org-parser VS orgdown

Let me start by saying I like the goal and would like to see org mode accessible to everyone, but I do have some thoughts/reservations.

> For the little code I do write, I find having AI assistance (via CoPilot or Cody) to be tremendously helpful. So helpful, in fact, that I now tend to jump into VSCode for actual coding,

Aren't there both copilot and Cody plugins available in emacs?

> Use VSCode for everything. For me, this requires a full-featured org mode implementation. I currently feel stuck in Emacs just because of how great org mode is.

This seems much more difficult than creating plugins you need in emacs and with the downside that customization will be much worse in vscode, especially customization of behavior with things like hooks.

> Letting go of bug-for-bug compatibility with Emacs as a goal. Let's let the quirky behavior die off and move forward with a more cohesive program, even if it looks a little bit different.

If you don't have compatibility, then you aren't really implementing org-mode... you are starting fresh.

That's okay, but you'll likely annoy org-mode users and developers as documents ending in `.org` start not working the same.

Also there are languages besides Rust and Haskell that have an org parser implementation. For instance one written in Javascript already has a spec as you explain it and is used in production for organice[0]:

> Why is this project useful / Rationale

> Org mode in Emacs is implemented in org-element.el (API documentation). The spec for the Org syntax is written in prose. - https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser

> Portable. It should not be difficult to get this integrated into any editor.

This tells me you already have a language in mind such as Lua (can't think of any other easy to integrate languages)? I'd argue that's not very popular either though.

0: https://organice.200ok.ch/

I mean , you have parsers for JS and CLJS https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser

I don't think you did. You probably used the sister project https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser which has a well known issue regarding what you are describing: https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser/issues/56

organice has no such performance issues (and does not run on the JVM). I use it daily with 5k LOC files.

EBNF grammar - https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser/blob/master/resources...

From the readme:

> Org grammar for tree-sitter. It is not meant to implement emacs' orgmode parser, but to implement a grammar that can usefully parse org files to be used in neovim and any library that uses tree-sitter parsers.

This grammar is in active development and is being used by nvim-orgmode/orgmode [1], a org-mode neovim plugin.

Some additional resources some might find useful:

* Org Syntax - https://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html

* EBNF grammar - https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser/blob/master/resources...

[1] https://github.com/nvim-orgmode/orgmode

There's at least a parser using that as a spec at https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser

We have an issue with more information and we are working on it: https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser/issues/56

If you’re open to use a different Lisp, then maybe https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser is something for you.

I just wanted to chime in and mention that the folks who wrote organice[0] also came up with an EBNF grammar[1] for org-mode. Also of tangential interest is that work is actively being done on creating a tree-sitter version[2] of the grammar, although that work is not public (yet).

[0] https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice

[1] https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser/blob/master/resources...

[2] https://github.com/kristijanhusak/orgmode.nvim/issues/31#iss...

There are two reasons why I call Org mode standardized.

> I imagine there aren't really various flavors of Org Mode, but that doesn't make it standardized.

All the implementations that call themselves org-mode follow the conventions set by the canonical implementation - the Emacs org-mode. While this may not sound like a good reason to call it standardized, the practical implication is a vast difference from what you get with various markdown flavors. In the latter case, the only way to make sure that your markdown is correct, is to test it with the target implementation.

The second reason is that there is an actual effort to standardize org-mode - called Orgdown [1]. Org-mode is already more or less uniform across implementations. This effort tries to write it down as a reference. Markdown has a similar effort called CommonMark. But if you want to know why it's different, you have to look at the history of why it isn't called 'Standard Markdown'.

[1] https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown

And yes, at least my setup fulfills all of your requirements and much more. For starters, I can add tags, date- and timestamps everywhere, generate "agenda" views for days/weeks/months/... which collects all those time-related items and visualizes them, I can link emails/urls/... and links to files which I tag as well, I can search through search strings or regex to find meta-data on files/notes/events/... and it's all in the most versatile file format possible: plain UTF-8 text files containing simple orgdown syntax, the most beautifully designed lightweight markup language (LML) there is IMHO.

Are you aware of orgdown?

If you want to parse Orgdown files yourself, expect to invest some time in setting up a testing environment.

I think we've got a misunderstanding here. Text files (in this case in orgdown syntax format) are files that contain the information in its original form: characters, words, sentences. So you only need a software that lets you open a text file to view it. If you want to modify the information stored in the text files, you need an application that lets you modify text files. In case of orgdown, you can find options on https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown/-/blob/master/doc/Tool-Support.org or choose any non-syntax-specific editor of your choice.

So the links are working in Markdown? So Markdown-export is working and your issue starts with the conversion from Markdown to Orgdown?

Well, the difference is that Orgdown, the syntax of Org mode for GNU Emacs is a Lightweight markup language while HTML is a more complex markup language.

Since your notes are in orgdown format, you may use any compatible app that understands to read and probably write orgdown. One of them is GNU Emacs with its org-mode.

I'm thinking of a screen that pops up when booting Emacs that only shows the files I was working on recently in large font (maybe as buttons to click on). The file extension should be hidden, so that I may use it with Orgdown files that have long, descriptive file names (most probably within the same directory).