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Emacs Org-mode - a system for note-taking and project planning

Google TechTalks

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YouTube
  • Recommended by 6 people: 5 on Hacker News and 1 in engineering communities.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2009 to 2024.
  • Presented by Carsten Dominik, creator of Org-mode

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

331K views18 years ago6 recommendations

Tools and practiceHistory and cultureVim, Emacs and editorsDeveloper productivityHistory of computing

Carsten Dominik introduces Org-mode, an Emacs subsystem for plain-text note-taking, project planning, and spreadsheets.

Google Tech Talks July 15, 2008 ABSTRACT Org-mode is a large Emacs sub-systems that has been integrated into Emacs with the version 22.1 release. From it original intend, Org-mode is a system for structured note-taking and project planning. It uses strictly plain text files, making it a truly portable, system-independent solution. The project-planning features are implemented using a fairly simple outlining paradigm, upon which meta-data concepts like due dates, priorities, TODO states and tags are overlayed in a non-intrusive way. Besides outlining the system and its basic concepts, I will give background information into the history of Org-mode and discuss the properties of such an evolved system compared to a top-down designed one. Finally, I will also briefly touch on some technical aspects that may be interesting for Emacs wizards and developers. Speaker: Carsten Dominik

Why it's here

6 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as a great introduction to Org-mode that helps beginners understand its value and get started.

Moments people linked to

u/jpf137in r/emacs • Recommends

Emacs Org-mode - a system for note-taking and project planning

baddoxon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Grokking Org-mode and putting it in charge”

It's funny. I've been using Emacs as my sole editor for about 8 months now, but I still haven't been able to reach enlightenment with org-mode. I have it installed, and I occasionally use it for todo lists, but I guess I'm just not good enough with it to see its value. I think the main stumbling block is the documentation (as with most things Emacs). There needs to be some use cases or something. Even the enthusiastic bloggers never seen to give concrete examples. The best advertisement for org-mode I've seen is this long Google Tech Talk: link to this video

BeetleBon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Toward a “modern” Emacs”

…a simple matter of the keybinding: C-c C-x C-l Details from the manual: link Perhaps a friendlier guide: link If you're not familiar with org-mode, it is highly recommended. Its learning curve is quite shallow. I'm sure there are tutorials out there, but for me the Google Tech Talk was enough to get me started and convince me I should use it: link to this video Ever since I encountered org mode, I author everything with it: LaTeX, HTML, DOC files, etc.…

aduricon Hacker News • Recommends

On “HN: I just started my own company, any recommended task management software?”

If you're familiar with Emacs you can use Org-mode. There's actually a pretty good video from its creator that shows you the main features: link to this video

RMPRon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Measuring "efficiency" in document prepration: Microsoft Word vs. LaTex”

Actually you can use org-mode without that much of a learning curve (at least in its basic form). Just pick an Emacs distribution (doom, spacemacs, ...) which come with pretty handy defaults, create an org-file and that's it. I use org-mode myself and didn't take the time to "learn" Emacs. This Google talk0 was pretty handy to get familiar with org. 0: link to this video

emporason Hacker News • Recommends

On “Scientists rename genes to stop Microsoft Excel from misreading them as dates (2020)”

One good solution rather than Excel is org-mode. See the original Google talk by org-mode creator 1. At some point 30 minutes or so, he explains how to use org-mode as a spreadsheet. Not so powerful as Excel, even though missing features might be trivially added. I haven't tried it myself but i want to really dive into it's functionality. Org-mode is really great at many things, spreadsheets might as well be one more. 1 link to this video

u/paarulakanin r/emacs • Mentions

what pulled you into emacs? I watched this video when I was in college and looking for a PIM. \[[video I started using emacs on side for a while, but code::blocks was still my go to IDE for serious works at the time. And some time later I found this and that pulled me into emacs completely. \[[video How did you find your way into emacs? More importantly if you want to impress your friend so that you can lure them into emacs universe what video or resource would you wield?

u/Status-Detective-783in r/emacs • Mentions

What do you use for quickly jotting down random notes? Back in 2008, Carsten Dominik referred to using a package remember.el for quickly jotting down side notes. Do people still generally use that? Or has something else come along to take it's place? (YouTube: Carsten Dominik's discussion of remember.el)
17View on Reddit

u/azfrakin r/emacs • Mentions

How much time have you spent on your init.el? Carsten Dominik in his Google TechTalk said that Emacs is for people who like to tinker, and that has definitely been my experience and one of the reasons I love Emacs so much. (link to talk [video ) I have been using Emacs since 2016, and would roughly estimate that I have spent 100+ hours configuring Emacs to my liking (only using other packages and writing small custom functions), and I still play around with my init most weeks to update it and fine tune it to my liking. Although I could use something like Doom or Spacemacs and get a pretty awesome environment with minimal setup, creating and customising these things to my own personal tas…

pietrofmaggion Hacker News • Mentions

On “OmniFocus v Things – Mac / iPad / iPhone”

What do you use on the iPad? On my iPod touch I use mobileOrg ( link ) with Dropbox sync and it works very well. And using emacs+org-mode on my Mac (or Windows or *nix) machine I have all my stuff in text files (with a backup on dropbox). And org-mode can do a lot more: Emacs Org-mode - a system for note-taking and project planning Google Tech Talks link to this video

rndnon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: How do you manage/organize information and knowledge in your life?”

Org-mode is a really good replacement for MediaWiki. You can manage links, tables and lists all with simple and reliable text files with .org suffix in Emacs. link to this video

otalpon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Paper is the real 'killer app'”

I never liked all the multitude of list making apps - Evernote, Todoist, Omnifocus, etc. I prefer org-mode1 on emacs. It's simple, flexible, distraction free and for some reason reminds me of writing on paper. You get the simplicity, while also making it as powerful as you want. 1- link to this video

otalpon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: Do you keep a personal journal?”

Org-mode in spacemacs is my choice, though that is more of a TODO list keeper than writing down personal thoughts. But it is plain text and has timestamps. It is also very flexible and powerful. link to this video