nyxwulf / org-wiki

Wiki for Emacs org-mode built on top of Emacs org-mode.

org-wiki

Org-wiki

Overview

Org-wiki is a org-mode extension that provides tools to manage and build personal wiki or desktop wiki where each wiki page is a org-mode file.

It provides a custom protocol wiki:keyword which creates like. When clicked this links creates the wiki file in the wiki directory with name keyword.org.

Features:

• A wiki system for Emacs.
• Search wiki pages quickly.
• Create new wiki pages fast.
• Command to export all pages to html without block Emacs. M-x M-x org-wiki/export-html-async
• Search wiki pages by its content. (grep)
• org-mode protocol to create and open wiki pages.
• org-mode protocol to open attachment/asset files with default system application.
• Automatic download of attachment files with:
  • M-x org-wiki-asset-download-insert1
  • M-x org-wiki-asset-download-insert2

Org-mode already has many features that makes it suitable to create a desktop wiki and store knowledge like:

• Render Latex formulas.
• Block codes (org-babel).
• Fast navigation and editing
• Support for tables
• Ability to export to html and other formats.
• Links to files, images, system commands and Elisp commands.

Note It is only possible to show the video demonstrations in html version.

Link formats

• wiki:<pagename>

Example:

    wiki:Linux 
or 
    [[wiki:Linux]]
or
    [[wiki:Linux][Linux]]  

• wiki-asset-sys:<pagename>/<asset file name>

Example:

     wiki-asset-sys:Linux;LearnLinux.pdf
or 
     [[wiki-asset-sys:Linux;LearnLinux.pdf]]
or
     [[wiki-asset-sys:Linux;LearnLinux.pdf][Book Learn Linux.pdf]]

It will open the file ~/wiki-directory/Linux/LearnLinux.pdf with the default system application.

FAQ

What is a personal wiki/ desktop wiki?

It is a digital notebook or a note taking app integrated with desktop. Some examples are Zim Wiki, Microsoft OneNote and Tomboy (software).

What org-wiki is not

• It is not a server wiki like Mediawiki (Wikipedia Engine) or Dokuwiki. So it has no administrative panel and user account and so on. Despite it not be a server wiki, it can serve org pages (*.org files) exported html with Python3 web server help in read-only mode.

Why org-wiki?

Server wikis are hard to manage and install for a single user and requires installation of a web server like Apache, PHP and a database server like MySql or PostgresSQL.

Desktop wikis like org-wiki, Zim, OneNote and Tomboy are easier to install and manage than server wikis and has less memory requirements.

The problems of many wikis are the lack of a good text editor, extensibility and desktop integration. Org-wiki solves that by putting the Wiki inside the most awesome text editor: Emacs and everything is just one keybinding or one command away. Another advantage is the org-mode format and Emacs integration that provides fast editing, fast refactoring, headline folding, fast table manipulation, export to many formats like html, pdf and so on, Latex equations and literate programming in many languages like C, C++, Python, R and so on.

You can see Org-mode Screencasts and reviews here:

• http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-screencasts/

Repository

Repository	https://github.com/caiorss/org-wiki
Html documentation	https://caiorss.github.io/org-wiki/

Demos

• (1) Browsing Index: M-x org-wiki/index

• (2) M-x org-wiki/helm - Select a wiki page by name.

• (3) M-x org-wiki/insert Insert a link to wiki page at cursor position.

• (4) - M-x org-wiki/asset-insert Insert a link to a asset file that when clicked opens it with default system application.

See video: M-x org-wiki/asset-insert

• (5) - Org-wiki exported to HTML

You can view a sample wiki exported to html here:

• Sample org-wiki exported to html
• This sample wiki is available at sandbox/wiki

Screenshots

• 1. Command M-x org-wiki-index Open the wiki index page (file index.org)

• 2. Command M-x org-wiki-helm Open a helm menu to select the wiki page to be opened.

• 3. M-x org-wiki- [tab] provides easy completion and discoverability to org-wiki commands.

• 4. M-x org-wiki-dired Open the org-wiki directory showing only the wiki pages (*.org files).

• 5. M-x org-wiki-dired-all Open the org-wiki directory showing all files.

• 6. M-x org-wiki-search-pattern Search for all wiki page that contains a pattern. (string or regex pattern).

Example: The command M-x org-wiki/search-patern - System.Windows will search all files that contains “System.Windows string”.

