;; -*- mode: emacs-lisp -*-
;; This file is loaded by Spacemacs at startup.
;; It must be stored in your home directory.
(defun dotspacemacs/layers ()
  "Configuration Layers declaration.
You should not put any user code in this function besides modifying the variable
values."
  (setq-default
   ;; Base distribution to use. This is a layer contained in the directory
   ;; `+distribution'. For now available distributions are `spacemacs-base'
   ;; or `spacemacs'. (default 'spacemacs)
   dotspacemacs-distribution 'spacemacs
   ;; Lazy installation of layers (i.e. layers  are installed only when a file
   ;; with a supported type is opened). Possible values are `all', `unused'
   ;; and `nil'. `unused' will lazy install only unused layers (i.e. layers
   ;; not listed in variable `dotspacemacs-configuration-layers'), `all' will
   ;; lazy install any layer that s  (set-face-attribute 'variable-pitch nil :family "ETBembo" :size 15) upport lazy installation even the layers
   ;; listed in `dotspacemacs-configuration-layers'. `nil' disable the lazy
   ;; installation feature and you have to explicitly list a layer in the
   ;; variable `dotspacemacs-configuration-layers' to install it.
   ;; (default 'unused)
   dotspacemacs-enable-lazy-installation 'unused
   ;; If non-nil then Spacemacs will ask for confirmation before installing
   ;; a layer lazily. (default t)
   dotspacemacs-ask-for-lazy-installation t
   ;; If non-nil layers with lazy install support are lazy installed.
   ;; List of additional paths where to look for configuration layers.
   ;; Paths must have a trailing slash (i.e. `~/.mycontribs/')
   dotspacemacs-configuration-layer-path '()
   ;; List of configuration layers to load.
   dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
   '(
     ;; ----------------------------------------------------------------
     ;; Example of useful layers you may want to use right away.
     ;; Uncomment some layer names and press <SPC f e R> (Vim style) or
     ;; <M-m f e R> (Emacs style) to install them.
     ;; ----------------------------------------------------------------
     ;;
     ;; org-mode
     org
     ;; Typing-related
     auto-completion
     (spell-checking :variables spell-checking-enable-by-default nil)
     syntax-checking
     ;; Search-related
     ivy
     deft
     ;; Language support
     python
     html
     rust
     emacs-lisp
     latex
     markdown
     yaml
     ;; For papers and PDFs
     bibtex
     pdf-tools
     ;; Other
     osx
     git
     )
 ;; List of additional packages that will be installed without being
 ;; wrapped in a layer. If you need some configuration for these
 ;; packages, then consider creating a layer. You can also put the
 ;; configuration in `dotspacemacs/user-config'.
   dotspacemacs-additional-packages
   '( 
     ;; Aesthetics
     doom-themes
     org-bullets
     olivetti
     ;; For org-drill
     org-plus-contrib
     ;; For defining nice org-capture templates
     org-starter
     dash
     dash-functional
     org-reverse-datetree
     ;; For annotating PDFs
     org-noter
     ;; For making a kanban from TODO entries
     org-kanban
     )
 ;; A list of packages that cannot be updated.
 dotspacemacs-frozen-packages '()
 ;; A list of packages that will not be installed and loaded.
 dotspacemacs-excluded-packages '(vi-tilde-fringe org-projectile doom-wilmersdorf-theme)
 ;; Defines the behaviour of Spacemacs when installing packages.
 ;; Possible values are `used-only', `used-but-keep-unused' and `all'.
 ;; `used-only' installs only explicitly used packages and uninstall any
 ;; unused packages as well as their unused dependencies.
 ;; `used-but-keep-unused' installs only the used packages but won't uninstall
 ;; them if they become unused. `all' installs *all* packages supported by
 ;; Spacemacs and never uninstall them. (default is `used-only')
 dotspacemacs-install-packages 'used-only))

This is the layer that gives you org-mode functionality. There’ll be a lot more on this in other parts of the config. The Spacemacs org layer page has a crazy amount of keyboard shortcuts but here are the ones that I actually use. (For commands not starting with ALT, SHIFT, or CTRL, you have to press ESC first)

Tasks, scheduling, and agenda

• Current week agenda - SPC m a * a

  The buffer window that you run this in shows everything you have scheduled for the week (top right in the picture above). The asterisk makes it a “sticky” agenda view, meaning you can call a different agenda command (such as the one below) in another window and still see this one.

