Emacs

URL: https://bbb.emacsverse.org/b/iho-h7r-qg8-led Time & Date: <2023-08-09 Wed 19:00-21:00 @+03,Europe/Istanbul>

Thanks everyone who participated! We had quite a few people by Emacs meetup standards.

Here is a short summary of the main discussion points (those that I remember):

• Adham Omran announced his new package for Anki (flash card/spaced repetition) integration: https://github.com/adham-omran/ankifier Efficiently create Anki flashcards from your notes.

• Ilya Cheryshov announced his new package to display agenda time grid as interactive svg image. Looks like the usual Google calendar view, but inside Emacs. https://github.com/ichernyshovvv/org-timeblock/ Org mailing list discussion: https://list.orgmode.org/87edkc85fl.fsf@localhost/T/#t

  • Similar, but ASCII-only package: https://github.com/ml729/calfw-blocks, based on Calfw Emacs calendar framework.

• More on visualizing Org statistics:

  • https://github.com/rksm/clj-org-analyzer/: clocking data visualizer using web-frontend. Features heatmap view of clocking time per-day. Allows filtering by tags.
  • https://github.com/Elilif/org-heatmap/: monthly heatmap for habit tracking
  • A bit tangent, but illustrates how to make use of time clocking: https://samplesize.one/blog/posts/my_year_in_data/
    • One more article I did not mention during the meetup: https://sqrtminusone.xyz/posts/2023-04-13-emacs/

• [[info:eintr#Top][eintr#Top]] Elisp introduction for non-programmers. This is really a well-written manual worth reading if your config is larger than a few lines.

• yantar92's window manager: Awesome WM https://awesomewm.org/

• https://git.sr.ht/~bzg/worg is the source code of Org WIKI (WORG) [ Contributions welcome: a number of articles really need some love there ]

  • We also have some Org internals documented as articles in WORG.

• Meeting report export template (backend): https://github.com/DarkBuffalo/ox-report which reminded me of actual LaTeX template by Tecosaur (Org dev): https://github.com/tecosaur/BMC

• New WIP fast LaTeX preview system with instant preview as you type

  • Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-AfvuV-bYo
  • Another demo previously posted on the mailing list: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-AfvuV-bYo
  • And the mailing list discussion with more details: https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/[email protected]/

• =#+begin_src := will give you completion of header arguments

  • Same for #+ keywords and, sometimes, for their values (like for #+TAGS: )
  • The underlying code is in lisp/org-pcomplete.el
  • Also, see org-eldoc (part of org-contrib): https://git.sr.ht/~bzg/org-contrib/tree/master/item/lisp/org-eldoc.el

• Collaboration using Org mode

  • Concurrent editing options are not great, unfortunately:
    • https://code.librehq.com/qhong/crdt.el (need Emacs for all sides)
    • https://logseq.com/: similar to notion/obsidian, but supports Org syntax
  • Can use Git, if not real-time. Org is just a plain text.
  • I also used email workflow using pdf export -> sending email -> getting pdf with comments back -> modifying Org source -> ...

• Authoring books/thesis in Org

  • Adham Omran wrote his thesis in Arabic using Org mode
    • Emacs has built-in right-to-left language support [[info:emacs#Bidirectional Editing][emacs#Bidirectional Editing]]
    • Right-to-left may be mixed with left-to-right (English) in Org export, though some LaTeX-specific tweaking may be needed.
      • Org offers some help with #+LANGUAGE document keyword (see [[info:org#LaTeX specific export settings][org#LaTeX specific export settings]])
    • Also, https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/87h6z7jq4o.fsf@localhost/
    • There was a question about XeLaTeX, but, AFAIK, event normal LaTeX can support Arabic and other Unicode languages with polyglossia package. Although fonts may be tricky to set and a number of people opt-in to LuaTeX/XeLaTeX for smoother experience (the downside is that non-LaTeX may not always be an option in real-life publisher requirements)
    • Examples from Org mailing list on complex typesetting while keeping sources in Org mode
      • https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/[email protected]/
      • The bi-lingual book I mentioned: https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/[email protected]/

• Adham Omran wrote colemak input method for Arabic (only qwerty-based variant is available by default in Emacs)

  • I suggested submitting it as a patch for Emacs core.

• On the Emacs fringe indicators showing buffer begin/end

  • ↑↓ indicate that there is more text above/below the screen
  • ｢｣ indicate begin/end of the buffer text within displayed part of the buffer
  • These can be enabled using ~(setq-default indicate-buffer-boundaries 'left)~

• Using ~helm-org-ql~ for searching across knowledge base, git commits, and emails

  • I modify the default ~org-ql~ search adding a number of shortcuts to quickly filter by tag/todo keyword
    • https://github.com/yantar92/emacs-config/blob/master/config.org#trying-org-ql
      • My modifications are tailored to my own fork of org-ql: https://github.com/yantar92/org-ql
      • Although the particular special feature I used here (custom default org-ql predicate) is already implemented upstream, though using different defcustom.
    • I have a custom helm search, unifying org-ql, notmuch search (for emails), and git commit search
      • https://github.com/yantar92/emacs-config/blob/master/config.org#helm-org-ql
      • I also add custom helm actions to insert bookmark/commit/email Urls or Org links right from helm search.