Book idea: Thinking With Emacs

For: Beginner to intermediate Emacs users (non-technical backgrounds are okay) who want to use it for organizing what they know/think and learning more

Outcome: People can use this incredibly powerful although somewhat intimidatingly technical tool to aid their learning

Possible collaborator: Bill Zimmerly

The basics

Objective: Get people from 0 to 1

– Writing conventions used in this book

– How to install Emacs

– Basic concepts and keyboard shortcuts

– Some customization

Writing

Objective: Help people get the hang of using Emacs as a text editor

Introduce structured writing with Org

– Writing

– Outlines

– Lists

– Tables

– Links

– Finding your way around

– Practical applications

– Planning your projects

– Exploring decisions

Sharing

Objective: Quick win – helping people export their work into a form that other people can understand

– Exporting to HTML

– Exporting to other formats (LaTeX?)

Remembering and organizing

Objective: Capture those quick thoughts

Capturing thoughts

Organizing your thoughts

Tags

Archiving

Practical examples:

– Keeping track of ideas

– Reading books

– Remembering solutions to problems

Planning your life

– Using Org for planning

– Reminders

– Regular reminders

– GTD and other ways of working

– Organizing your notes – thinking in terms of contexts, projects,

etc.



Working with numbers

– Why use Emacs instead of a calculator?

– Quick calculations using Emacs Lisp

– Org spreadsheet

– Calc

Saving time with shortcuts

– Making your own keyboard shortcuts

– Keyboard macros

Configuring Emacs

– Customize

– Your configuration file

Going beyond

Inspirational writing to encourage more use.

How and why Emacs becomes the center of many power users’ computer activity.

Extending Emacs

– Finding the source

– A quick primer on Emacs Lisp

– Interactively understanding code with Edebug

– Writing your own

Modifying the way Emacs works

– Advice

– Changing behavior

Working with code

Additional tools for making sense of software projects?

Emacs, statistics, and research

Objective: Help people use Emacs to support research

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Other notes: Org

Thanks to sahilsinha, timvisher,rknnv2, gozes, GlennRStreet, ScriptDevil, BalticPasta, berndweiss, krrrcks, emisshula, and others for feedback! =)