[Orgmode] using org-mode and screen

[Andrew Hyatt]

Hi everyone,

I use org-mode religiously these days.  I blogged about my use here (http://technical-dresese.blogspot.com/2007/08/org-mode.html) (please excuse the fact that when I wrote this I didn't know about the existing org-mode functionality to jump to the current clock).

I generally have a problem of integrating the work I do in the shell with the tasks in org-mode.   Plus, I often need access to the shells at home I started from work.  I thought I'd combine these problems into a little org-mode extension that ties screen and org-mode together, via ansi-term.

For these to work, you have to load ansi-term, which my hack is based on.  

If there's enough interest, I'll make a real .el file out of this.

The general idea is that you start a task in which all the work will take place in a shell.  This usually is not a leaf-task for me, but usually the parent of a leaf task.  From a task in your org-file, M-x ash-org-screen will prompt for the name of a session.  Give it a name, and it will insert a link.  Open the link at any time to go the screen session containing your work!

It works pretty well for me.  The only problem is that I often run emacs in a screen session itself, and I can never get scrolling to work right in screen-in-screen.

(defun ash-org-screen-buffer-name (name)                                                            

  "Returns the buffer name corresponding to the screen name given."                                 

  (concat "*screen " name "*"))                                                                     

                                                                                                    

(defun ash-org-screen-helper (name arg)                                                             

  ;; Pick the name of the new buffer.                                                               

  (let ((term-ansi-buffer-name (generate-new-buffer-name (ash-org-screen-buffer-name name))))       

    (setq term-ansi-buffer-name                                                                     

          (term-ansi-make-term term-ansi-buffer-name "/usr/bin/screen" nil                          

                               arg name))                                                           

                                                                                                    

    (set-buffer term-ansi-buffer-name)                                                              

    (term-mode)                                                                                     

    (term-char-mode)                                                                                

                                                                                                    

    (term-set-escape-char ?\C-x)                                                                    

    term-ansi-buffer-name))                                                                         

                                                                                                    

(defun ash-org-screen (name)                                                                        

  "Start a screen session with name"                                                                

  (interactive "MScreen name: ")                                                                    

                                                                                                    

  (save-excursion                                                                                   

    (ash-org-screen-helper name "-S"))                                                              

  (insert-string (concat "[[screen:" name "]]")))        

And don't forget to add ("screen" . "elisp:(ash-org-goto-screen \"%s\")") to org-link-abbrev-alist.