Emacs 23.2 has been released.

Emacs 23.2 has been released.

The source downloads are available at: ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/

For those who prefer access to the VCS, the read-only bzr URL is:

http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/emacs/emacs-23.

Enjoy!

Converting from TaskPaper to Emacs Org-Mode

Why TaskPaper and Org-Mode?

TaskPaper is a simple and elegant task management software for the OSX platform. It combines the simplicity of a text micro-format to mark the tasks, and the elegance of a Mac UI. It also provides a quick launch time and a nice system-wide quick entry window that is accessible with a single shortcut key.

I have been a heavy user of Emacs’ Org-Mode for some years now, and love the power and flexibility it offers for tracking not just outlines and tasks, but any text based item, including notes and calendar entries. In fact Org-Mode has become one of the primary software that I use regularly, every day.

So where does the link between TaskPaper and Org-Mode come in? Both are text based, and have their own light-weight formats to define outlines and tasks. The underlying files are plain text with the meaning readable even when not viewed by the appropriate software. Org-Mode is obviously much more feature rich than TaskPaper, which by design keeps things simple.

However, there is one big difference that has led me to looking at integration: Org-Mode is Emacs based and hence takes ages to launch. TaskPaper on the other hand launches in under a second, and also offers a nice quick entry form that is available system-wide via a a global short-cut key.

Emacs aficionados will protest now – after all – Emacs is meant to be launched and never shutdown! This is true, but in my usage patterns, Emacs does get closed once in a while and having to launch it just to make a few quick Org-Mode entries (even with the excellent remember mode) becomes a pain.

My usage has now become more of the following:

1. Use TaskPaper as an initial capture mechanism (sort of as a pre-Inbox store). I make heavy use of the quick entry window here
2. Use a script to collect the TaskPaper entries and reformat them into a Org-Mode compatible file
3. Append the converted entries into my primary Org-Mode Inbox whenever I have Emacs open

This (for me) provides best of both worlds – quick and ubiquitous data capture, and the power and flexibility of Org-Mode.

The Ruby Conversion Script

Without further ado, the script to convert from TaskPaper to Org-mode is:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
#
# Converts Taskpaper files to Emacs org-mode files.
#
# Author: Anupam Sengupta, 2010
#
# Distributed under the BSD license (<a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php">http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php</a>)
#
# Usage: From the command line, enter the command:
#
#  ./tpaper2org.rb &lt;taskpaperfilename&gt;
#
# The output is on STDOUT, which can be redirected to an Org-mode file.
# Whether the generated org-mode file should use odd-level prefix stars
# See <a href="http://orgmode.org/manual/Clean-view.html">http://orgmode.org/manual/Clean-view.html</a> for details.
ORG_USES_ODD_LEVELS = false

LINE_PATTERN = /^(\t*)          # Leading tabs
               -                # Followed by a dash (the taskpaper task identifier)
               (.*?)            # The task description
               ((@\w+\s*)*)     # The tags, if any
               $/x

all_tags = Hash.new(0)

Shiftlvl = ORG_USES_ODD_LEVELS ? 2 : 1 # Determine the number of stars to use in Org-mode entries

while (line = gets()):
  line.chomp!
   md = LINE_PATTERN.match(line)          # Match and extract each line
  if md then                                                # ................ A Task line
    tags = md[3].split(/ +/).reject {|tag| “@done” == tag } # get the tags, except @done tags
    tags = [‘’, tags, ‘’].flatten unless tags.empty?
    puts ‘*’ * (1 + Shiftlvl * (md[1].length + 1)) + (line =~ /@done/ ? “ DONE” : “ TODO”) + md[2] + tags.join(‘:’)
    tags.each { |tag| all_tags[tag] += 1} if tags # Keep a list of all tags
  elsif line =~/:$/                               # ................ A project line
    print “* “
    puts line.chomp(“:”)
  else                          # ................ Any other line
    puts line
  end
end

# Lets do a summary of the tags used.
puts &lt;&lt;END
# The tags used till now.
#+TAGS:#{all_tags.keys.sort.join(‘ ‘)}
END

Note that Org-mode supports multiple prefix styles with ‘*’. In particular, the odd-levels versus the odd-even levels is interesting and useful. The script has a ‘ORG_USES_ODD_LEVELS’ global variable that can be set to true if this is the desired export format.

In addition, the script also adds the tags used in the TaskPaper file as a ‘#+TAGS’ entry in the exported org-mode file. You can comment this if this is not required.

The TaskPaper format

The TaskPaper format is simple, and the file (which by default ends with the extension ‘.taskpaper’) is essentially a plain text file that can be opened and edited in any text editor.

The format can be summarized as (from the TaskPaper User’s Guide):

A project is a line ending with a colon:

      A Project:

A task is a line starting with a dash followed by a space:

    - My First Task

A Note is any line that is NOT a project or a task (i.e., does not start with a dash or end with a colon):

    Notes for a task

A tag is any word prefixed with the @ symbol. The tag can optionally have a value in parentheses after the tag name:

      - My First Task @atag @another_tag(1)

Outlining is done by indenting the tasks with tabs:

     - My First Task @atag
         - My sub-level task

Usage

Using the script is simple. Assuming that TaskPaper’s file is named tasks.taskpaper, from the OS X terminal, run the following command:

        $ tpaper2org.rb tasks.taskpaper >> tinbox.org

Where tinbox.org is the destination org-mode file.

This shell command can be put into a cron job or invoked from within Emacs to pull in the tasks as required. You may also want to delete the TaskPaper file (or empty its contents) after this is done, to prevent duplicate entries being imported the next time the Ruby Script is run.

