Re: [O] emails written in Org Mode

[Thorsten Jolitz]

John Kitchin <address@hidden> writes:

> Can't you just change your buffer mode to org-mode, compose, change back
> to message-mode and send? Did you want to do more than that?

Ok, message-mode is a text mode just like Org-mode and not a programming
mode, so it is not the perfect use-case for outshine/outorg, and it
would be possible to just change major-modes.

But why not resuse outorg for this if it already exists and works with
many other major-modes? The cost for typing M-# # is low (just as typing
C-c '), and it feels much smoother to switch to a temporary edit-buffer
than to change major-modes, and if only for the fact that you normally
don't have an Org-mode headline in a message-mode buffer, and Org
without a headline is like a cake without sugar, so you have to add one
manually to make things work and get the fontification.

Outorg does offer some export related conveniences too:

,----[ C-h f outorg-edit-as-org RET ]
| outorg-edit-as-org is an interactive Lisp function in `outorg.el'.
| 
| It is bound to M-# #, <menu-bar> <Outshine> <Edit As Org>.
| 
| (outorg-edit-as-org &optional ARG)
| 
| Convert and copy to temporary Org buffer
| 
| With ARG, act conditional on the raw value of ARG:
| 
| | prefix | raw | action 1          | action 2                       |
| |--------+-----+-------------------+--------------------------------|
| | C-u    | (4) | edit-whole-buffer | ---                            |
| | C-1    |   1 | edit-whole-buffer | insert default export-template |
| | C-2    |   2 | edit-whole-buffer | prompt user for template-file  |
| | C-3    |   3 | edit-whole-buffer | insert & keep default template |
| | C-4    |   4 | edit-whole-buffer | insert & keep template-file    |
| | C-5    |   5 | propagate changes | ---                            |
| 
| [back]
`----

i.e. you can temporarily (or persistently) add a default (or custom)
header to the message if you want to export it from Org-mode just by
giving a prefix arg. And, after inserting more headlines, you can decide
if you want to edit only the subtree at point (default) or the whole
buffer (with prefix arg).

> I played around with using a heading with properties to send an
> email. Basically the heading is the subject, you set some properties
> about TO, CC, etc... and the heading content is the body. You just put
> your cursor in the heading and run M-x email-heading. You can see the
> code here https://github.com/jkitchin/jmax/blob/master/email.el#L31
>
> and
>
> https://github.com/jkitchin/jmax/blob/master/email.el#L35
>
> It saves some details in properties, like when it was sent, etc... It is
> occasionally useful to me.

Using outshine/outorg with message-mode is just a nice side-effect,
their main purpose is of course bringing the look&feel of Org-mode to
programming modes. But they are easy to adapt to message-mode and very
smooth to use - so why not take advantage of this? 

> Ken Mankoff <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Hi Thorsten,  On a recent thread you wrote: 
>>
>>> ... *outorg-edit-buffer* (where I write my message-mode email in
>>> full
>>> org-mode).
>>
>> I already write emails in emacs. I'm interested in being able to compose
>> emails using Org Mode. I see you use gnus. I use mu4e[1]. I wonder if
>> your setup is gnus-specific or might work with other emacs mail
>> clients. Will you provide some information about this?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>  -k.
>>
>> [1] http://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e.html
>>
>>

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten