF and
> HTML simply by calling out to an Emacs server.  This was my original  
> goal and
> it's done and works great.
> 5.  As I did some work I became more curious about all the task  
> management and
> organization features in Org-mode, and how they might be implemented  
> in Vim.  So
> I started coding up stuff for the various Org searches, agenda  
> views, sparse
> trees, column views, date management, etc.  This is actually fun to  
> do and Vim
> is well-suited for doing it.  So I've kept going.  I'm hoping  
> someone else might
> have an interest in doing this with me.
> 6. As I said in 5., developing this stuff is fun.
>
> That's about it.  If there's any interest I'll do more videos  
> showing how other
> Org-mode features have been implemented in the Vim plugin, and where  
> they stand
> right now in the Vim plugin compared to Org-mode.
>
> Regards,
>
> Herb Sitz
> Seattle, WA
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode

Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[Detlef Steuer]

On Fri, 5 Nov 2010 19:39:56 +0000 (UTC)
Herbert Sitz <hsitz@nwlink.com> wrote:

> I've been working on a Vim plugin that is file-compatible with Org-mode and that
> clones a good subset of features.  It's gotten to the point where I'd like to
> put it up on Github and see if anyone wants to use it and/or help develop it
> with me.  So far I've implemented a good subset of Org's functionality and,
> though it has a few rough edges, right now it could be perfectly usable for
> certain people out there who prefer Vim as a text editor, but who have been
> drawn to Emacs' Org-mode because of its features.  My project isn't at the point
> where it has all the features or the polish of Org-mode, but many Org-mode users
> use only a small subset of Org.  For people who prefer Vim and have subsets
> coinciding with my project it could be an option.
> 
> I've made a video showing what it looks like and demonstrating some of the basic
> outlining stuff.  I just uploaded it to Vimeo, and it tells me it will be
> available for viewing in a couple hours (i.e., around 3:15pm PST today, Friday
> Nov. 5,2010).  When available it will be viewable at this link:
> http://vimeo.com/16543959
> 

Wow! 

There is another reason, why this can be very, very useful: If you work in a team it becomes very hard to introduce a file format which more or less requires emacs. I.e. I have a colleague who has vim hard coded into his brain. He never ever would think about starting to use emacs. Now, may be, I can convince him to collaborate in orgmode structured files. That alone is worth the effort.  

Furthermore it may be useful to use vim over ssh+screen for simple access to your orgmode files even if you use the full power at your desk.

Was there a link somewhere to try it out? Would be nice!

Did you reach a point where it interacts with vim's R plugin? That's quite usabel nowadays.

Thank you for sharing!

Detlef

> For someone who asks, 'Why would you bother to do this for Vim when it's already
> done in Emacs?", I would have these responses:
> 
> 1.  A lot of people don't like Emacs.  It is of course an insanely powerful
> piece of software, but a lot of people can never get accustomed to the chord-key
> command system, or if they do get semi-accustomed they don't like it or it
> causes them physical pain.
> 2.  Some people are of the opinion that, while Emacs is admittedly a great
> operating system/development environment, it lacks a decent text editor.  ;)
> 3.  Emacs and Vim (or Vim and Emacs) are king and queen atop the pile of text
> editors.  What one has the other should have to, to the extent possible.
> 4.  I consider myself a Vim person, but I moved to Org-mode and Emacs myself
> (made almost palatable to me by Viper and Vimpulse) because I wanted to be able
> to publish outlines to PDF and HTML.  Vim has a couple decent outliners but
> nobody has bothered to create good export systems for quality output.  I had
> written some (non-publishing-related) extensions for one of the Vim outliners
> and I knew it wouldn't be that hard to write something in Vim that was
> file-compatible with Org-mode, which would then be able to publish to PDF and
> HTML simply by calling out to an Emacs server.  This was my original goal and
> it's done and works great.
> 5.  As I did some work I became more curious about all the task management and
> organization features in Org-mode, and how they might be implemented in Vim.  So
> I started coding up stuff for the various Org searches, agenda views, sparse
> trees, column views, date management, etc.  This is actually fun to do and Vim
> is well-suited for doing it.  So I've kept going.  I'm hoping someone else might
> have an interest in doing this with me.
> 6. As I said in 5., developing this stuff is fun.
> 
> That's about it.  If there's any interest I'll do more videos showing how other
> Org-mode features have been implemented in the Vim plugin, and where they stand
> right now in the Vim plugin compared to Org-mode.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Herb Sitz
> Seattle, WA 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
> 

Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[Jean-Marie Gaillourdet]

Hi, 

congratulation to such an excellent project!

