As regular readers know, I am fanatical Org mode user. Almost everything I write in Emacs that isn’t programming code ends up in Org mode. Sometimes, even code does. Still, Org mode is a large system with lots of functionality and that can make it hard to learn.
I recently came across an Emacs package that gives some of the functionality of Org mode and is much simpler to use. Deft is an Emacs mode for dealing with notes. Jason Blevins modeled Deft on Notational Velocity, a Mac note management program. Deft keeps each note in a separate file in the ~/.deft directory (configurable). A note consists of a title on a separate line and then the body of the note. The main interface for Deft is the Deft File Browser, which is simply an Emacs buffer that lists the note titles, the first few words of the body, and the last modification time. The principle operation in Deft is searching and filtering. Filtering is initiated by simply typing some text. Files that have a title or body containing that text show up in the Deft browser on the fly. It’s sort of reminiscent of how Ido interactively pares down the list of target files.
There are a couple of other features but Deft’s main strength is its simplicity. In that, it embraces the Unix principle of doing one task and doing it well (and in plain text, of course). Installation is trivial. Simply clone the source, stash it in the Emacs Lisp search path, and add
(require 'deft)
to your .emacs or init.el file.
If you’re already an Org mode user, org-capture and a notes.org file can accomplish the same thing but if you don’t want to bother with Org mode and want a simple and effective way of managing notes, Deft could be just what you’re looking for. The Deft home page at the above link has a nice write up so go take a look if you’re interested in a lightweight note manager.