1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
|
[[!meta title="The use of Org mode syntax outside of GNU/Emacs"]]
[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2021 Karl Voit"]]
[[!inline pages="internal(2021/info/org-outside-nav)" raw="yes"]]
<!-- You can manually edit this file to update the abstract, add links, etc. --->
# The use of Org mode syntax outside of GNU/Emacs
Karl Voit
[[!inline pages="internal(2021/info/org-outside-schedule)" raw="yes"]]
With the rising interest in Org mode, the GNU/Emacs community gained
much momentum in the last decade. Being [a nicely designed lightweight
markup
language](https://karl-voit.at/2017/09/23/orgmode-as-markup-only/),
Org mode does not only benefit users of GNU/Emacs. There are many
tools and services supporting Org mode syntax documents that do have
no direct connection to GNU/Emacs. I would like to elaborate on the
advantages on using Org mode syntax for arbitrary text outside of
GNU/Emacs for better typing usability and collaboration tasks.
Unfortunately, we do face some issues with the current situation.
First of all, we do already have a number of non-Emacs tools that do
support Org mode syntax. Then, we also do have an unclear consensus of
what it takes to "support Org mode" without re-implementing the whole
feature-set of Org mode of GNU/Emacs.
For that purpose, I came up with a new name for the syntax of the Org
mode lightweight markup language: **Orgdown**.
Please do visit the [Orgdown
homepage](https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown) and read my
motivation article [Orgdown - a New Lightweight Markup Standard for
Text Documents](https://karl-voit.at/2021/11/27/orgdown/) for further
information.
# Discussion
IRC nick: publicvoit
- is there a tree-sitter parser for orgdown already? :P
- it seems to me that as org evolves, either orgdown eventually becomes incompatible with org or org is prevented from changing because it would break orgdown. I guess backcompat with existing org documents constrains org-mode this way already, though
- what level would you call github's implementation is?
- i'm not sure if we want a proliferation of org-syntaxes like markdown's
- Disentangling "org" the markup language and "org"/"org-mode" the piece of software that runs inside Emacs is long overdue
- I gotta say, why "Orgdown" and not just "Org"? That way we've got "Org" (the markup syntax) and "Org-Mode", the mode for that. Just delineate the mode from the thing the mode handles.
- there was a move in the opposite direction, using "Org" instead of "Org-mode" for the piece of software that runs inside Emacs, which to me is where the problem arises...
- +1 for "org" aas the format name, and the (already present) derived handling of the format being org-mode! To be clear, +1000000% in favour of this generally.
- Next year. Talk on presenting org as a mime-type. Who?
- it's officially being considered as a 'thing to be done or at least talked about', but I don't have a better status than that.
- I think the org/orgdown split makes sense: orgdown stripped-down org
- Why GitLab? GitLab.com requires reCAPTCHA to sign up, and nonfree cloudflare js to sign in
- publicvoit: I wanted to test an alternative to GitHub which I was using so far.
- I recommend codeberg.org, notabug.org, sr.ht, or savannah.nongnu.org
- already uses the ".org.txt" file extension, so that tools that don't otherwise support the org file type will at the very least read them
- sorry to have missed out on the discussion during your talk, but I'm extremely interested in getting org working outside elisp (re: https://github.com/tgbugs/laundry/tree/next). I started there long ago, at this point the issues that really need standardization is org-babel, but in order to do that we need the syntax settled, which has turned out to be a _lot_ of work
- having orgdown as a way to talk about files that have org syntax seems like it is a critical piece for effective outreach
- would it be worth considering a decoupling of the "orgdown" proposal into 1) just a proposal to rename "org" the markup as "orgdown" (vs "org-mode" for the piece of software running in Emacs), and 2) all the rest as in the levels/etc? Just to not put the first at risk of non-adoption because of the contents of the second? There seems to be a lot of positive sentiment towards solving #1 for sure.
- orgdown is not org, the markup
- orgdown is lightweight org, it does not have all the features
- In general I agree, there will be issues with how to approach the levels
- publicvoit: Valid approach but this train has left the station already by the decision of myself to provide OD1 to the public this weekend.
- To be fair, I personally don't think adding tiers to org-mode makes much sense
- We should rather have a feature matrix for stuff like pandoc to check against
- developing the test suite will get us there, and then we can have the discussion about how to market the levels
- I think we could adopt orgdown almost immediately without issue
- I don't really see a big issue with org-mode vs. org vs. orgWHATEVER though
- there are major search and discovery issues with bare "org"
- I tend to use "org syntax" at the moment, but it isn't catchy enough
# Outline
- The term Org mode stands for different things
- The Org syntax is better than much more dominant lightweight markup languages
- We do have an unclear consensus of "Org mode support"
- A new name for the syntax alone: Orgdown
- What Orgdown should be and should not be
- Advantages of Orgdown for everybody
- Orgdown comes in different levels: Orgdown1
- OD1 Compatibility Percentage
- The future of Orgdown
- Your contribution!
# Personal information
- Name pronunciation: sounds like "karl foit" ([IPA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet): [kaʁl](http://ipa-reader.xyz/?text=ka%CA%81l) [foɪt](http://ipa-reader.xyz/?text=fo%C9%AAt))
- Pronouns: he/him
- Homepage: [https://Karl-Voit.at](https://Karl-Voit.at "personal web page of Karl Voit")
- Preferred contact info: EmacsConf21 (ɶt) Karl-Voit.at
[[!inline pages="internal(2021/captions/org-outside)" raw="yes"]]
[[!inline pages="internal(2021/info/org-outside-nav)" raw="yes"]]
|