Worflow

Create a page

To create a page do:

• 1. M-x org-wiki-index - It goes to the Org-wiki index page (index.org).
• 2. Then run M-x org-wiki-link and a page name like ‘CNC - Computer Numerical Control’

It will insert a hyperlink at point like:

[[wiki:CNC%20-%20Computer%20Numerical%20Control][CNC - Computer Numerical Control]]

• 3. Then click at the link or enter C-x C-o at the link to open it.

Browse a page

The navigation can be done by running

• M-x org-wiki-index

or

• M-x org-wiki-helm that will show a helm combobox menu where the user view all pages and search a page by typing its name.

or

• M-x org-wiki-helm-frame to open a page in another frame (Emacs terminology for GUI window).

Setup

Install

Method 1 - Bootstrap installer

Evaluate this code in the scratch buffer that will install all dependencies and this package. The scratch buffer can be evaluated with M-x eval-buffer.

(let ((url "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/caiorss/org-wiki/master/org-wiki.el"))     
      (with-current-buffer (url-retrieve-synchronously url)
	(goto-char (point-min))
	(re-search-forward "^$")
	(delete-region (point) (point-min))
	(kill-whole-line)
	(package-install-from-buffer)))

Method 2 - El-get

Just copy this piece of code to scratch buffer and eveluate the buffer with M-x eval-buffer. It is assumed that el-get is already installed.

(el-get-bundle org-wiki
  :url "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/caiorss/org-wiki/master/org-wiki.el"
  :description "Emacs' desktop wiki built with org-mode"
  :features org-wiki
  )

Method 3 - Manual installation

Copy the package to the desired location.

mkdir -p ~/.emacs.d/packages/ 

cd ~/.emacs.d/packages/ 

git clone  https://github.com/caiorss/org-wiki

mkdir -p ~/org/wiki    # Make wiki location. 

Make org-wiki directory

• M-x make-directory ~/org-wiki

Configuration

Load org-wiki

Add to init file ~/.emacs.d/init.el or ~/.emacs

(require 'org-wiki)

Org-wiki can configured programatically by setting the org-wiki custom varibles or with M-x customize-group org-wiki.

Path to Wiki location

Path where all org-wiki pages (*.org files) are stored.

(setq org-wiki-location "~/org/wiki")

or in Windows it could be:

(setq org-wiki-location "e:/projects/org-wiki-test.emacs")

Open org-wiki pages in read-only

If the custom variable org-wiki-default-read-only is set to true (t) org-wiki pages are opened in read-only mode. The default value of this variable is nil (false). It is useful to avoid unintentionally change an org-wiki page.

The read-only mode can be toggled with M-x toggle-read-only or C-x C-q.

• Open org-wiki pages in read-only mode.

(setq org-wiki-default-read-only t)  

• Open org-wiki pages in non read-only mode.

(setq org-wiki-default-read-only nil)  ;; Default value

Server settings

Org-wiki can serve the pages exported to html with python help.

The variable org-wiki-server-port (default value 8000) sets the default port that Python web server will listen to.

It can be set with:

(setq org-wiki-server-port "8000") ;; 8000 - default value 

The variable org-wiki-server-host (default value 0.0.0.0 - all hosts) sets the host that the Python server will listen.

It can be set with:

(setq org-wiki-server-host "0.0.0.0")   ;; Listen all hosts (default value)
(setq org-wiki-server-host "127.0.0.1") ;; Listen only localhost 

Export Settings

In order to the html export work the path to emacs executable directory must be in the $PATH variable. In some OS like Windows where this path is not in $PATH variable it is necessary to set the variable org-wiki-emacs-path like:

(setq org-wiki-emacs-path "c:/Users/arch/opt/emacs/bin/runemacs.exe")

Optional: This package provides the command M-x org-wiki-make-menu that installs a menu on the menu bar.

The menu can be installed permanently by adding the init file:

(org-wiki-make-menu)

Start the wiki

• M-x org-wiki-index to go to index.org
• New pages can be created with M-x org-wiki-link that asks for wiki word and inserts at point a hyperlink to the wiki page.
• References to existing pages can be inserted with M-x org-wiki-insert.

