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# Emacs journalism (or everything's a nail if you hit it with Emacs)
Alfred Zanini (he/they)
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# PART I - Where I started
## Figuring out what you want out of your workflow
For me, that is:
- note-taking and todos for admin and work tasks
- project management - setting up deadlines for each task and reminders to check in with people
- a writing environment when I need to focus on script work
- a way to experiment with coding and integrating that into my work
- storyboarding different scenes
- scheduling interviews and reachouts for interviews
## Presentation of my previous workflow
Using google drive, word, storyboarder, wechat, notion
# Part II - Where I ended up
## Why Emacs ?
## Org-Contacts
Setting up Org-Contacts to track documentary leads and keep up with them -
also in use for personal contacts
## ORG Roam
Using Org-Roam to link project ideas and leads, and add summaries of interviews
/ transcripts to contact files. Org-Mode and Org-Contacts to schedule interviews,
reaching out, check-ins. All the while writing the script for the project on the
Org-Roam page, with global project questions and specific interview questions
for each scheduled shoot.
## PANDOC and working with colleagues
Once my first draft of the script is ready, I need to be able to share it for review.
This is where the "Everything's a nail when you hit it with emacs" part comes
in. Using Org-Mode for comments and for coloring with HTML tags and source
blocks Not the easiest nor the most fun way to collaborate, but it is where I
have ended up on.
## Other packages I use regularly for a documentary workflow
Mu4e Fountain.el hledger-mode bibtex for research papers present
# Conclusions
## Forever Work In Progress
A lot of features to be added and kinks
to be worked out but getting to a state where you can use software
that you love every day is the most important point to me
So let's keep modding our configs!
# Discussion
## Notes
- WRT Literate programming, if you've never read Knuth's
Tangle/Web/Weave stuff, it's worth knowing about
- Using the Calendar in conjunction with task managment and email show
off the power off the holistic workflow of Emacs
- CRDT-- an easy way to work with other people in emacs --
<https://code.librehq.com/qhong/crdt.el>
- Yes, liberal arts types.
- I relate with so much of this talk so far :-P
- I didn't know about :ignore: for org-mode headings. Is that set up by default?
- I also use COMMENT as a todo and it is ignored too.
- Ahhhhh. Good call. I use TODO in headings when I'm writing to remind me to finish sections later.
- Yeah, I use :noexport: in pretty much every doc for all of my notes and throwaway scratch writing and stuff.
- Huh, CRDT sounds interesting.
- I export docs to Markdown, but I also use pandoc to generate DOCX files from org. Because most writers aren't using Emacs.
- Thanks, I'll check that out. The writers and editors that I'm working with are frequestly looking for ways to handle change tracking and version tracking for docs. I recommend stuff like git but they need something that's easier for non-techie folks to use.
- Feedback
- Great talk!
- Well done!
- flipping great stuff. Thanks!!!!!!
## Questions and answers
- Q: It'd be interesting if you explained why WeChat is a necessity
for you; outside China, most people have no reason to use it at
all. Thanks.
- A: I think he meant Weechat (the IRC client) not WeChat --
Chinese exigency
- The captioning did mention WeChat. If he lives in Hong Kong,
then I totally understand, so consider this question answered.
- Oh nvm then
- Yeah, you've (Alfred) gotten WeChat spot on. Most people here
don't care much, but I'm probably one of the only people in
this country not using WeChat, and it's a major PITA to live
without.
- Q:Have you looked at CRDT.el for collaborative realtime editing?
- A: most of my work is just versions
- CRDT has great org mode support for task managent
- CRDT
- <https://code.librehq.com/qhong/crdt.el/>
- <https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/crdt.html>
- related:
<https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CollaborativeEditing>
- Q:Sharing orgmode files is trickier than we expect. Do you do this?
If yes, how do you do it?
- A: Direct sharing was not successful. Exporting to docx or ODT
is problematic (Latex structure).
