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Re: A simpler remember architecture (was: Re: [Orgmode] Re: is there a h


From: Carsten Dominik
Subject: Re: A simpler remember architecture (was: Re: [Orgmode] Re: is there a hook to save a remember buffer?)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:40:43 +0200

I don't know what the others think....

... but I think this is a brilliant idea.

- Carsten

On Sep 29, 2009, at 10:48 PM, Samuel Wales wrote:

Hi Carsten,

Here is an idea for a much simpler remember architecture that
simultaneously solves Alan's problem.

 1) To me also, a more complicated way to deal with
    remember buffers feels wrong.
 2) If there is more than one thing you are working on, the
    power of the org hierarchy feels like the best way to
    keep track.

 3) The current remember probably does not do what Alan
    wants, even with a better workflow.
    - What if you want to remember from remember?
    - It feels complicated to finalize the old idea and go
      there, then remember the new one, then finish the old
      one, then go back to where you were.  Maybe we can
      simplify.
    - When you've finished the old one, you want to restore
      context to before the old idea.  This is probably
      impossible.  The stack is blown.
 4) Other issues:
    - If you forget to finalize, you lose data.
    - It is easy to reflexively call remember from remember,
      making you surprised that the old idea disappeared.
    - You might forget that you had the old idea.
      Especially if you are having short-term memory issues
      or are distracted.

 5) Here is my idea: discard the concept of remember
    buffers entirely.
    - Create the entry at the target location when you call
      org-remember.
    - Employ a virtual buffer to narrow to the created
      entry.

 6) Some benefits:
    1) Alan can remember, then remember again, then
       remember a third time without having to save
       remember buffers or name them (which he would need).
    2) Your idea is where it should be.  If you want
       context, you simply remove the narrowing.
    3) org has access to the target buffer's buffer-local
       variables, org variables, encoding and multilingual
       settings of the target, etc.
    4) Auto-save saves to a place where Emacs will pick it
       up again if Emacs crashes.
    5) A backup directory is no longer necessary to restore
       data from a killed (remember) buffer.
    6) Finalizing is no longer a matter of losing your data
       if you forget.  It merely pops windows.

 7) If you still want the concept of "I am not done
    remembering this remember," add a tag (:REMEMBERING:)
    at creation time and have org-remember-finalize remove
    that tag.  To see in-progress remembers, call the
    agenda on that tag.

 8) This eases yak shaving.
    - http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/Y/yak-shaving.html
    - This is a simple way to keep track of what you were
      doing when you remember from remember.
    - I recommend making org-remember-finalize use a
      /stack/, so that successive invocations recreate the
      previous window/buffer context until they get to the
      original context.
    - I think that we intuitively work in stacks.  This
      lets us avoid overloading our own memory.
    - If Emacs crashes, the worst thing that will happen is
      that you end up with a bunch of :REMEMBERING: tasks
      around your org files.  Not lost data.

To summarize, the current remember naturally leads to the
need for increasing workarounds, and therefore requests for
features, which leads to more complexity.  By leveraging the
power of the org hierarchy, we can simplify, and get yak
shaving support as a nice surprise benefit.

Let me know what you think.


On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 02:37, Carsten Dominik
<address@hidden> wrote:
Hi Allen,

saving remember buffers is hackish and complex as it is, so I am not going
to add this option.

I think the workflow has to be this:

Create a remember buffer and more-or-less immediately file it.

If you need to work on the content for a longer time, work on it at the target location: Simply exit remember with C-u C-c C-c. The buffer will be filed and the target location will be visited immediately. So now you can work there as long as you want, and start another remember process when you
need one.

HTH

- Carsten

On Sep 9, 2009, at 10:17 PM, Alan E. Davis wrote:

I've looked briefly into the org-remember.el.  A hook exists:
remember-mode-hook. Im not sure it can be successfully applied to the case
I envision.

THere are tradeoffs to immediately saving a remember buffer to a file, and editing a note in the remember buffer, then saving with remember- finalize. I don't remember what they are, as they led me away from immediately saving quite a while ago. I was strongly encouraged by the establishment of a procedure to automatically save to a directory, any remember buffer that was not finallized. I had some issues with it, including how clunky it was to recover, and it was broken at some point, when I was too busy to fix it.

One problem with editing in the Remember buffer, then saving later, is forgetting where I am. I can rely on several remember templates, and too often have lost the remember buffer's contents, when I ran remember again.

What I propose is the make it possible---optionally---to invoke a hook to save existing remember buffers when C-c C-r (X) is used to file a remember
note while in the remember buffer already.

I found a test "bufferp". It does not seem to recognize the buffer name
"Remember", nor "*Remember*".

Is it possible to do this, or is remember going to defeat this?


Alan Davis

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing---that's what
counts.

  ----Richard Feynman



On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:42 PM, Alan E. Davis <address@hidden> wrote: Is there a hook to save the remember buffer when I type C-c C-r when I'm in an unsaved remember buffer? That would be almost as good, perhaps better, than saving the remember buffer to a special file or directory.


Alan

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing---that's what
counts.

  ----Richard Feynman


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