orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Marcelo de Moraes Serpa]

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Hello everyone,

As much as I love orgmode, I can't deny that Evernote looks slick. I would
not replace org by Evernote per se, but Evernote does have more polished
capture tools than orgmode has. Just the simple fact that you can drag and
drop anything to an Evernote note, and it will automatically store/display
it accordingly is great.

I'm considering using Evernote for capturing research notes (alongside
images and other kind of attachments). Does anyone else here also use
Evernote? I'd also like to use it mainly as a "polished client", and sync
the docs back to orgmode somehow. I know there's the Evernote mode for
emacs, but I haven't tried it yet.

Anyway, I think org and Evernote *could* be an interesting combo;
nevertheless, I'll be satisfied if this message triggers  some interesting
discussion about those two great tools.

Cheers,

- Marcelo.

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Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Eden Cardim]

>>>>> "Marcelo" == Marcelo de Moraes Serpa <celoserpa@gmail.com> writes:

    Marcelo> Hello everyone, As much as I love orgmode, I can't deny
    Marcelo> that Evernote looks slick. I would not replace org by
    Marcelo> Evernote per se, but Evernote does have more polished
    Marcelo> capture tools than orgmode has. Just the simple fact that
    Marcelo> you can drag and drop anything to an Evernote note, and
    Marcelo> it will automatically store/display it accordingly is
    Marcelo> great.

Dragging is what bothers me. I practically live inside emacs and
pressing one key to capture stuff is about 5 times faster than doing
it by dragging, that is, if the app I want to capture from happens to
be on the same desktop. I have grown a habit of capturing absolutely
everything, which is eased by the fact that I redirect everything I
can to IRC or my mailbox, which gives me a very efficient note-taking
and communication system. I also have the capability of capturing
links to stuff on a remote system (which Evernote can't do). Also,
Evernote has no integrated calendar, which really hurts, in org I can
capture and add a scheduled/deadline timestamp to the item which
effectively implements GTD's recommendation of "using the item itself
as a reminder". The only useful thing I've ever done with Evernote is
take advantage of the OCR search, which means I can capture physical
things fast with the smartphone and find them later via search, like
bookmarking a page from a physical book or capturing a business card.

-- 
<Polytope> tetris is so unrealistic

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Marcelo de Moraes Serpa]

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You make some very good points, Eden.

Dragging is what bothers me.


I used to use Emacs for a lot of other stuff before, but decided to be more
pragmatic and enjoy apps outside it as well. I don't currently live inside
Emacs (in fact, I've ended up switching to MacVim for most of my coding
tasks, but that was before Evil was available, and I might take the time to
switch my env to Emacs again someday, now that there is a decent Vim
emulation layer), and I use other OSX apps. OSX is very graphical. Being
able to quickly drag and drop items in an Emacs org buffer would be a plus,
and would also be helpful to less technically-savvy/more graphically
oriented people willing to use org.

I have grown a habit of capturing absolutely
> everything, which is eased by the fact that I redirect everything I
> can to IRC or my mailbox, which gives me a very efficient note-taking
> and communication system


That sounds *very* interesting. Would you mind sharing a bit more about
your system? I'm specially curious about the capture tools you're using
(IRC?).

I also have the capability of capturing
> links to stuff on a remote system (which Evernote can't do).


Good point.

The only useful thing I've ever done with Evernote is
> take advantage of the OCR search, which means I can capture physical
> things fast with the smartphone and find them later via search


True. That's a very useful Evernote capture feature, very convenient when
you just don't feel like writing.

Now, I agree orgmode has the edge, specially for the geekier audience, but
Evernote has some great capture tools, tools that could be ported to org
(food for thought) or used in conjunction.

Cheers!

- Marcelo.

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Eden Cardim <eden@insoli.de> wrote:

> >>>>> "Marcelo" == Marcelo de Moraes Serpa <celoserpa@gmail.com> writes:
>
>     Marcelo> Hello everyone, As much as I love orgmode, I can't deny
>     Marcelo> that Evernote looks slick. I would not replace org by
>     Marcelo> Evernote per se, but Evernote does have more polished
>     Marcelo> capture tools than orgmode has. Just the simple fact that
>     Marcelo> you can drag and drop anything to an Evernote note, and
>     Marcelo> it will automatically store/display it accordingly is
>     Marcelo> great.
>
> Dragging is what bothers me. I practically live inside emacs and
> pressing one key to capture stuff is about 5 times faster than doing
> it by dragging, that is, if the app I want to capture from happens to
> be on the same desktop. I have grown a habit of capturing absolutely
> everything, which is eased by the fact that I redirect everything I
> can to IRC or my mailbox, which gives me a very efficient note-taking
> and communication system. I also have the capability of capturing
> links to stuff on a remote system (which Evernote can't do). Also,
> Evernote has no integrated calendar, which really hurts, in org I can
> capture and add a scheduled/deadline timestamp to the item which
> effectively implements GTD's recommendation of "using the item itself
> as a reminder". The only useful thing I've ever done with Evernote is
> take advantage of the OCR search, which means I can capture physical
> things fast with the smartphone and find them later via search, like
> bookmarking a page from a physical book or capturing a business card.
>
> --
> <Polytope> tetris is so unrealistic
>
>
>