• List of tasks - SPC m a t

  The buffer window you run this in shows a list of tasks identified by keywords like “TODO” (bottom right in the picture above). I’ve added a couple of my own keywords to this list.

• Refresh agenda - r

  You can run this inside an agenda buffer to make it reflect any changes you’ve made to your file(s).

• Make a heading into a task - t

  Running this on a heading gives you a choice of TODO keywords that you can assign to it.

• Tick a checkbox - CTRL-c CTRL-c
• Schedule something - SPC m s
• Give something a deadline - SPC m d

Adding text and moving it around

• Add a heading - SPC m h i
• Add a sub-heading - SPC m h s
• Add a link - CTRL-c CTRL-l
• Add a new list item - RET
• Add tags to a heading - SPC m :
• Re-organize headings / items - ALT--UP, ALT-DOWN
• Demote a heading - ALT-SHIFT-RIGHT
• Fold a heading’s subtree - TAB
• Archive a subtree when you’re done with it - SPC m A

  This saves the heading and everything under it into “<filename>.orgarchive“.

• Cut a subtree - CTRL-c CTRL-x CTRL-w
• Paste a cut subtree - CTRL-c CTRL-x CTRL-y

Other [4/5]

• DONE Showing entries related to a tag CTRL-c / m <tag name>
• DONE Displaying statistics - CTRL-c #

  You can run this on a heading with [/] (or [%]) next to it to see how many (or what percentage of) that heading’s checkboxes you’ve ticked or TODOs you’ve DONE’d. This line’s parent heading demonstrates this.

• DONE Edit source code (in a dedicated buffer) - CTRL-c '
• DONE org-capture - SPC m c

  A lot more on this one here.

• TODO Export - CTRL-c CTRL-e

I use the auto-completion, spell-checking, and syntax-checking layers to make typing text and code more efficient. I’ve set spell-checking off by default though since I only need it for typing long-form articles like this one and you can enable it easily on a file by calling ALT-x-flyspell-mode.

Ivy is supposed to be faster than Helm for searching within files, I haven’t really noticed or compared though. Deft is a neat package that lets you define a folder and gives you fast search within the files in that folder. You call it using SPC a n to get a window with a list of files that you can search through. You can just type in the search bar to make a new file. I’ve also used it for renaming ( SPC m r ) and deleting files ( SPC m d ). Refresh with CTRL-c CTRL-g.

I occasionally try out different doom themes (with SPC T s) - I’m partial to the doom-wilmersdorf and doom-spacegrey themes. org-bullets is to make the heading bullet points look better than asterisks, and Olivetti mode (ALT-x olivetti mode) centers the part of the buffer with the text, which looks nicer when you have a lot of text on the screen.

This has a lot of packages but I just have it so I can use org-drill for learning Turkish. More on that in the next post.

I use this one in some of my org-capture templates which need stored in reverse date order. The Dailies page of this blog is an example, you get the latest notes first.

Having a giant list of TODOs was pretty daunting and I found myself procrastinating a lot. A kanban board is meant to alleviate this by giving you a visual idea of how much you’ve taken on your plate and how much you can actually work on at a given moment. The org-kanban package accomplishes this in org-mode by pulling in active TODOs from a file into a table, divided into the different TODO states. I have this linked to the Task capture template.

The keyboard shortcuts related to this are quite simple:

The bibtex layer lets you cite papers from a bibliography, and the org-noter + pdf-tools combo lets you view and annotate (even huge) PDFs in emacs buffers. I think this topic deserves its own post so I’ll keep it short here and add a link later.