Commands Summary

M-x Command	Description
Help
org-wiki-help	Show all org-wiki commands.
org-wiki-website	Open org-wiki default website.
Navigation
org-wiki-index	Go to the index page or index.org
org-wiki-index-frame	Open org-wiki index page in a new frame.
org-wiki-helm	Open a org-wiki page
org-wiki-helm-frame	Open a org-wiki page in a new frame
org-wiki-helm-read-only	Open a org-wiki page in read-only mode
org-wiki-switch	Switch between org-wiki buffers
Close Command
org-wiki-close	Close and save all org-wiki pages (buffers).
Insert Commands
org-wiki-link	Insert a link at point to a new org-wiki page. Click or follow the link to edit the new page.
org-wiki-insert	Insert a link at point to an existing org-wiki page.
org-wiki-header	Insert at the top of an org-wiki buffer an org-mode header template.
org-wiki-asset-insert-file	Insert link to asset/attachment file at point.
org-wiki-asset-insert	Insert a link to asset/attachment file at point. When the user clicks,
	it opens with default system application. It is useful to open pdfs,
	spreadsheets and so on.
org-wiki-asset-download-insert1	Download a file and insert a link to it at point. Similar to org-wiki-asset-insert
org-wiki-asset-download-insert2	Download a file and insert a link to it at point. Similar to org-wiki-asset-insert-file
Directory
org-wiki-dired	Open org-wiki-location or org-wiki storage directory in Emacs showing only *.org files.
org-wiki-open	Open org-wiki-location with default system file manager.
org-wiki-dired-all	OPen org-wiki-location showing all files.
Alias Command
org-wiki-nav	Alias to helm-org-in-buffer-headings
org-wiki-occur	Alias to helm-occur
org-wiki-toggle-images	Toggle images display. Alias to org-toggle-inline-images
org-wiki-toggle-link	Toggle link display. Alias to M-x org-toggle-link-display.
org-wiki-latex	Display latex formulas. Alias to org-preview-latex-fragment. Requires latex installed.
Misc
org-wiki-panel	A panel like magit-status panel.
org-wiki-server-toggle	Toggle Python web server.
org-wiki-make-menu	Install an org-wiki menu.

Not. complete.

Commands

Help

• M-x org-wiki-help Show all org-wiki commands and its description.
• M-x org-wiki-website Open org-wiki project website in the default web browser.

Open the index page

M-x org-wiki-index

• M-x org-wiki-index - Open the index page. It opens the file index.org that is the first default page of the wiki. If the file doesn’t exist it will be created.

M-x org-wiki-index-frame

• M-x org-wiki-index-frame - Open the wiki index page in a new frame.

Browse pages

M-x org-wiki-helm

• M-x org-wiki-helm - Open a helm menu to switch or open a wiki page.

M-x org-wiki-switch

• M-x org-wiki-switch - Switch between org-wiki buffers (*.org files in org-wiki-location directory) already opened.

M-x org-wiki-helm-frame

• M-x org-wiki-helm-frame - Open a wiki page in a new frame.

M-x org-wiki-helm-read-only

• M-x org-wiki-helm-read-only - Open a wiki page in read-only mode.

M-x org-wiki-make-page

• M-x org-wiki-make-page - Creates a new wiki page asking the user for the page name.

M-x org-wiki-close

• M-x org-wiki-close - Close all wiki pages, kill all *.or buffers belonging to wiki directory.

Insert Hyperlink to wiki pages or asset files

M-x org-wiki-link

• M-x org-wiki-link - Asks the user for the wiki page name and inserts the hyperlink at point. It is useful to create new pages fast without write the full syntax like [[wiki:page title] [page title]

Example:

• 1. User enter M-x org-wiki-link and enter “The Art of Unix Programming”
• 2. It will insert at point (current cursor position):

[[wiki:The%20Art%20of%20Unix%20Programming][The Art of Unix Programming]]

And will create the hyperlink to this page.

M-x org-wiki-insert

• M-x org-wiki-insert - Inserts a org-mode link at current point to a Wiki page selected through a helm-menu.

M-x org-wiki-header

• =M-x org-wiki-header. It inserts at top of the wiki page the template:

#+TITLE: <PAGE TITLE>
#+DESCRIPTION:
#+KEYWORDS:
#+STARTUP:  overview

Related:

[[wiki:index][Index]]\n\n

M-x org-wiki-asset-insert

• M-x org-wiki-asset-insert - Insert a asset file at point providing a heml menu to select the file. It inserts a link of format wiki-asset-sys:CurrentPage;AssetFilename.pdf.

Asset files / Attachments

M-x org-wiki-assets-helm

• M-x org-wiki-assets-helm - Select a wiki page and open its assets directory.

