WEBVTT captioned by alfred
NOTE Introduction
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All right. Hello, everyone. Welcome to my talk.
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We'll be talking today about Emacs journalism
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and what that means.
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First of all, I'd like to thank the EmacsConf organizers.
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Thank you very much, Sacha, for being very patient with me.
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Let's get right into it. So who's this talk for?
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First of all, it's for anyone
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who wants to learn about workflows
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and how you can work with Emacs
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to basically do anything you want.
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And it's for all levels of Emacs lovers.
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So I'll keep it accessible.
NOTE Why this talk
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Why this talk? So first of all,
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I want to share a lot of Emacs.
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I also wanted to learn about workflows myself.
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So what better way than to talk about them
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to be able to learn? And we could maybe learn a thing
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or two about collaboration and using Emacs to that motive.
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I think it's useful to try and figure out who am I?
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Why am I having this talk? I'm a journalist based
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in Hong Kong and a documentary filmmaker. So that means
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that I have interviews quite often.
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I'm dealing with texts and subtitles,
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which I have to transcribe.
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And I'm also dealing with a lot of research.
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So that means going through a lot of documents and a lot of,
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well, skimming through documents
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to be able to have something to write.
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And I also use Emacs since basically one year ago,
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I started using it full time
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to have a great detriment of my productivity.
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So we'll be talking about, we'll be talking about, well,
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basically, my workflow for Emacs
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and how I went about having an Emacs workflow.
NOTE Thinking about workflows
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So what is best when you're thinking about your own workflow
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and some things to think about journalism
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and about using these kinds of tools
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in combination for this? So where do we all start?
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Let's start with a simple-ish definition
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of what is a workflow. A workflow is
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any sequence of actions or tools you use to accomplish that.
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So it doesn't have to be through text processing,
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though obviously being a text-oriented community,
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it will most likely be partially text.
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But it's just about how we accomplish a task
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and which tools and mindsets we go into it with.
NOTE My old workflow
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For example, let's talk about my old workflow.
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That workflow was basically just Google Drive
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using proprietary tools like Notion, Google Drive, Office,
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Storyboarder, and for communication, WeChat.
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If I could forgive all the privacy concerns of WeChat,
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I wouldn't, but I still wouldn't forgive
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the terribly buggy interface, and I hate it.
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So there are certain tools that you have to use
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and you have to modify your workflow
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or just adapt your workflow to the tools
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that you have to use. So for me, unfortunately,
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that means having to use WeChat. You compartmentalize it
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and set it aside, try not to think about it too hard.
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And this is the part that hurts the most, right?
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You're thinking about your workflow,
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you're thinking about, all right,
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I have this thing that works, I don't think about it.
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And all of a sudden, oh, I'm not happy
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with what I have right now. So let's get into,
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let's get into how, oops. So let's get into how and why
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we're not happy with our workflows.
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Because obviously, it's quite nice
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to not have to think about things.
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But once you've thought about it,
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and once you're not happy with how it works,
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I think it's quite useful to think about
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why we're not happy about it.
NOTE Finding my workflow
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A huge part of what Emacs is being conscious of, well,
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how do we find our workflows?
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How do we find what we want to do? And for me, obviously,
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the best way to find that is to write it down
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and to try and tailor my tools to it.
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This is what I came up with.
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I want to be able to manage my accounting,
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to manage collaboration. So: working on files
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alongside my colleagues, communication,
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so that's planning out and managing meetings,
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managing teammates, managing tasks, information gathering.
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So that's what I was saying, going through documents,
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going through all these lists of tasks and all of these,
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not lists of tasks, all of these, well, basically,
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scientific papers, notes, references and wikis, media.
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So I want to be able to have a music player,
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a podcast player, a movie player. That's outside of work,
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but it's still one of the tasks that I do. Media processing,
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so this is where my job kind of gets into it a bit more.
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So I want to be able to take notes
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on the media that I watch,
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to transcribe the interviews
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and even the conversations that I have,
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to be able to later on have an easier time.
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Photo editing, video editing, so unfortunately,
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Emacs isn't quite quite oriented to that.
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Graphic design, color grading, storyboarding.
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And so obviously, you go into it a bit more.
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So managing to do scheduling tasks, interviews,
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preparing shot lists, tracking time,
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setting daily work goals, setting priorities,
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independent tasks, publishing,
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so publishing stuff for my work on my work CMS,
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publishing stuff on my personal CMS,
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although that's not happened yet. I've been kind of busy.
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Security and privacy, so making sure
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that everything that I use respects my data and respects me.
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Unfortunately, not the case, but you take what you can.
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Text processing. So that's journaling,
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writing down articles, my personal wiki, my work wiki,
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which I use to document, well, for example,
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several projects that I have currently.
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So I basically have my work wiki that I'm trying
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to fill out where I'll be able
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to basically go into it later on
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and have my thoughts written down.
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And programming, which I'm not very good at.
NOTE Literate configuration
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Some people might have noticed
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that this looks a lot like [literate] programming.
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If you go into my config file,
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I have something kind of similar.
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I was planning on having a bit more time
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for this presentation and making it stick to that.
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But you'll see basically the mess that is my Emacs config.
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But it kind of sticks to the same thoughts, right?
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Text processing, web browsing, finances,
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that's my accounting, media and research.
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So my BibTeX... Here be dragons.
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Terrible, terrible config
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that I've stolen from plenty of people.
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So basically, that's how Emacs fits into this.
