I want things to be simple and without distraction. I want to avoid futzing all the time. To this end, I often try to move away from using Emacs for everything. Emacs is not simple, no matter how hard I try to force it to be simple. So I pull out the usual inventory of simple writing and note-taking apps, trying to make them fit. Telling myself that this is better for me. ...
Howm and TiddlyWiki share some features that I like
howm is an Emacs package for taking notes. It was recommended to me recently, so I thought I’d take a look. The project page says “howm: Write fragmentarily and read collectively.” Worth a shot, right? I haven’t seen too many people talking about howm. The best introductions I’ve found are from Leah Neukirchen and Andrei Sukhovskii. I installed it via use-package with the following ;; howm package config (use-package howm :ensure t :config (setq howm-directory "~/Documents/howm/") (setq howm-home-directory "~/Documents/howm/") (setq howm-keyword-file (expand-file-name ".howm-keys" howm-home-directory)) (setq howm-history-file (expand-file-name ".howm-history" howm-home-directory)) (setq howm-view-use-grep t)) ;; (setq howm-view-grep-command "/opt/homebrew/bin/rg")) ;; Fix for help bindings (define-key howm-menu-mode-map "\C-h" nil) (define-key riffle-summary-mode-map "\C-h" nil) (define-key howm-view-contents-mode-map "\C-h" nil) ;; Sensible buffer names (add-hook 'howm-mode-hook 'howm-mode-set-buffer-name) (add-hook 'after-save-hook 'howm-mode-set-buffer-name) I couldn’t get the rg settings to work, so I’m still using grep. It’s fast enough for this test. ...
I’m just coming off a week using Obsidian. Obsidian is really good and powerful and easy to use and extensible and probably the correct answer to the question, “Where should I keep my notes?”. I love Obsidian for a minute because of what it does and the fact that it’s not whatever I’d been using previously. It’s refreshing and finding new plugins to play with is good fun. But it’s janky. Why don’t more people complain about it being janky? It’s just blech to actually live in. It feels weird and loose and sloppy to me. ...
When is trying to avoid futzing actually just more futzing?
The more I lean into using Org-mode files for everything, the more isolated I’m feeling. It may be irrational, because “plain text”, but having to export or otherwise translate everything when I post to my blog or other tools is becoming less fun. Org-mode Island is beautiful, but lonely. Later: Jeremy Friesen reacts to the above with his take on the isolation of using Org-mode. Here’s some follow up.
Following up after reading Jeremy Friesen’s response to my earlier post
I’m using using Denote’s silo feature for accessing my Beyond the Infinite folder
I mentioned that I should create a lisp function for sending my org-journal entries to Day One. Turns out I’d already done it. The only problem was that the original version assumed I was using a new org file every day. I’m now doing monthly files, so I needed to change how the text selection was made. Here’s the new function. (defun jab/dayone-add-note () "Sends current subtree as Day One entry" (interactive) (org-mark-subtree) (shell-command-on-region (point) (mark) "/usr/local/bin/dayone2 -j=Journal new" nil)) It’s not perfect, since it includes any PROPERTY drawers and leading stars, but it works and was easy to make. ...
Prot’s Spacious-Padding Emacs package adds some room to breath in the Emacs UI.
This morning, I had trouble finding something that I was certain I’d written yesterday. I was pretty sure I’d written it in one org-mode file or another, but it seemed to be missing. Turns out it wasn’t missing. I just couldn’t see it because of the way the results show up when searching for something in Emacs. The display of search results when running projectile-ripgrep is pretty awful, and I missed what I was searching for. Here’s what it looks like in Doom Emacs by default. ...
I often want a list of attached files displayed right in the org-mode file.
Just a quick appreciation of a common Org-mode feature.
I should stop trying to roll my own Emacs config. So I did.
A lisp function for generating either Page Bundles or normal Markdown files when creating new Hugo posts.
Could I too start storing things as email and find them later using Notmuch?
I’ll probably continue using Org-journal no matter what
Using both Denote and Org-roam packages seems crazy, but I’m trying it.
Technically, it’s easy. Actually doing it is a nightmare.
My thirty-days-of-Obsidian lasted nine days.