M-x org-wiki-assets-open

• M-x org-wiki-assets-open - Open asset directory of current page with system’s default file manager.

M-x org-wiki-asset-insert

• M-x org-wiki-asset-insert - Insert a link to asset file of current page at current cursor position. This link when clicked opens with default system application.

Example: Inserts a a link such as the code below. User is in the page Linux and with this command selects in the Helm menu the file Manual.pdf.

[[wiki-asset-sys:Linux;Manual.pdf][Manual.pdf]]

M-x org-wiki-asset-insert-file

• M-x org-wiki-asset-insert-file - Insert a link to an asset file of current page at current cursor position. This is an ordinary org-mode link.

Example: Inserts a link such as:

file:Linux/Manual.pdf 

M-x org-wiki-asset-download-insert1

• M-x org-wiki-asset-download-insert1 - Ask the user the url to download a file suggesting the url stored in the clipboard and then asks the file name. After download it inserts a hyperlink at point to open the file with systems’ default application.

Example:

1. User is in the page Linux that corresponds to the file <org-wiki-location>/Linux.org
2. User copy the url https://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61b/fa13/ta-materials/unix-concise-ref.pdf
3. User enter M-x org-wiki-asset-download-insert1
   1. Confirm the first prompt asking for the url. The suggested url is the copied url.
   2. Confirm the second prompt asking the file name. The suggested name is unix-concise-ref.pdf
4. It will insert at current point the hyperlink bellow. That points to the file <org-wiki-location>/Linux/unix-concise-ref.pdf.

[[wiki-asset-sys:Linux;unix-concise-ref.pdf][unix-concise-ref.pdf]] 

Note: This command is synchronous and it can hang Emacs, therefore downloading heavy files can freeze Emacs. If it happesn type C-g to cancel the current download.

M-x org-wiki-asset-download-insert2

• M-x org-wiki-asset-download-insert2 - Similar to M-x org-wiki-asset-download-insert1, however it inserts a hyperlink of type file:<org-wiki-page>/<file-name>.

Example:

1. User is in the page Linux and copies the url: http://i1-linux.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/htop_1.jpg
2. User enter the command M-x org-wiki-asset-download-insert1 and answers all prompts.
3. It will insert the hyperlink bellow at point.

file:Linux/htop_1.jpg

Open wiki directory

M-x org-wiki-dired

• M-x org-wiki-dired - Open the wiki directory in Emacs dired-mode showing only *.org files.

M-x org-wiki-dired-all

• M-x org-wiki-dired-all - Open the wiki directory in Emacs showing all files.

Export all pages to html

M-x org-wiki-export-html

• M-x org-wiki-export-html - Exports all wiki pages to html asynchronously, it means withoyt block Emacs by starting a new Emacs process in background.

M-x org-wiki-index-html

• M-x org-wiki-index-html - Open the index page exported to html in the web browser.

Web Server

• M-x org-wiki-server-toggle Start/stop static http server at org-wiki directory.

This command actually runs python -m http.server --bind <host> <port> at the org-wiki directory. So it requires Python installed and available in the $PATH variable.

Default value:

• host: 0.0.0.0
• port: 8000

To see your current local IP address type M-x ifconfig. You can access the static web site by entering the URL:

• http://<your local ip address>:8000

• For instance: http://192.168.1.10:8000.

Panel - org-wiki-panel

• M-x org-wiki-panel - This command provides a command panel that can execute actions just typing few keys like magit or dired buffer.

Menu

• M-x org-wiki-make-menu Shows a menu with org-wiki functions and command reminders.

Search

• M-x org-wiki-search - Search all wiki page that contains a pattern. (string or regex pattern).
• M-x org-wiki-find-dired - Show all files in all org-wiki subdirectories.

• M-x org-wiki-desc - Show all org-wiki pages with description.

• M-x org-wiki-keywords - Display all org-wiki keywords and related org-wiki page files.

Paste Image

Overview

This command requires the utility clip.jar and Java runtime to be available at the $PATH variable.

The custom variable org-wiki-clip-jar-path holds the path to clip.jar utility has the default value: ~/bin/Clip.jar.

If you wish to install in Clip.jar in a different path set the variable org-wiki-clip-jar-path like this in the init file:

(setq org-wiki-clip-jar-path "~/bin/opt/Clip.jar")

You can download a binary release with:

mkdir  ~/bin && cd ~/bin 
curl -O -L https://github.com/caiorss/clip.jar/blob/build/Clip.jar

M-x org-wiki-paste-image

• M-x org-wiki-paste-image Ask the user for the image file name and writes the image from clipboard to the file.