Herbert Sitz <hsitz@nwlink.com> writes:

> I've been working on a Vim plugin that is file-compatible with Org-mode and that
> clones a good subset of features.  It's gotten to the point where I'd like to
> put it up on Github and see if anyone wants to use it and/or help develop it
> with me.  So far I've implemented a good subset of Org's functionality and,
> though it has a few rough edges, right now it could be perfectly usable for
> certain people out there who prefer Vim as a text editor, but who have been
> drawn to Emacs' Org-mode because of its features.  My project isn't at the point
> where it has all the features or the polish of Org-mode, but many Org-mode users
> use only a small subset of Org.  For people who prefer Vim and have subsets
> coinciding with my project it could be an option.
>
> I've made a video showing what it looks like and demonstrating some of the basic
> outlining stuff.  I just uploaded it to Vimeo, and it tells me it will be
> available for viewing in a couple hours (i.e., around 3:15pm PST today, Friday
> Nov. 5,2010).  When available it will be viewable at this link:
> http://vimeo.com/16543959
>
> For someone who asks, 'Why would you bother to do this for Vim when it's already
> done in Emacs?", I would have these responses:
>
> 1.  A lot of people don't like Emacs.  It is of course an insanely powerful
> piece of software, but a lot of people can never get accustomed to the chord-key
> command system, or if they do get semi-accustomed they don't like it or it
> causes them physical pain.
> 2.  Some people are of the opinion that, while Emacs is admittedly a great
> operating system/development environment, it lacks a decent text editor.  ;)
> 3.  Emacs and Vim (or Vim and Emacs) are king and queen atop the pile of text
> editors.  What one has the other should have to, to the extent possible.
> 4.  I consider myself a Vim person, but I moved to Org-mode and Emacs myself
> (made almost palatable to me by Viper and Vimpulse) because I wanted to be able
> to publish outlines to PDF and HTML.  Vim has a couple decent outliners but
> nobody has bothered to create good export systems for quality output.  I had
> written some (non-publishing-related) extensions for one of the Vim outliners
> and I knew it wouldn't be that hard to write something in Vim that was
> file-compatible with Org-mode, which would then be able to publish to PDF and
> HTML simply by calling out to an Emacs server.  This was my original goal and
> it's done and works great.

I complete understand your point here, I did the tiniest possible bit of
org-mode emulation in vim, by my self. After more then 10 years of
emacs, I came to realize they beauty and efficiency of the modal input
model used by vim. Since then, I've tried to either make emacs behave
like vim or to make vim behave like emacs. My current approach is to use
emacs with viper+vimpulse+viper-in-more-modes+self_written adaptions and
there are still many things which require to type long chords of
shortcuts. 

I am looking forward to try your vim plugin, since I still use vim for
quick editing tasks.

> 5.  As I did some work I became more curious about all the task management and
> organization features in Org-mode, and how they might be implemented in Vim.  So
> I started coding up stuff for the various Org searches, agenda views, sparse
> trees, column views, date management, etc.  This is actually fun to do and Vim
> is well-suited for doing it.  So I've kept going.  I'm hoping someone else might
> have an interest in doing this with me.
> 6. As I said in 5., developing this stuff is fun.
>
> That's about it.  If there's any interest I'll do more videos showing how other
> Org-mode features have been implemented in the Vim plugin, and where they stand
> right now in the Vim plugin compared to Org-mode.

I am definitly interested. Keep up the good work. 

Regards,
  Jean-Marie

Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[Jean-Marie Gaillourdet]

Hi Ryan, 

"A. Ryan Reynolds" <a.ryan.reynolds@gmail.com> writes:

> onethingwell.org just finished a week's worth of coverage on vim
> outliners. I don't use vim, so I'm not particularly invested, but
> introducing another one to the vim people might be a hard sell; there
> already seem to be quite a number of options available on that
> platform. On the other hand, if you can replicate all of Org's
> features I've no doubt you'll succeed in winning them over! And in any
> case, doing something for fun is a reward by itself.

I've tried most vim outliners in spring. And I doubt it'll be a hard
sell. Most of them were dead or simply not comparable
to org's easy and intuitive way of outlining. 

For example, TVO -- The Vim Outliner [1] -- , which is most often referenced
as the standard and most powerfull vim outliner plugin, is basically
dead. Last release happened in 2006. 

Regards,
  Jean-Marie

[1] http://bike-nomad.com/vim/vimoutliner.html

Re: Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[Eric S Fraga]

Detlef Steuer <detlef.steuer@gmx.de> writes:

> On Fri, 5 Nov 2010 19:39:56 +0000 (UTC)
> Herbert Sitz <hsitz@nwlink.com> wrote:
>
>> I've been working on a Vim plugin that is file-compatible with
>> Org-mode and that clones a good subset of features.

This is fantastic news!  Although I have been using emacs for 25+ years,
I have been using vi longer... and I still have hjkl burned into my
neural pathways as the correct way to move around in a file.  Although
I'm unlikely to move away from emacs for most work, being able to use vi
to manipulate my org files would be liberating and particularly useful
because:

> Furthermore it may be useful to use vim over ssh+screen for simple
> access to your orgmode files even if you use the full power at your
> desk.

