Org-mode: beginners setup

Agenda Setup

Aсcording to the official Documentation for beginners the following things are necessary for starting to use Org-mode: Nothing at all!

From my side, I have to add that one probably still needs some experience in using of Emacs itself. Basic setup to emacs configuration file for Org-mode (~/.emacs in my case):

(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.org\\'" . org-mode))
(global-set-key "\C-cl" 'org-store-link)
(global-set-key "\C-ca" 'org-agenda)
; Jigurda

The first string will tell emacs automatically go to org-mode when a file with .org extension is opened. The second string bind C-c+l (big C in emacs notation is Ctrl button, - to press it simultaneously, + to press in a sequence) key for storing a link to a particular string particular file. This link can be inserted to org-file later with C-c+C-l. To open the link one can use C-c+C-o. The third string bind C-c+a for agenda window:

For my Agenda I use two different files: tasks.org and schedule.org. In schedule.org I store events and task.org is used for everyday’s TODOs.

(define-key global-map "\C-cc" 'org-capture)
; Log done state in TODOs
(setq org-log-done t)

; Set Org-Capture templates
(setq org-capture-templates
    `(
      ("t" "todo" entry (file+headline "~/Calendars/task.org" "Tasks")
        (file "~/org/tasks.orgcaptmpl"))
	  ("e" "event" entry (file+datetree "~/Calendars/schedule.org" "Events")
        (file "~/org/events.orgcaptmpl"))
))

(setq org-agenda-files (list "~/Calendars/task.org"
                             "~/Calendars/schedule.org"
))

Org capture available with C-c+c starts dialogue box where I can choose which type of notes I want to create. With t the task note will be created. The task event will be stored in the file ~/Calendars/task.org. I use ~/org/tasks.orgcaptmpl as a template for a task note. The template file for task look like:

** TODO %t %^{Title}
%?

%t is time and %^{Title} is the title. Guide to notes template with more options is available (http://emacsnyc.org/assets/documents/how-i-use-org-capture-and-stuff.pdf). The same is for event type of notes.

Google Calendar in Emacs: Calfw

The other usefull tools for Org-mode Agenda are Calfw and Org-Gcal (thanks to http://jameswilliams.be/blog/2016/01/11/Taming-Your-GCal.html).

Calfw allows agenda to look nicely. It is actually like to have Google-Calendar view inside Emacs. For installation it is possible to simply clone emacs-calfw from the repo (https://github.com/kiwanami/emacs-calfw) and add to .emacs file the following strings:

(load "~/emacs/emacs-calfw/calfw.el")
(load "~/emacs/emacs-calfw/calfw-org.el")
(require 'calfw)
(require 'calfw-org)

(defalias 'ca 'cfw:open-org-calendar)

Then Calfw view is available with M-x ca:

Google Calendar in Emacs: synchronization with Org-Gcal

Org-Gcal is used for synchronyzation with Google-calendar. To install it, one needs to clone:

1. https://github.com/tkf/emacs-request
2. https://github.com/jwiegley/alert
3. https://github.com/kiwanami/emacs-deferred
4. https://github.com/myuhe/org-gcal.el

and load to .emacs file:

 
(load "~/emacs/alert/alert.el") 
(load "~/emacs/emacs-request/request.el") 
(load "~/emacs/emacs-deferred/deferred.el")
(load "~/emacs/emacs-request/request-deferred.el")
(load "~/emacs/org-gcal.el/org-gcal.el")
(require 'org-gcal)

The last thing to set up synchronization is to create application in Google-API that is allowed to access to Google-calendar. The instruction that is provided on https://github.com/myuhe/org-gcal.el seems outdated. Here I list the new up-to-date instruction:

1. Go on Google Developers Console
2. Create a project (with any name)
3. Click on Google APIs
4. Choose Calendar API
5. Press “Enable” button to enable Calendar API for your project
6. Press “Go to credentials” button to set up access
7. Choose “OAuth client ID”, First you will offer to setup project consent screen. You need to sepcify only “Product name shown to users” line and press save button.
8. After saving, “Create client ID” will appear and you should choose Application type “Other” and “Create”
9. save client ID and client secret
10. Go to Google Calendar
11. Go to settings, Choose “Calendar” menu. Press on the name of calendar you want to synchronize.
12. Near ICAL and HTML you will find Calendar ID: callendar id

So you finally have three different things: client ID, client secret and callendar id. Now to set up synchronization add the following strings to your emacs configuration file:

 
(setq org-gcal-client-id "cliend ID"
      org-gcal-client-secret "client secret"
      org-gcal-file-alist '(("callendar id" .  "~/Calendars/schedule.org")
	  ))

TODOs

• It is still not clear for me how to set up synchronization with Google Calendars Tasks.