GMX Christoph 13 <christoph-13 <at> gmx.net> writes: > > Hi > this is my first post here and although I am evaluating org mode with great interest, I am also asking myself > in which way other scientists are making use of org mode. It will take a while to get my head around how to > accomplish certain things in org mode but for the moment I am intrigued by *why* one would want to approach > the problem of organizing one's research with org mode and in which way. > Are you putting exclusively your todos in, well, your todo file and perhaps keep project-related things, > such as data and progress, notes, ideas etc. somewhere else? Or do you embed your notes and todos within > their original context, i.e. is org mode your one-stop solution for data management? Do you maintain a > separate file for every major project you are responsible for or involved in or throw everything into one > or few humungous files and differentiate using hierarchies and tags? > In the past I have hit some road blocks not so much with other softwares but rather concepts such as GTD, which > I think is tailored to the needs of people outside science, so I would deeply appreciate your views and experience. > > If this list is geared towards the proximate aspects of development and less towards philosophy of usage, I apologize > > Christoph > >
Hey Christoph, Welcome to orgmode! Well, to put it simply: you can use orgmode for everything: right from making notes, to writing papers, to designing websites and presentations, the list goes on and on. For example, you can write your papers and orgmode will generate LaTeX and pdfs automatically for you. It can also generate HTML files automatically, in case you wish to publish something on your website, but lack the time/enthusiasm/expertise to generate a decent looking webpage. Same goes for presentation (orgmode uses Beamer). Bottom-line: all you write is plain text, and everything else is auto-generated, seamlessly and without the user bothering about what is happening at the back. For example, I was recently a part of a team of a few Engineers and a bunch of Research Assistants, and we always used to assign tasks, maintain timesheets, generate reports, make presentations etc. using orgmode. For your questions on how to organize data and files: you can use orgmode to link between files, directories and URLs. So it is up to you to decide how you keep your files/folders. You just need to link them, and then use orgmode to pull it up for you. There are a bunch of tutorials here:http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/index.html. Please feel free to look at them, in order to gain some perspective on how efficiently orgmode can aid you in your day-to-day activities. Happy "document"-hacking, Bodhi PS: I hope you are using Emacs, as it seamlessly renders orgmode stuff. Other editors just can't do it as nicely.