#+BEGIN_EXPORT html
  <details>
  <summary>Click to expand</summary>
#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
  ;; your code goes here
#+END_SRC
#+BEGIN_EXPORT html
  </details>
#+END_EXPORT

(defun dotspacemacs/user-config ()
  "Configuration function for user code.
    This function is called at the very end of Spacemacs initialization after
    layers configuration.
    This is the place where most of your configurations should be done. Unless it is
    explicitly specified that a variable should be set before a package is loaded,
    you should place your code here."
    (require 'org-drill)
    (setq org-drill-scope (quote directory))
    (setq org-link-frame-setup (quote (file . find-file)))
    (setq org-link-frame-setup
     (quote
      ((file . find-file)
       (vm . vm-visit-folder-other-frame)
       (vm-imap . vm-visit-imap-folder-other-frame)
       (gnus . org-gnus-no-new-news)
       (wl . wl-other-frame))))

(setq org-agenda-window-setup (quote current-window))
;; To add all org files in a repository to the agenda
(setq org-agenda-files (directory-files-recursively "~/Dropbox/organizer/" "\.org$"))
;; Set task-related keywords
(setq org-todo-keywords
      '((sequence "IDEA(i)" "TODO(t)" "RUNNING(r)" "|" "DONE(d)" "CANCELLED(c)" "DEFERRED(f)")
	(sequence "MEETING(m)" "|" "MET(M)")))
;; Ignore scheduled tasks and tasks with a deadline in task list view (SPC m a t)
(setq org-agenda-todo-ignore-with-date t)
;; Skip finished items
(setq org-agenda-skip-deadline-if-done t)
(setq org-agenda-skip-scheduled-if-done t)
(setq org-agenda-skip-timestamp-if-done t)
;; Skip deleted files
(setq org-agenda-skip-unavailable-files t)

• The org-agenda-files line makes agenda check recursively in my Dropbox organizer folder for org files. This comes in handy since I tend to group files into folders when it makes sense - e.g. a folder for conferences with one file of notes per conference etc. The window-setup makes it so that when I call an agenda command in a buffer then it opens in that buffer instead of any old one it finds lying around (I feel like this should be the default somehow).
• org-todo-keywords defines extra TODO-like keywords. The | between the two sets of words is the difference between TODO and DONE. So MET is the closed state of MEETING. Each keyword has a letter in brackets next to it that I can use to quickly add it to a heading / change an existing one (by calling t on the heading). Other people seem to have a lot more keywords here but I mostly find myself using these.
• Then I make it so that the org-agenda-todo view (SPC m a t) doesn’t show TODO items which have a scheduled date attached to them. This fits my typical setup (in the Figure at the top) with two vertically stacked windows, one with the week agenda and one that lists unscheduled TODOs, since this way the same item isn’t repeated in both views. I mostly use unscheduled TODOs for ideas (with the IDEA keyword) and more generic/vague statements that don’t really have a deadline (like “Think about projects related to X” or “Look into topic X”). I also use it for meetings/appointments which I still have to set up (with the MEETING keyword).
• The org-agenda-skip lines make the agenda stop showing DONE’d TODO items.

;; Deft-related
(setq deft-directory "~/Dropbox/organizer")
(setq deft-extensions '("org"))
(setq deft-recursive t)

These should be self-explanatory - sets the folder for Deft to index and makes it look recursively for org files.

This is my favorite part - capture templates!

;; Org-Capture templates
(setq org-capture-templates
	  (quote (

These are basically endlessly code-able templates that let you add specific content of any kind anywhere with a couple of keypresses. I shall demonstrate.

Blog-related

• Making a draft blog post

  ("b" "Blog-related templates")
    ("bn" "Blog Entry" plain
     (file
      (lambda nil
        (interactive)
        (let ((name (read-string "Filename: ")))
  	(expand-file-name (format "%s.org" name)
  			  "~/Dropbox/organizer/pelican_blog/drafts"))))
     "#+TITLE: %^{title}
    #+DATE: %t
    #+CATEGORY: %^{category}
    #+AUTHOR: Hex
    #+PROPERTY: LANGUAGE en
    #+PROPERTY: SUMMARY %^{summary}
    #+PROPERTY: SUBTITLE %^{subtitle}
    #+PROPERTY: TAGS %^{comma-separated tags}
    #+OPTIONS: num:nil
    #+OPTIONS: toc:nil
    %?
    " :jump-to-captured t)
  