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So this is where I talk about literate configs
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and how that's helped me. Obviously, I've extolled
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the virtue of literate configs
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to quite an extent right here. It's basically...
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The concept is to have documents, living documents
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and documentation as code.
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So basically, let's go back into my config.
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I talk about what the config file does, have code blocks.
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So this is something that Emacs does. I'm pretty sure
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that there are some resources about that accessible online,
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which are even accessible in the Emacs Gulf. And so, yeah,
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basically just having everything accessible
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in one single source, one single file,
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which allows you to basically put everything down
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and integrate things from your config much much more easily.
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That's something that I found very useful in Emacs
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and which I think everyone can benefit from
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or the idea of it, like having everything stored centrally.
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It doesn't have to be used just for Emacs.
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It can be used also, it can be used also for, for example,
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a Qt browser or for other window manager configs.
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That kind of thing.
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And it's not been very easy to set a place.
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So I haven't done that just yet, but that's the plan.
NOTE Org Mode
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Basically, this is all thanks to Org mode.
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So, small presentation of what Org mode is. Org mode
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is basically a project / task management,
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past management and task management,
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and writing mode for Emacs.
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So I can just put in a heading to do Hello World,
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send a message to Rosie tomorrow about the shoot space MDS--
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that's thanks to wonderful Doom Emacs--and schedule it.
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I don't know. It's tomorrow. Let's go and set it to 9am.
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And say, maybe it's it's tomorrow already. I've done it.
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I've sent a message. Perfect. It's done.
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And it also allows you to have an agenda view.
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So I hope there's nothing too compromising right here.
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Whatever. It's fine. So it allows you
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to basically manage your agenda from there.
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And you might have seen me doing my little space nrf
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and wonderful key binding by Org Roam. So this
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is also another thing which is quite quite nice
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with Emacs is that you can you can have Org Roam, which
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is basically a database management program.
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So I can have documentary ideas
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and have basically my ideas which link up to another file.
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So for example, this one, which I have nothing for,
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but you get the idea. So it allows you to apps
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to link up with different files and to manage your thoughts.
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And this gets back into the workflow part of my talk,
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which is, well, this, this is a way
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to control what your workflow
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is control what the tools you're using are and to control,
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basically the way in which you interact
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with your technology.
NOTE Collaborating with Pandoc
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So I am getting back into the way that I collaborate.
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Because obviously it's no good having just
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one Emacs user who's trying to share to share things
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with his editor. So I use pandoc.
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For example, let's go back into my file right here.
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Obviously, I don't spend much time inside of tables.
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But if I select this one, that's "SPC m e".
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Thank you, Doom Emacs for the for the keybindings.
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And I can just export it via pandoc right here, So "p".
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And I can just export it to doc, docx, or export it to ODT.
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So as an ODT file, which is typically what I do.
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And then I just send it through WeChat,
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which is not optimal, but I'm not allowed
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to do anything else. So it is what it is.
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Basically, this is how I export my files. And I re-import,
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I re-import them with pandoc as well.
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So I convert my Pages files, which I receive
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through an ICS plugin. It's not quite finalized,
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so I'm not ready to show it,
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but there's a link that I'll be putting
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in the description which talks about this.
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So this is my sharing part.
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It's nothing very special, honestly.
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It's just making sure that your documents
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are able to be shared.
NOTE My own
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I have certain things. So for example,
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if I go into retro gaming in Hong Kong,
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if I go into my scripts, there are certain headings
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which I have. So for example, they ignore...
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My editor doesn't like to have some headings.
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But when I have a video script that I'm preparing,
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I like to have them for my own organization
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and for my thinking. So I keep them in right there
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and put in ignore. This is the advantage
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of the Emacs because you can just SPC m e o o,
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and this is ready to send, basically.
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There are ways to have export presets,
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but I'm not quite there yet. It's a lot of work.
NOTE You don't have to get lost in the weeds
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So, getting back to my presentation.
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This all goes into basically other packages,
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which I want to implement, but I haven't been able to.
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My main conclusion: you don't have to get lost in the weeds.
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I kind of did that while preparing this talk.
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So basically, you don't have to do it all at once.
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Don't let it consume your life.
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I probably should have done this earlier.
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But Emacs configs are forever work in progress.
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So there are lots of features which you can add,
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a lot of things which you can implement if you only had,
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I don't know, five weeks to be able to implement them.
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But you're working right now.
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And this is a message to me five months ago.
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Don't do it. Just keep working
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and don't get lost in configuration all day.
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So yeah, basically the aim is to use software that you love,
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but not die in the process.
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And yeah, basically just using it as much as you can
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using fast software as much as you can.
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I'm doing that as well for...
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I have certain software such as storyboarder or bit tags,
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that kind of thing, which I try to use as much as possible,
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even outside of Emacs.
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And the aim is to get the work done in the end.
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I'm not an absolutist on this. So yeah, basically,
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let's keep modding our configs and having fun.
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If you've got any questions about the talk,
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I'm happy to answer. I am a novice at this,
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both presenting in front of camera
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and at talking about Emacs.
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I'm sure I've gotten a few things wrong,
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and it's not been the smoothest talk, but it's 10pm, almost.
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I need to get back home. Yeah, take care, everyone.
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Thanks again to the organizers. Here's my contact info.
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And I'll be in touch with the questions.
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I don't think I'll be able to do the live answers,
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but that's more or less it. Thanks so much for listening,
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if you've been listening, and take care.
