Irreal

An exception to my all-things-in-Emacs rule is my calendar. I do keep an Org mode agenda for things like projects and tasks to be done but for doctor’s appointments and the like I use the the macOS calendar app—actually Fantastical but that’s a detail. I do that because it makes my calendar easily available on all my devices. When I’m at, say, the doctor’s and am making an appointment for my next physical, it’s nice to be able to bring my calendar up on my iPhone so I can see what days and times are free.

Not everyone does things like me of course. Lots of folks keep their calendar in Org mode and for them there is a need for alerts of upcoming events in the agenda. Happily, Artem Khramov has met that need with org-wild-notifier.el. Take a look at the README to see the what sort of alerting it can do.

If you use Org for your calendar and you like to get alerts a few minutes before meetings or appointments, you should take a look at org-wild-notifier. It a reasonably light-weight solution that will probably serve your needs.

As part of Org Mode’s migration to a new server, its ELPA repository has also moved. It used to be part of the GNU ELPA repository but is no longer housed there. Instead, Org now has its own repository. If you like to upgrade Org with the package system, you should add the new repository to your init.el.

To do that, simply add

(add-to-list 'package-archives '("org" . "https://orgmode.org/elpa/") t)

to your init.el.

Way back in 2014, I posted about Eric Neilsen’s excellent Emacs org-mode examples and cookbook. I recently came across a reference to it and was reminded what a great resource it is. It’s easy to browse through and just read one or two entries when you have time. In skimming through it, I learned—or perhaps relearned—how to insert in-line calculations in a document.

As I wrote in the original post, Neilsen is a researcher and his cookbook is oriented at using Org mode to produce documents of various types. Still, that covers a lot of territory and there are many good examples of powerful Org mode use cases in it. The Document has moved or, really, taken up a second residence. It was originally hosted at Fermilab, where Neilsen works, and it’s still there but it’s also available at his own site. The two documents are identical so it doesn’t matter if you use the new link or the original one pointing to FNAL.

If you’re an Org user, especially if you use Org to produce documents, you should take a look at Neilsen’s cookbook and bookmark it for future use.

Update [2018-01-16 Tue 16:18]: Revistited → Revisited