Org-mode Frequently Asked Questions

There is really no difference. Org is as simple as TaskPaper. It is just that, when using Org within Emacs, it lets you do many things that you wouldn't be able to do with TaskPaper. Yes, TaskPaper is fiddle-proof and people using Emacs tends to like fiddling (which is orthogonal to the idea of using todo-list efficiently), but this is just a matter of discipline and common sense, not one of Org's design.

Read Carsten's enlightening statement on this.

Not really. For tables there is orgtbl-mode which implements the table editor as a minor mode. For other features you need to switch to Org-mode temporarily, or prepare text in a different buffer.

Yes, these functions are written in a way that they are independent of the outline setup. The following setup provides standard Org-mode functionality in outline-mode on TAB and S-TAB. For outline-minor-mode, we use C-TAB instead of TAB, because TAB usually has mode-specific tasks.

(add-hook 'outline-minor-mode-hook
  (lambda ()
    (define-key outline-minor-mode-map [(control tab)] 'org-cycle)
    (define-key outline-minor-mode-map [(shift tab)] 'org-global-cycle)))
(add-hook 'outline-mode-hook
  (lambda ()
    (define-key outline-mode-map [(tab)] 'org-cycle)
    (define-key outline-mode-map [(shift tab)] 'org-global-cycle)))

Or check out outline-magic.el, which does this and also provides promotion and demotion functionality. outline-magic.el is available at Outline Magic.

Use git to track the history of the files, use a cronjob to check in changes regularly. Such a setup is described by Bernt Bernt Hansen in this message on emacs-orgmode.

Yes, you can. Take a look at the setup described by Bernt Hansen and check out (in the same thread) what Nick Docos had to fix to make Bernt's set-up work for him.

Yes, you can. Check for discussions and pointers here.

C-c C-t or S-<left/right> is what you need.

Use C-c C-c on the headline.

Yes. Use (setq org-use-fast-todo-selection t)

M-x visible-mode will display the full link, making them searchable.

(setq org-special-ctrl-k t) before losing your work.

See this post by N. Dokos on the list.

Put this in your ~/.diary:

&%%(org-diary :scheduled :timestamp :deadline)

Take a look at the post by Bernt Hansen for setting up TODO keyword states and logging timestamps for task state changes.

This is a conflict with an outdated version of the allout.el, see the Conflicts section in the manual

Yes, see the Conflicts section of the manual.

Yes, see the Conflicts section of the manual.

Yes, thes are now built-in:

  - item1 :: Description of this item 1
  - item2 :: Description of this item 2
  - item1 :: Description of this item 3
        also in multiple lines

Add the following to your .emacs file:

 (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("README$" . org-mode))

You can even make it the default mode for any files with unspecified mode using

 (setq default-major-mode 'org-mode)

See the section Clean outline view in the manual.

You may use indirect buffers which do exactly this. See the documentation on the command make-indirect-buffer.

 (setq org-blank-before-new-entry
       '((heading . t) (plain-list-item . nil))

Take a look at the variables org-show-hierarchy-above and org-show-following-headline.

You can construct a regular expression that matches all targets you want. Alternatively, use a C-u prefix with the second and any further calls to org-occur to keep the current visibility and highlighting in addition to the new ones.

The confirmation is there to protect you from unwantingly execute potentially dangerous commands. For example, imagine a link

[[shell:rm -rf ~/*][ Google Search]]

In an Org-mode buffer, this command would look like Google Search, but really it would remove your home directory. If you wish, you can make it easier to respond to the query by setting

 (setq org-confirm-shell-link-function 'y-or-n-p
       org-confirm-elisp-link-function 'y-or-n-p).

Then a single keypress will be enough to confirm those links. It is also possible to turn off this check entirely, but I strongly recommend against this. Be warned.

Yes, this is how:

 (setq org-return-follows-link t)
 (setq org-tab-follows-link t)

Activating links with mouse-1 is a new feature in Emacs 22, to make link behavior similar to other applications like web browsers. If you hold the mouse button down a bit longer, the cursor will be set without following the link. If you cannot get used to this behavior, you can (as in Emacs 21) use mouse-2 to follow links and turn off link activation for mouse-1 with

 (setq org-mouse-1-follows-link nil)

Yes, this is possible. Use the following code and make sure that after executing it, `my-start-clock-if-needed' is in `remember-mode-hook' after `org-remember-apply-template'.

