Org-mode

Org-mode (also: Org mode;[2] /ˈɔːrɡ moʊd/) is a document editing, formatting, and organizing mode, designed for notes, planning, and authoring within the free software text editor Emacs. The name is used to encompass plain text files ("org files") that include simple marks to indicate levels of a hierarchy (such as the outline of an essay, a topic list with subtopics, nested computer code, etc.), and an editor with functions that can read the markup and manipulate hierarchy elements (expand/hide elements, move blocks of elements, check off to-do list items, etc.).

Org-mode
Original author(s)Carsten Dominik
Developer(s)Carsten Dominik, Bastien Guerry et al.
Stable release
9.3.6[1] / March 2, 2020 (2020-03-02)
Repository
Written inEmacs lisp
TypePersonal information management, Notetaking, Outlining, Literate programming, Reproducibility
LicenseGPL
Websiteorgmode.org

Org-mode was created by Carsten Dominik in 2003, originally to organize his own life and work,[3] and since the first release numerous other users and developers have contributed to this free software package.[4] Emacs includes Org-mode[5] as a major mode by default. Bastien Guerry is the current maintainer, in cooperation with an active development community.[6] Since its success in Emacs, some other systems have also begun providing functions to work with org files.

Almost orthogonally, Org-mode has functionalities aimed at executing code in various external languages; these functionalities form org-babel.[7][8]

System

The Org-mode home page explains that "at its core, Org-mode is a simple outliner for note-taking and list management"[9] The Org system author Carsten Dominik explains that "Org-mode does outlining, note-taking, hyperlinks, spreadsheets, TODO lists, project planning, GTD, HTML and LaTeX authoring, all with plain text files in Emacs."[10]

The Org system is based on plain text files with a simple markup, which makes the files very portable. The Linux Information Project explains that "Plain text is supported by nearly every application program on every operating system".[11]

The system includes a lightweight markup language for plain text files (similar in function to Markdown, reStructuredText, Textile, etc., with a different implementation), allowing lines or sections of plain text to be hierarchically divided, tagged, linked, and so on.

Functionality

This section gives some sample uses for the hierarchical display and editing of plain text.

  • To-do lists often have subtasks, and so lend themselves to a hierarchical system. Org-mode facilitates this by allowing items to be subdivided into simple steps (nested to-dos and/or checklists), and given tags and properties such as priorities and deadlines. An agenda for the items to be done this week or day can then be automatically generated from date tags.[12]
  • Plain text outlines.[13]
A text file showing a tree in emacs org-mode
The same org file shown in overview in emacs org-mode
  • Org files as interconnected pages of a personal wiki, using the markup for links.
  • Tracking bugs in a project, by storing .org files in a distributed revision control system such as Git.
  • Extensive linking features, to web pages, within the same file, to other files, to emails, and also allows defining custom links

An org-mode document can also be exported to various formats (including HTML, LaTeX, OpenDocument or plain text), these formats being used to render the structural outline in an appropriate fashion (including cross-references if needed). It can also use formatting markup (including LaTeX for mathematics) , with facilities similar to those present in Markdown or LaTeX, thus offering an alternative to these tools.

Org-babel

Org-mode offers the ability to insert source code in the document being edited, which is automatically exported and/or executed when exporting the document ; the result(s) produced by this code can be automatically fetched back in the resulting output.

This source code can be structured as reusable snippets, inserted in the source document at the place needed for logical exposition thus allowing this exposition to be independent of the structure needed by the compiler/interpreter.

Together with the markup facilities of org-mode, these two functionalities allow for

  • Literate programming, by decoupling the exposition of the functions of a program from its code structure, and
  • Reproducible research, by the creation of a consistent document consolidating exposition, original data, analyses, discussion and conclusion, in a way that can be reproduced by any reader using the same software tools.

As of November 2018, org-babel directly supports more than 50 programming languages or programmable facilities, more than 20 other tools being usable via contributed packages or drivers[14].

Integration

Org-mode has some features to export to other formats, and other systems have some features to handle org-mode formats. Further, a full-featured text editor may have functions to handle wikis, personal contacts, email, calendars, and so on; because org-mode is simply plain text, these features could be integrated into org-mode documents as well.

From org-mode, add-on packages export to other markup format such as MediaWiki (org-export-generic, org-export), to flashcard learning systems implementing SuperMemo's algorithms (org-drill, org-learn).[15]

Outside of org-mode editors, org markup is supported by the GitLab and GitHub code repositories,[16] the JIRA issue tracker,[17] Pandoc, and others.

gollark: 011d3b0 ecda fe42 f33d d112 2b8c 7e1d 24d2 11e5011d3c0 2475 ae6a bb0f 0c59 592b 3e75 6074 5f61011d3d0 ff42 a907 c773 c81f 3095 97ba 7fe2 5270011d3e0 c021 d886 1dfc 01eb f22a 0174 38cb ab3e011d3f0 2476 6efa 2bb0 6dde cd92 0222 5467 7221011d400 bb13 2647 77f7 8c51 6206 e40d 3c85 117c011d410 86bb 928f 2234 bb31 298e dd89 7209 6a00011d420 49b1 182b 52fc 6659 f720 c14c 7064 213c011d430 be13 5b7f 36db 9228 232a be39 1c9e 4065011d440 3e92 3fa8 a538 8a60 c599 7c88 9f72 9748011d450 8a5d fc83 b21b e48d 666a 8670 3d61 0225
gollark: I have made many a useless side project.
gollark: I mean, there's a difference between programming and, say, sysadmin stuff, but yes.
gollark: Backdoor it with python 3.3, yes.
gollark: The top are i9s with 8 cores and SMT.

See also

References
  1. "Org mode for Emacs – Your Life in Plain Text". orgmode.org. OrgMode team. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
  2. Gmane: Org, Org-mode, Orgmode, Org Mode Archived 2017-09-10 at the Wayback Machine - Carsten Dominik: Org, the system; Org-mode, the major mode
  3. Dominik, Carsten (2011-12-15), Emacs Org-mode: Organizing a Scientist's Life and Work (abstract and video), Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research
  4. Org Mode Manual: History and acknowledgments, Free Software Foundation
  5. Corbet, Jonathan (2006), "Pre-testing Emacs 22", LWN.net
  6. Org mode for Emacs – Community
  7. "Babel: active code in Org-mode". orgmode.org. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
  8. Schulte, Eric; Davison, Dan; Dye, Thomas; Dominik, Carsten (2012-01-25). "A Multi-Language Computing Environment for Literate Programming and Reproducible Research". Journal of Statistical Software. 46 (1): 1–24. doi:10.18637/jss.v046.i03. ISSN 1548-7660.
  9. O'Toole, David, Org tutorial
  10. Dominik, Carsten, Technical description in 24 words
  11. The Linux Information Project: What is plain text?
  12. Chavan, Abhijeet (2007), "Get Organized with Emacs Org-mode", Linux Journal
  13. Chua, Sacha, Outlining Your Notes with Org
  14. "Babel: Languages". Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  15. Org-mode Contributed Packages, and many other hierarchical or list-oriented formats.
  16. GitHub Markup, 2020-01-11
  17. Bao, Haojun (2019-12-02), org-jira

Further reading

Books

Journal articles
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