  Suppose one of us comes up with an idea for a blog post. Wherever I am in Spacemacs, I can type SPC m c bn and type in the title of the post, then it asks me for the category, summary, subtitle, and any tags we may have in mind (each of these can be skipped and filled in later of course). I press Enter and have a fully set up skeleton file inside the drafts folder, and now we can concentrate on writing the content. The whole lambda part makes an anonymous function (just like a Python lambda function) that asks the user for a slug/filename instead of using a fixed one. You can ask the user for text with a prompt using %^{prompt} and get today’s date using %t. %? gives you the option to type in content in the capture buffer itself (you exit the capture buffer and save it to the file using CTRL-c CTRL-c). And :jump-to-captured t makes it open the new file.

• Saving a link

  ("bu" "URL" entry
   (file+function "~/Dropbox/organizer/pelican_blog/content/pages/dailies.org"
  		org-reverse-datetree-goto-date-in-file)
   "* [[%^{URL}][%^{Description}]] %^g %?")
  

  This is what we use to make the Dailies page. Any time I come across a website that’s interesting I hit SPC m c bu in a Spacemacs buffer and file it away along with a description and some tags (with %^g). We still haven’t figured out a nice way to show the tags on Pelican though. This is also where the org-reverse-datetree package comes in handy. The file+function part says to put this captured note in dailies.org under today’s date. If the heading doesn’t exist it makes it (starting from a top-level heading for the year, second-level for month and third-level for the day) and then puts your note as a subheading under it. You can do the same thing with the built-in datetree (using file+datetree instead) but then the top of the file would be your oldest note and the bottom would be the latest which is a bit inconvenient, especially for a blog page. The org-reverse-datetree package also lets you specify the format of your dates. So this is what I have on top of the dailies.org file:

  #+TITLE: Dailies
  #+AUTHOR: Hex
  #+DATE: 2020-01-05
  #+PROPERTY: LANGUAGE en
  #+OPTIONS: toc:nil
  #+OPTIONS: tags:nil
  #+OPTIONS: num:nil
  #+PROPERTY: SUBTITLE Some links and resources found during breaks at work
  #+PROPERTY: META_ROBOTS noindex
  #+REVERSE_DATETREE_USE_WEEK_TREE: nil
  #+REVERSE_DATETREE_DATE_FORMAT: %d %A
  #+REVERSE_DATETREE_MONTH_FORMAT: %B
  #+REVERSE_DATETREE_YEAR_FORMAT: %Y
  

  • USE_WEEK_TREE - Setting this to true would make it store weeks instead of months and days
  • DATE_FORMAT - “%d” = day of the month, “%A” = day of the week
  • MONTH_FORMAT - “%B” = January, February, etc.
  • YEAR_FORMAT - “%Y” = 2020
• Margin notes, side notes and collapsed notes

  The notes you see on the right (or if you click on the arrows from a phone) are side notes (and very rarely margin notes»Look, a margin note ) ala Edward Tufte and some CSS taken from Tufte-CSS. Using capture templates make it infinitely easy to add them into a blog post. There’s also a template for making collapsed notes that you can then click on to expand, such as the the code for these templates below. Notice that the file argument is empty - that’s because we want these templates to be inserted into the file from which we called org-capture at the location we called it from. To do this we call capture with CTRL-0 SPC m c instead of just SPC m c.

  Click to expand

Notes and Tasks

("n" "Notes" entry
 (file+function "~/Dropbox/organizer/phd.org" org-reverse-datetree-goto-date-in-file)
 "* %^{Description} %^g
  Added: %t
  %?

 ")

("t" "Task" entry
 (file+function "~/Dropbox/organizer/phd.org" org-reverse-datetree-goto-date-in-file)
 "* TODO %^{Description} %^gkanban:
  Added: %t
  %?

 ")

Schedule meetings

("m" "Meeting" entry
 (file+headline "~/Dropbox/organizer/phd.org" "Meetings/People-related")
 "** MEETING %^{Description} %^g
  SCHEDULED: %^{Date}T
  %?