 (add-hook 'remember-mode-hook 'my-start-clock-if-needed 'append)
 (defun my-start-clock-if-needed ()
   (save-excursion
     (goto-char (point-min))
     (when (re-search-forward " *CLOCK-IN *" nil t)
       (replace-match "")
       (org-clock-in))))

Then, when a template contains the key string CLOCK-IN, the clock will be started. Starting with Org-mode version 5.20, the clock will automatically be stopped when storing the remember buffer.

If you plan to use ASCII or HTML export, make sure things you want to be exported as item lists are level 4 at least, even if that does mean there is a level jump. For example:

 * Todays top priorities
 **** TODO write a letter to xyz
 **** TODO Finish the paper
 **** Pick up kids at the school

Alternatively, if you need a specific value for the heading/item transition in a particular file, use the #+OPTIONS line to configure the H switch.

 #+OPTIONS:   H:2; ...

If you want to export a subtree, mark the subtree as region and then export. Marking can be done with C-c @ C-x C-x, for example.

When using iCal under Apple MacOS X Tiger, you can create a new calendar OrgMode (the default name for the calendar created by C-c C-e c, see the variables org-icalendar-combined-name and org-combined-agenda-icalendar-file). Then set Org-mode to overwrite the corresponding file ~/Library/Calendars/OrgMode.ics. You may even use AppleScript to make iCal re-read the calendar files each time a new version of OrgMode.ics is produced. Here is the setup needed for this:

 (setq org-combined-agenda-icalendar-file
     "~/Library/Calendars/OrgMode.ics")
 (add-hook 'org-after-save-iCalendar-file-hook
  (lambda ()
   (shell-command
    "osascript -e 'tell application \"iCal\" to reload calendars'")))

For Mac OS X 10.4, you need to write the ics file to /Library/WebServer/Documents/ and then subscribe iCalendar to http: //localhost/orgmode.ics

Org-mode tried to compute the column from other fields using a formula stored in the #+TBLFM: line just below the table, and the evaluation of the formula fails. Fix the fields used in the formula, or fix the formula, or remove it!

When I am in the last column of a table and just above a horizontal line in the table, pressing TAB creates a new table line before the horizontal line. To move to the line below the horizontal line instead, do this:

Press down (to get on the separator line) and then TAB. Or configure the variable

 (setq org-table-tab-jumps-over-hlines t)

With the setting

 (setq org-table-formula-evaluate-inline nil)

this will no longer happen. You can still use formulas using the commands C-c = and C-u C-c =

The indentation of a table is set by the first line. So just fix the indentation of the first line and realign with TAB.

Either split the table into several by inserting an empty line every 100 lines or so. Or turn off the automatic re-align with

 (setq org-table-automatic-realign nil)

After this the only way to realign a table is to press C-c C-c. It will no longer happen automatically, removing the corresponding delays during editing.

Nothing, really. The spreadsheet in org is mostly done to make calculations possible, not so much to make them fast. Since Org-mode is firmly committed to the ASCII format, nothing is stopping you from editing the table by hand. Therefore, there is no internal representation of the data. Each time Org-mode starts a computation, it must scan the table for special lines, find the fields etc. This is slow. Furthermore, Calc is slow compared to hardware computations. To make this work with normal editing, recalculation is not happening automatically, or only for the current line, so that the long wait for a full table iteration only happens when you ask for it.

So for really complex tables, moving to a "real" spreadsheet may still be the best option.

That said, there are some ways to optimize things in Org-mode, and I have been thinking about moving a bit further down this line. However, for my applications this has so far not been an issue at all. If you have a good case,you could try to convince me.

Well, it is supposed to be a feature, to make it easy to create a column with increasing numbers. If this gets into your way, turn it off with

 (setq org-org-table-copy-increment nil)

Since the org-mode agenda is much more powerful and can contain the diary, you should think twice before deciding to do this. If you insist, however, integrating Org-mode information into the diary is possible. You need to turn on fancy diary display by setting in .emacs:

 (add-hook 'diary-display-hook 'fancy-diary-display)

Then include the following line into your ~/diary file, in order to get the entries from all files listed in the variable org-agenda-files

 &%%(org-diary)

You may also select specific files with

 &%%(org-diary) ~/path/to/some/org-file.org
 &%%(org-diary) ~/path/to/another/org-file.org

If you now launch the calendar and press d to display a diary, the headlines of entries containing a timestamp, date range, schedule, or deadline referring to the selected date will be listed. Just like Org-mode's agenda view, the diary for today contains additional entries for overdue deadlines and scheduled items. See also the documentation of the org-diary function. Under XEmacs, it is not possible to jump back from the diary to the org, this works only in the agenda buffer.

M-x org-agenda-to-appt RET

Yes. See this thread on the list.