Thinking about time travel with the Emacs text editor and Org Mode #emacs #org

Honestly suprised no one has tried to make a terminal text editor with modern shortcuts sooner. Vim/Emacs/Nano are all good editors but they all require some learning to use effectively.

Microsoft’s New CLI Text Editor Works Great on Ubuntu
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/06/microsoft-edit-text-editor-ubuntu

Open Source Can’t Coordinate
https://matklad.github.io/2025/05/20/open-source-cant-coordinate.html

I think this is a fair critique, #FOSS projects often do well when they are building on an existing spec. However, there is often coordination within projects just not between projects. FOSS programming languages is one example omitted and that is a good case for how a shared spec can be developed.

I do think good FOSS developers understand these issues and try to target widely used libraries when there is not a shared standard.
#Linux

@light You mention headless machine access so one specific example I like is emacs TRAMP. It allows you to open files on a remote machine as if it is a local file

C-x C-f /ssh:tom@server:/var/www/index.html

Would open the file locally and handle saving changes remotely. This can also be used with sudo/su to open files as a different users.

For writing Org mode is an extremely feature rich alternative to markdown. It can be used for general writing and task management see orgmode.org

@light Just to clear something up, emacs has packages that can basically replicate majority of features of other text editors because of how customizable it is. That is why no one is talking about specific features. The value of Emacs is its programmability and customization options.

If you want a feature likely someone has already written something equivalent, or something similar you can tweak to your liking. That's why everyone has 500 line config files they have been honing for years.

@ruralgloom It's pretty barebones in comparison, but I think emulating dired is the ideal way to manage music in emacs.

Although I do like how with emms any list of files can be a playlist. Even video files.

starting to enjoy emacs on android, but i'm not able to open org links in a browser. I keep getting "Doing vfork: Operation not permitted". This is with and without setting browse-url-browser-function. Any ideas?

update, found it:
(setq browse-url-firefox-program "termux-open-url")

#emacs #android #OrgMode

@ruralgloom I've been using mpd for years with ncmpcpp outside emacs. Recently been trying out emms and some patches on mpdired

@whatever_sauce For tinkering around and getting small personal tools working Emacs Lisp can be very useful. Emacs can basically be used as an application/scripting framework for terminal based applications (ex. elfeed, magit)

Just found out about eat (Emulate A Terminal) for Emacs, and it seems really good! Pure elisp terminal emulation that feels super snappy

#emacs #terminal #opensource

https://codeberg.org/akib/emacs-eat

Wild

Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3 million peers
https://kianbradley.com/2025/06/15/resurrecting-a-dead-tracker.html

@frayoshi Org definitely needs to improve on the mobile interoperability. There are some good apps like orgzly, but I have given up on Org-agenda because I can't easily track it between my phone and computer.

I'm thinking I may try moving everything into git repos and see if that improves my workflow. For me syncing is the big issue because I am not an Org-roam user

@frayoshi It would be a GPL copyright violation for the obsidian team to reference the actual org roam source code directly. They would need to release their code under the GPL as well

Went for a walk on my lunch break. Suburban office parks are a bit distopian, but there is the simple beauty of concrete and nature

New blog post: Auto Insert Default Text into New Files with GNU Emacs

https://taingram.org/blog/emacs-auto-insert.html

#emacs

@scy Oh I did forget I also love the PT Fonts for web / general usage.

https://fonts.google.com/specimen/PT+Sans

@evgandr @scy I basically agree DejaVu is awesome and available everywhere. Hack is very similar if you need specific coding symbols, but I've found the improvements are marginal.

Iosevka / Aporetic or Courier Prime if you prefer something with more typewriter-y.

@dennyhenke @thetemp I think org-list-automatic-rules is the variable you need to tweak.

https://orgmode.org/manual/Plain-Lists.html

@DodoTheDev Once you have your project tasks setup in org then you can start experimenting with diffent ways to display that info. Org Agenda, columview, etc.. Like others said the Org manual should really cover most project situations

https://orgmode.org/manual/

@DodoTheDev Org mode works best when you take advantage of the hierarchical structure already built into it. So you have a file like house-projects.org then you can break up your projects however makes sense to you. The point is it is flexible text

* TODO [1/5] Build a Fence
** DONE Buy materials
** TODO [1/3] Dig holes
- [X] hole 1
- [ ] hole 2
- [ ] hole 3
** TODO Place posts
** TODO Set posts with gravel
** TODO Secure posts

* Prepare for Moving
** TODO Pack boxes
** TODO Rent truck