- has tried github and gitlab, but that might require signups - is
also suboptimal
- Export profiles for ODT or DOCX is a better approach, or at
least worked well so far
- Karl Voit's notes on collaborative working with non-Org users:
- - <http://irreal.org/blog/?p=6234>
- -
<https://www.wisdomandwonder.com/link/9922/how-to-reintegrate-changes-for-word-back-into-org-mode>
- - Export to docx via pandoc and re-import via =pandoc
--track-changes=all=
- : pandoc --track-changes=all Document.docx
Compare_to_original.org
- -
<https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/ad43hf/question_how_do_you_manage_tasks_calendars_with/>
- - <https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice>: an implementation
of Org mode without the dependency of Emacs. It is built for
mobile and desktop browsers and syncs with Dropbox, Google
Drive and WebDAV.
- - [2021-06-08 Tue]
<https://www.reddit.com/r/orgmode/comments/nuit8u/coordinating_with_people_who_dont_use_emacs_or/>
→ discussion
- Karl Voit's notes on collaborative working with Emacs users:
- - 2020-05-29
<https://gitlab.com/emacsomancer/collaborative-writing-environment-emacs>
- - special emacs setup that allows collaboration on the
same LAN
- - needs separate emacs config (different host or user or
move config out of the way)
- - [ ] try it out myself
- - [2020-08-31 Mon] <http://typeintandem.com/> +
<https://github.com/jscheid/tandem-emacs>
- - unmaintained:
<https://github.com/jscheid/tandem-emacs/issues/1>
- - [2021-11-03 Wed]
<https://code.librehq.com/qhong/crdt.el.git>
- - via Sacha Chua's EmacsConf21 Emacs news
- Q:Do you use pandoc for incoming and outgoing docs? Do you find that
repeated conversions lose document quality?
- A: Layouts are kind of wonky, but that's possible to work through if you go into the settings and adjust basically to how you want it to look like.
- And for incoming docs, so that's a bit more of a hassle. My plan for this talk was to have it a bit more ready, but I've got this integration for org-ic, org-apple-pages documents, that kind of thing. So that's often the documents that I get from my colleagues, and I found a way to transfer them into org documents. I did that kind of quickly, so I don't think I'm quite ready to share exactly how it went, but I'm planning on doing some documentation around that. But yeah, basically the gist of it is, I don't find it a huge issue.
- Q: I am beginning on emacs (again) after falling off every time
because of the "working in config-files" whole day. What was your
moment when you really started to work in emacs instead of
config-editing?
- A: Had the click after finding text editor workflow. Don't be
too frustrated :-) , use templates, put ideas off to a later
moment.
- related: <https://xkcd.com/1205/> and <https://xkcd.com/1319/>
- Q: Why is emacs recommended for journalism? -vidianos asks
- A: I wouldn't say it's recommended-- a personal choice--
valuable as a tool-- can be tailored so that it's easy to
transfer skills from other disciplines-- more scientific ones
to journalism. Org-Roam is a game changer because it allows me
to set thoughts aside and know that I can get back to it. Helps
with self-control.
- Q: Do you use any fancy solutions for annotation text onto
particular video timestamps?
- Clarification: Yes, asking about making notes on a video, when
something happens
- Side Note: subd.el could be useful
<https://github.com/sachac/subed>
- A: Taking notes with org-roam and linking them to BiBTeX etc
- Q: When you get stuck with an emacs problem-- is there somewhere you go to get help (nice place for non-tech people?)
- Q: is it possible to use emacs bookmarks capability to literally bookmark a specific timestamp in a video clip (and by that the note taking could be done in that bookmark instance)… ?
- Q: is Alfred australian?
- I suspect he's Swiss
- Thanks, I'll check that out. The writers and editors that I'm working with are frequestly looking for ways to handle change tracking and version tracking for docs. I recommend stuff like git but they need something that's easier for non-techie folks to use.
- I did not know about org-mpv
- There isn't a proper org-mpv, but there are a few functions to combine mpv.el with org-mode here: https://github.com/kljohann/mpv.el/wiki
- Alfred is a very quick learner
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