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Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Eden Cardim]

>>>>> "Marcelo" == Marcelo de Moraes Serpa <celoserpa@gmail.com> writes:
    Marcelo> I used to use Emacs for a lot of other stuff before, but
    Marcelo> decided to be more pragmatic and enjoy apps outside it as
    Marcelo> well.

"Using apps outside" isn't synonymous with "being pragmatic". Having
everything inside a single app (emacs) helps a lot. I can immediately
use it on another system with minimal fuss. I don't have to memorize a
new set of shortcuts every time I incorporate a new tool. I do use
tools that prove to be more effective, when they are (one of these is
omnigraffle, which I fire up via an org mode link), the problem is
that it's hard to match the speed of a well-trained emacs geek with a
set of GUI-based apps that weren't designed to work together.

    Marcelo> [...]
    Marcelo>  OSX is very graphical.

Which sucks, IMO.

    Marcelo> Being able to quickly drag and drop items in an Emacs org
    Marcelo> buffer would be a plus, and would also be helpful to less
    Marcelo> technically-savvy/more graphically oriented people
    Marcelo> willing to use org.

I don't think org will ever be used by people who are non-tech-savvy
or graphically oriented, it wasn't designed for that, it's designed
for tweak-freak geeks.

    Marcelo> That sounds *very* interesting. Would you mind sharing a
    Marcelo> bit more about your system? I'm specially curious about
    Marcelo> the capture tools you're using (IRC?).

Basically, I use bitlbee which is an IRC gateway to
jabber/msn/twitter. I use ERC to connect to bitlbee and several IRC
networks. At one point I had a function that display todos according
to who was online, then I moved to a less reactive workflow and
stopped using it. I use the reqall app to capture things by voice and
there's a reqall jabber bot that messages me, then all I need to do is
capture stuff from inside the chat buffer (see org-capture-templates).

I use gnus for both mail and news, from there, I launch firefox if I
have to. I have lots of repetitive "status check" todos on my agenda,
which have links in them, such as:

[[elisp:(message-mail "foo@bar.com" "status check")]].

These take an average of 5 seconds each to send out, not 30 seconds
were I to do it via the GUI (I know because I time everything via org)
and quickly get bored of it because it's too slow. My invoices are
also done via an elisp function which exports my clocktable, previews,
attaches it to an email and leaves me inside a the mail buffer where I
only need to type a custom message body. There's also wiki pages I
need to update where I can just link via elisp and have them open in
mediawiki-mode with a template already filled in. Same for mailing
conversation logs, replying to tech support mail with code via babel,
etc.

Links are the basis for decent planning, I spend half of my day in
planning mode where I write links for everything I'm gonna do while
I'm in "cranking mode". When I switch over to cranking mode, I just
open whatever the task is linking to (like source code, an email, a
document, a web article, etc.) and that's enough to switch my brain
over to the context of that task and I can just get to work.

There's just no combination of OSX apps that give me the same type of
power. I'd have to reduce the pace of my life if I didn't use
org-mode.

    Marcelo> True. That's a very useful Evernote capture feature, very
    Marcelo> convenient when you just don't feel like writing.

I have no problem with writing, but sometimes I don't have writing
tools with me, but I always have my phone. Also, getting rid of
physical items helps clean up your lifestyle in general. My house used
to be filled up with bits and scraps of paper, business cards, ad
folders, etc. Now while I still have some paper, there's a lot less of
it to manage.

    Marcelo> Now, I agree orgmode has the edge, specially for the
    Marcelo> geekier audience, but Evernote has some great capture
    Marcelo> tools, tools that could be ported to org (food for
    Marcelo> thought) or used in conjunction.

Like what? I haven't seen anything useful besides the "photograph a
note" feature. The rest of it is just shortcut keys and I don't
consider DND to be useful for capturing, it's just too slow and
tedious. Capturing has to be as quick as pushing a button on a camera,
otherwise you stop doing it.

-- 
<Polytope> tetris is so unrealistic

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Alan Schmitt]

Eden Cardim <eden@insoli.de> writes:

> Links are the basis for decent planning, I spend half of my day in
> planning mode where I write links for everything I'm gonna do while
> I'm in "cranking mode". When I switch over to cranking mode, I just
> open whatever the task is linking to (like source code, an email, a
> document, a web article, etc.) and that's enough to switch my brain
> over to the context of that task and I can just get to work.