I currently use ssh to connect to my office computer from my Android
phone and then start emacs within screen.  It would be faster and easier
to use vi, especially because the modal system is more suited for the
type of on-screen keyboard you get on these phones.

I look forward to being able to try this soon!

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 23.2.1
: using Org-mode version 7.02trans (release_7.3.28.g8744.dirty)

Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[Urs Rau (UK)]

Herbert,

Wow! Thanks. great work. I really like the org-mode functionality, but I just can't get my head to grasp the whole emacs philosophy and series of key chords. I am a long time user of vi and have tried many a time over the years to pick up using emacs, but it always took a lot of effort and always eventually fizzled out, as I was faster and more productive with vi. But I never had a 'every day' need like using org-mode that might have kept me on track. 

But your effort is very timely for me, as I was already slipping away from using org-mode in emacs, as the whole emacs overhead was undoing the productivity gains org-mode was buying me.

Keep up the good work, and please let use know , with a link posted here, when the code is up on github and we can start using and cleaning it. 

Thanks
 
-- 
Urs Rau

Re: An Org-mode clone for Vim

[Nathan Neff]

Herbert, this is fantastic news.

My background is mainly with Vim, but I am very open to learning other software.

I can understand people who don't want to relearn keybindings, etc,
but I work on many
platforms and have that problem all the time anyway :-).

I'm a member of a "vim-geeks" group in St. Louis, and I demoed Org-mode to them
last week.  The idea of implementing org-mode in Vim was brought up,
and I'm sure
there are some very talented Vim-scripters in our group who would be
interested in your
plugin/org-mode system.

I'll forward this thread to the vim-geeks group -- please keep up your
effort!  I think it would
be fun to be able to really use org-mode from inside Vim.  In
addition, we might be able to help
you implement some features, or provide feedback.

--Nate

On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 2:39 PM, Herbert Sitz <hsitz@nwlink.com> wrote:
> I've been working on a Vim plugin that is file-compatible with Org-mode and that
> clones a good subset of features.  It's gotten to the point where I'd like to
> put it up on Github and see if anyone wants to use it and/or help develop it
> with me.  So far I've implemented a good subset of Org's functionality and,
> though it has a few rough edges, right now it could be perfectly usable for
> certain people out there who prefer Vim as a text editor, but who have been
> drawn to Emacs' Org-mode because of its features.  My project isn't at the point
> where it has all the features or the polish of Org-mode, but many Org-mode users
> use only a small subset of Org.  For people who prefer Vim and have subsets
> coinciding with my project it could be an option.
>
> I've made a video showing what it looks like and demonstrating some of the basic
> outlining stuff.  I just uploaded it to Vimeo, and it tells me it will be
> available for viewing in a couple hours (i.e., around 3:15pm PST today, Friday
> Nov. 5,2010).  When available it will be viewable at this link:
> http://vimeo.com/16543959
>
> For someone who asks, 'Why would you bother to do this for Vim when it's already
> done in Emacs?", I would have these responses:
>
> 1.  A lot of people don't like Emacs.  It is of course an insanely powerful
> piece of software, but a lot of people can never get accustomed to the chord-key
> command system, or if they do get semi-accustomed they don't like it or it
> causes them physical pain.
> 2.  Some people are of the opinion that, while Emacs is admittedly a great
> operating system/development environment, it lacks a decent text editor.  ;)
> 3.  Emacs and Vim (or Vim and Emacs) are king and queen atop the pile of text
> editors.  What one has the other should have to, to the extent possible.
> 4.  I consider myself a Vim person, but I moved to Org-mode and Emacs myself
> (made almost palatable to me by Viper and Vimpulse) because I wanted to be able
> to publish outlines to PDF and HTML.  Vim has a couple decent outliners but
> nobody has bothered to create good export systems for quality output.  I had
> written some (non-publishing-related) extensions for one of the Vim outliners
> and I knew it wouldn't be that hard to write something in Vim that was
> file-compatible with Org-mode, which would then be able to publish to PDF and
> HTML simply by calling out to an Emacs server.  This was my original goal and
> it's done and works great.
> 5.  As I did some work I became more curious about all the task management and
> organization features in Org-mode, and how they might be implemented in Vim.  So
> I started coding up stuff for the various Org searches, agenda views, sparse
> trees, column views, date management, etc.  This is actually fun to do and Vim
> is well-suited for doing it.  So I've kept going.  I'm hoping someone else might
> have an interest in doing this with me.
> 6. As I said in 5., developing this stuff is fun.
>
> That's about it.  If there's any interest I'll do more videos showing how other
> Org-mode features have been implemented in the Vim plugin, and where they stand
> right now in the Vim plugin compared to Org-mode.
>
> Regards,
>
> Herb Sitz
> Seattle, WA
>
>
>
>
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