Links

taskpaper.el is an Emacs mode for emulating the TaskPaper interface with support for projects and tasks. The tags support seems to be missing.

Discussion on the Org-Mode mailing list about Taskpaper and Org-Mode.

Firefox 3.6 finally allows true Fullscreen mode on Mac OSX

Updated to Firefox 3.6 today. As usual, a very solid update, and was pleasantly surprised by the full-screen mode (finally!) that works exactly as you would want it. This was one of the few areas where Firefox on OSX was lagging behind as compared to other platforms.

There were a few plugins that claimed to enable this in prior versions, but never worked very well.

The option is available under the “View”menu and has a standard Apple-Shift-F shortcut as well.

Emacs function to add new path elements to the $PATH environment variable

A very simple eLisp function to add new path elements to the PATH environment variable. Very useful for adding new comint executables from within .emacs/init.el files.

(defun my-add-path (path-element)
 "Add the specified path element to the Emacs PATH"
  (interactive "DEnter directory to be added to path: ")
  (if (file-directory-p path-element)
    (setenv "PATH"
       (concat (expand-file-name path-element)
               path-separator (getenv "PATH")))))

Quickly diff the changes made in the current buffer with its file

Update (23rd Jan 2010): Separated the key-assignment and  function definition.

A simple function to quickly do a diff of the current buffer contents with its underlying file. Very useful if the file has been changed outside (e.g., a log file).

;; Diff the current buffer with the file contents
(defun my-diff-current-buffer-with-disk ()
 "Compare the current buffer with it's disk file."
 (interactive)
 (diff-buffer-with-file (current-buffer)))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c w") 'my-diff-current-buffer-with-disk)

Google Search from within Emacs

A quick and dirty eLisp function for searching on the internet from within Emacs. The default is to search using Google, but you can add to the *internet-search-urls* variable to setup additional search URLs.

By default, the search term is appended at end of the URL – however, you can also encode the specific search term insertion point in the URL by marking the position using the “%s” marker.

;;; The custom search URLs
(defvar *internet-search-urls*
 (quote ("http://www.google.com/search?ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=%s"
         "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=")))

;;; Search a query on the Internet using the selected URL.
(defun search-in-internet (arg)
 "Searches the internet using the ARGth custom URL for the marked text.

If a region is not selected, prompts for the string to search on.

The prefix number ARG indicates the Search URL to use. By default the search URL at position 1 will be used."
 (interactive "p")

 ;; Some sanity check.
 (if (> arg (length *internet-search-urls*))
      (error "There is no search URL defined at position %s" arg))

  (let ((query                          ; Set the search query first.
    (if (region-active-p)
      (buffer-substring (region-beginning) (region-end))
    (read-from-minibuffer "Search for: ")))

  ;; Now get the Base URL to use for the search
  (baseurl (nth (1- arg) *internet-search-urls*)))

  ;; Add the query parameter
  (let ((url
    (if (string-match "%s" baseurl)
      ;; If the base URL has a %s embedded, then replace it
         (replace-match query t t baseurl)
    ;; Else just append the query string at end of the URL
      (concat baseurl query))))
 
   (message "Searching for %s at %s" query url)
   ;; Now browse the URL
   (browse-url url))))

gnuplot with AquaTerm on OSX Snow Leopard

The gnuplot graphing utility has always had excellent support for multiple terminal types. While the X11 terminal is a satisfactory GUI view for the graphs, I prefer to use the AquaTerm terminal on OSX as it is more ‘Mac-like’ and feels more natural.

Also, I do prefer to compile gnuplot by myself on OSX rather than downloading the pre-packaged binaries – as this gives me more control over the compilation (including getting around the stupid Apple readline bug – where Apple has essentially shipped a broken readline by using libedit to emulate the non-existent libreadline).

This local compile requires that AquaTerm be installed so that the library dependencies for aquaterm exists in:

and the corresponding headers are available at:

In addition, the AquaTerm.app itself resides in /Applications.

However, on OS X Snow Leopard, there is a catch – the version of AquaTerm is 32 bit, whereas the default compilation of gnuport results in a 64-bit version – which is not able to load the 32-bit libaquaterm dynamic libraries.

In such a case, the gnuplot compilation does succeed – however, the default terminal becomes the X11 version – which is back to square-one.

A darwinports port does exist for gnuplot – however, as mentioned in an earlier post, this port seems to depend on half of the port repository (i.e., a ton of stuff you do NOT want gets installed as well).

However, there is a easier way to get around this situation. Here’s how.

1. First install the default binary for AquaTerm from SourceForge and install normally. This step is to basically setup the right folders and symlinks so that you do not have to muck with these later
2. Now install AquaTerm again from Darwinports – this port has the correct patches needed – and more importantly – builds a 64 bit version by default. This will also install the application under /Applications/MacPorts/

1. Now comes the fun part. We will replace two folders from the darwinports version to the previously installed AquaTerm.
   • Step 1: Replace /Library/Frameworks/AquaTerm.framework with /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/AquaTerm.framework. This will ensure that the correct 64 bit AquaTerm libraries get referenced by the gnuplot compilation
   • Step 2: Replace /Applications/AquaTerm.app with /Applications/MacPorts/AquaTerm.app. This will ensure that the correct 64-bit AquaTerm binary is in the correct location
   • Step 3 (Optional): You can now uninstall the darwinports version by running sudo port uninstall aquaterm from a terminal window
2. Download the source code for gnuplot and extract the same.
3. Run ./configure (using a command line parameter to ignore the broken Apple readline) and then make and make install (install will happen in /usr/local)

That’s it! The compilation should now succeed and gnuplot will be linked with the correct 64-bit aquaterm dynamic library. Enjoy!