Do you have a reliable system to link to emails? I've been working on
this and I'm not too satisfied yet.

> I have no problem with writing, but sometimes I don't have writing
> tools with me, but I always have my phone.

I'm curious about this too: how do you integrate your phone in this
setup?

Thanks,

Alan

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Eden Cardim]

>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:
    Alan> Do you have a reliable system to link to emails? I've been
    Alan> working on this and I'm not too satisfied yet.

Not sure what you mean by reliable. I use offlineimap to sync my mail
to a local dovecot which I access by tunneling gnus to it. This means
I can access emails anywhere, like on a plane.

    Alan> I'm curious about this too: how do you integrate your phone
    Alan> in this setup?

I export an ical periodically, which my phone is subscribed to for
reminders. For evernote I'm subscribed to the rss feed of a notebook
via org. Basically, I only use evernote as a
capture/visualization/search tool. The management happens within org.

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Alan Schmitt]

Eden Cardim <eden@insoli.de> writes:

>>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:
>     Alan> Do you have a reliable system to link to emails? I've been
>     Alan> working on this and I'm not too satisfied yet.
>
> Not sure what you mean by reliable. I use offlineimap to sync my mail
> to a local dovecot which I access by tunneling gnus to it. This means
> I can access emails anywhere, like on a plane.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I have the same setup. My question is: how do you
get a link from org to gnus that still works even if messages are moved
around. I tried nnregistry but it stopped working after I upgraded to
Emacs 24.2, so I'd be happy for other solutions.

>     Alan> I'm curious about this too: how do you integrate your phone
>     Alan> in this setup?
>
> I export an ical periodically, which my phone is subscribed to for
> reminders. For evernote I'm subscribed to the rss feed of a notebook
> via org. Basically, I only use evernote as a
> capture/visualization/search tool. The management happens within org.

So things that are captured in evernote stay there to be searched later?
Do you link from org to evernote? And do you have data flow from org to
evernote?

(I'm asking all these questions because my current capture mode when I'm
away from the computer is to send myself an email, which is not very
efficient… so I'd be glad to understand other processes.)

Thanks,

Alan

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Eden Cardim]

>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:
    Alan> Sorry I wasn't clear. I have the same setup. My question is:
    Alan> how do you get a link from org to gnus that still works even
    Alan> if messages are moved around. I tried nnregistry but it
    Alan> stopped working after I upgraded to Emacs 24.2, so I'd be
    Alan> happy for other solutions.

I don't use gnus itself for managing mail, so I don't move things
around in it. I keep everything in the imap inbox (except for mailing
list things, etc.), and use org to manage links to the mail messages.

    Alan> So things that are captured in evernote stay there to be
    Alan> searched later?  Do you link from org to evernote?

Yes, I link to the rss entry, which displays the note in the web
interface. If I happen to be offline, I can search manually inside the
evernote app for that note, not very efficient, but this is rarely the
case, so I don't feel the need to optimize for it.

    Alan> And do you have data flow from org to evernote?

No, nothing ever flows from org to evernote. Evernote is just a
capture/search/visualize tool.

    Alan> (I'm asking all these questions because my current capture
    Alan> mode when I'm away from the computer is to send myself an
    Alan> email, which is not very efficient… so I'd be glad to
    Alan> understand other processes.)

As mentioned before, I sometimes use evernote for a photograph and
reqall for dictation, both of those land inside my org files one way
or the other.

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Robert Horn]

Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:

> Eden Cardim <eden@insoli.de> writes:
>
>>>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:
>>     Alan> Do you have a reliable system to link to emails? I've been
>>     Alan> working on this and I'm not too satisfied yet.
>>
>> Not sure what you mean by reliable. I use offlineimap to sync my mail
>> to a local dovecot which I access by tunneling gnus to it. This means
>> I can access emails anywhere, like on a plane.
>
> Sorry I wasn't clear. I have the same setup. My question is: how do you
> get a link from org to gnus that still works even if messages are moved
> around. I tried nnregistry but it stopped working after I upgraded to
> Emacs 24.2, so I'd be happy for other solutions.
>

I use a combination of "notmuch" and "notes".  It's reliable in the
sense that you mean about surviving file shuffling, because both link
based on a MailID.  The hybrid mail structure is forced on me by the
requirements of my employer (they require the use of Lotus Notes) and
separation of my personal mail.  I don't recommend it if you have any
alternative.

My "notmuch" is set up with mail in various MailDir structures.  That's
all covered in notmuch.el.  I think it would be equally robust for all
the different structures that notmuch can use.