")

Log activities

("l" "Log Time" entry
 (file+function "~/Dropbox/organizer/daily_notes.org" org-reverse-datetree-goto-date-in-file)
 "** %U - %^{Activity}  %^g"
 :immediate-finish t)
)))

Olivetti mode

;; Text takes up 85% of the buffer
(setq olivetti-body-width 0.85)
;; Starts text files (like .org .txt .md) in olivetti mode
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'olivetti-mode)

Checkboxes

(add-hook 'org-mode-hook (lambda ()
			   "Beautify Org Checkbox Symbol"
			   (push '("[ ]" .  "☐") prettify-symbols-alist)
			   (push '("[X]" . "☑" ) prettify-symbols-alist)
			   (push '("[-]" . "❍" ) prettify-symbols-alist)
			   (prettify-symbols-mode)))
(defface org-checkbox-done-text
'((t (:foreground "#71696A")))
"Face for the text part of a checked org-mode checkbox.")

Variable pitch

(custom-set-faces
     ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
     ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
     ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
     ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
     '(variable-pitch ((t (:weight normal :height 1.1 :width normal :family "ETBembo"))))
     '(fixed-pitch ((t (:family "Jetbrains Mono"))))
     '(org-block ((t (:inherit (shadow fixed-pitch)))))
     '(org-checkbox ((t (:foreground "Pink" :inherit (bold fixed-pitch)))))
     '(org-checkbox-statistics-done ((t (:inherit org-done))))
     '(org-code ((t (:inherit (shadow fixed-pitch)))))
     '(org-default ((t (:inherit variable-pitch :family "ETBembo"))))
     '(org-document-info ((t (:inherit fixed-pitch :foreground "pale turquoise"))))
     '(org-document-info-keyword ((t (:inherit (shadow fixed-pitch)))))
     '(org-document-title ((t (:inherit default :weight bold :foreground "#c0c5ce" :font "ETBembo" :height 1.5 :underline nil))))
     '(org-done ((t (:inherit fixed-pitch :foreground "PaleGreen" :weight bold))))
     '(org-footnote ((t (:inherit variable-pitch :foreground "Cyan" :underline t))))
     '(org-indent ((t (:inherit (org-hide fixed-pitch)))))
     '(org-level-1 ((t (:inherit variable-pitch :foreground "#c2c2b0" :slant italic :weight semi-light :height 1.75 :width normal :foundry "nil" :family "ETBembo"))))
     '(org-level-2 ((t (:inherit variable-pitch :foreground "#c2c2b0" :height 1.5 :width normal :foundry "nil" :family "ETBembo"))))
     '(org-level-3 ((t (:inherit variable-pitch :foreground "#b0a2e7" :slant italic :weight normal :height 1.25 :width normal :foundry "nil" :family "ETBembo"))))
     '(org-level-4 ((t (:inherit variable-pitch))))
     '(org-level-5 ((t (:inherit default :weight bold :foreground "#c0c5ce" :font "ETBembo"))))
     '(org-level-6 ((t (:inherit default :weight bold :foreground "#c0c5ce" :font "ETBembo"))))
     '(org-level-7 ((t (:inherit default :weight bold :foreground "#c0c5ce" :font "ETBembo"))))
     '(org-level-8 ((t (:inherit default :weight bold :foreground "#c0c5ce" :font "ETBembo"))))
     '(org-link ((t (:inherit (link variable-pitch) :slant normal))))
     '(org-list-dt ((t (:inherit fixed-pitch :foreground "#819cd6" :weight bold))))
     '(org-meta-line ((t (:inherit (font-lock-comment-face fixed-pitch)))))
     '(org-property-value ((t (:inherit fixed-pitch))) t)
     '(org-quote ((t (:background "#32353f" :family "ETBembo"))))
     '(org-todo ((t (:inherit fixed-pitch :foreground "Pink" :weight bold))))
     '(org-verbatim ((t (:inherit (shadow fixed-pitch)))))
     '(org-verse ((t (:inherit fixed-pitch))))
     )
)

Other

;; Makes some things look nicer
(setq org-startup-indented t
      org-pretty-entities t
      ;; show actually italicized text instead of /italicized text/
      org-hide-emphasis-markers t
      org-agenda-block-separator ""
      org-fontify-whole-heading-line t
      org-fontify-done-headline t
      org-fontify-quote-and-verse-blocks t)