Example:

• User copies an image with mouse right click to clipboard.

• User type the command M-x org-wiki-paste-image and choses the name Unix.png and he is on the page Linux (Linux.org). It will write the image to the file ./Linux/Unix.png and will insert a this block at current cursor position:

#+CAPTION: 
file:Linux/Unix.png

M-x org-wiki-paste-image-uuid

• M-x org-wiki-paste-image-uuid Paste an image from clipboard with automatically generated name (uuid).

Example:

• User copies an image from clipboard and type the command M-x org-wiki-paste-image-uuid. It will insert at point this block containing a hyperlink to the image like:

#+CAPTION: 
file:Linux/fba53c12-3f23-4728-9f52-a26a3d285d7c.png

Copy Commands

• M-x org-wiki-copy-location - Copy org-wiki location path to clipboard.
• M-x org-wiki-copy-index-html - Copy path of index page exported to html to clipboard. Example: /<org-wiki-location>/index.html
• M-x org-wiki-copy-asset-path - Copy current page asset/attachment directory path to clipboard. Example: If the current page is Linux, it will copy the ’<org-wiki-location>/Linux’ to clipboard.

Alias Commands

• M-x org-wiki-nav - Navigate through org-mode headings. Alias to helm-org-in-buffer-headings.

• M-x org-wiki-occur - Alias to helm-occur.

• M-x org-wiki-toggle-images - Toggle images. Alias to M-x org-toggle-inline-images.

• M-x org-wiki-toggle-link - Toggle link display. Alias to M-x org-toggle-link-display.

• M-x org-wiki-latex - Display latex formulas. Alias to M-x org-preview-latex-fragment. It requires latex installed.

Suggestions

Shortcuts

You might want shortcuts for frequent commands:

• Open a wiki page quickly. M-x w-h

(defalias 'w-h #'org-wiki-helm)

• Switch between org-wiki buffers, wiki pages already opened.

(defalias 'w-s #'org-wiki-switch)

• Open a wiki page in a new frame quickly.

(defalias 'w-hf  #'org-wiki-helm-frame)

• Switch to wiki page in read-only mode.

(defalias 'w-hr #'org-wiki-helm-read-only)

• Go to the index page

(defalias 'w-i #'org-wiki-index)

• Insert a link to a wiki page at point. It provides helm completion. M-x w-in

(defalias 'w-in #'org-wiki-insert)

• Open the current wiki page assets directory: M-x w-ad

(defalias 'w-ad #'org-wiki-asset-dired)

• Export current wiki page to html or any org-mode file. M-x og2h

(defalias 'og2h #'org-html-export-to-html)

• Close all wiki pages

(defalias 'w-close #'org-wiki-close)

Helm commands

Some Helm commands are very handy to navigate and search org-mode files.

• M-x helm-org-in-buffer-headings - To filter the headings of org-files.
• M-x helm-occur - Occur-like command with helm interface.

Screenshot tools

Linux

• Shutter - Feature-rich Screenshot Tool
• Shutter - Advanced screenshot tool for Ubuntu ! - YouTube

Windows

• How to use the Windows Snipping Tool

Bookmarklets

If you don’t kwnow what is a bookmarklet see: Creating a Simple Bookmarklet - YouTube

Note: The hyperlink of bookmarklet is only visible on the html documentation.

This bookmarklet opens a prompt and creates an org-mode hyperlink code for the current web page.

• To test the bookmarklet just click on it and copy the generated hyperlink.
• To install the bookmarklet drag and drop the hyperlink to browser bookmark toolbar.

Bookmarklet:

Org-mode Url

Javascript code:

var md = "[[" + document.URL + "][" + document.title + "]]" ;
prompt("org-mode :", md);

Compressed JavaScript code:

javascript:(function(){var md = "[[" + document.URL + "][" + document.title + "]]" ;prompt("org-mode :", md);})()

Modify it

You can change the commands or explore it using the command. M-x find-function <command-name> to open the file at the point where the function is defined and edit the file org-wiki.el.

Example:

• M-x find-function org-wiki-helm
• M-x find-library org-wiki

TODOLIST

• [x] - Add command to copy and paste images from clipboard.
• [] - Add this package to some Emacs repository.
• [x] - Add a runnable test.
• [x] - Add org-wiki example pages and generated html files.
• [] - Update gifs