I could add a link type for Lotus Notes because it has a command
line mode that you can invoke specifying the Notes mail ID.  Drag and drop
provides that information.  The invocation of:

/cygdrive/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Lotus/Notes/notes
notes:///852568800070EEAE/38D46BF5E8F08834852564B500129B2C/F462D53F85901A684E24D4139A7CDA52

will bring up that mail ID.  Setup and use is awkward, but not hopeless.
I drag the mail into an Emacs window, then run a bit of lisp to convert
the windows link into an org-mode link format.

R Horn

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Nick Dokos]

Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> wrote:

> Eden Cardim <eden@insoli.de> writes:
> 
> >>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:
> >     Alan> Do you have a reliable system to link to emails? I've been
> >     Alan> working on this and I'm not too satisfied yet.
> >
> > Not sure what you mean by reliable. I use offlineimap to sync my mail
> > to a local dovecot which I access by tunneling gnus to it. This means
> > I can access emails anywhere, like on a plane.
> 
> Sorry I wasn't clear. I have the same setup. My question is: how do you
> get a link from org to gnus that still works even if messages are moved
> around. I tried nnregistry but it stopped working after I upgraded to
> Emacs 24.2, so I'd be happy for other solutions.
> 

I use a different setup so it won't answer your question directly, but
maybe it will shed some light: I use mh-e and links to email use the
message ID (Robert Horn describes a similar setup with notmuch in
another email in this thread). Links look like this:

[[mhe:%2Binbox#m2obksncnv.fsf@top-wifi.irisa.fr][Email from Alan Schmitt: Re: {O} orgmode + evernote, an]]

where the message ID is m2obksncnv.fsf@top-wifi.irisa.fr.

The message ID is preserved even if I move messages to other
folders. So as long as your search engine searches by message ID, you
should be all set, except that you might have to resync the database of
your search engine, if it uses one.

In fact, I use mairix to index my mail[fn:1], so after moving things
around, I have to run mairix to reindex. In my case, that takes about
2.5GB of memory and about 40 seconds. This was a killer with my previous
laptop which had 1GB of memory: it would swap like crazy and end up
taking 15mins or so for the reindex, clearly unworkable: I ended
cleaning up email and kicking off mairix once a day, just before going
to bed. Now I have 4GB of memory and I'm a happy camper: I can reindex
whenever I like.

Nick

Footnotes:

[fn:1]  I have too much mail so I can't use the default mh-e search
	pick/grep method - it would take forever, even limited to a
	single folder; mairix, btw, does not care about folders: it
	searches everything.

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Alan Schmitt]

Thanks a lot to you and Robert for the tips.

Alan

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

On Wed, Sep 26 2012, Alan Schmitt wrote:

> Eden Cardim <eden@insoli.de> writes:
>
>>>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:
>>     Alan> Do you have a reliable system to link to emails? I've been
>>     Alan> working on this and I'm not too satisfied yet.
>>
>> Not sure what you mean by reliable. I use offlineimap to sync my mail
>> to a local dovecot which I access by tunneling gnus to it. This means
>> I can access emails anywhere, like on a plane.
>
> Sorry I wasn't clear. I have the same setup. My question is: how do you
> get a link from org to gnus that still works even if messages are moved
> around. I tried nnregistry but it stopped working after I upgraded to
> Emacs 24.2, so I'd be happy for other solutions.

I'm using the gnus registry for exactly this, and it works fine
(development version of gnus). It's not called 'nnregistry' here, could
they be different things? I'm just calling

(gnus-registry-initialize)

And then setting some relevant variables -- works like a charm.

E

-- 
GNU Emacs 24.2.50.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.4.4)
 of 2012-09-16 on pellet
7.9.1

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Alan Schmitt]

Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com> writes:

> The message ID is preserved even if I move messages to other
> folders. So as long as your search engine searches by message ID, you
> should be all set, except that you might have to resync the database of
> your search engine, if it uses one.

I guess this is the crux of my problem: I don't know how to tell gnus to
search some mail by message ID if it's not in the group it was
initially. I'll dig into this and will report here when I find a
solution.

Thanks,

Alan

Re: orgmode + evernote, anyone using it? Use cases?

[Alan Schmitt]

Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:

> Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com> writes:
>
>> The message ID is preserved even if I move messages to other
>> folders. So as long as your search engine searches by message ID, you
>> should be all set, except that you might have to resync the database of
>> your search engine, if it uses one.
>
> I guess this is the crux of my problem: I don't know how to tell gnus to
> search some mail by message ID if it's not in the group it was
> initially. I'll dig into this and will report here when I find a
> solution.

Thanks to Memnon's advice (off list), I was able to track down the
problem. For some reason, the nnregistry file would sometimes not be
updated (it's the .gnus.registry.eioio file) and links would not work.
Saving the file manually (using 's' in the *Group* buffer) fixes it.

Alan