Whiteboard in Emacs

Hey guys, saw this new obsidian plugin and wanted to ask if there is any mode in emacs that has similar functionality. ( org-download works great to drop things in org files but this kinda drag drop resizing blocks around would be super cool in emacs.) [https://twitter.com/kepano/status/1599880530958221313](https://twitter.com/kepano/status/1599880530958221313)

https://github.com/misohena/el-easydraw is a good start to go.

Cooool, never heard of this. Thanks a lot.

Very gimmicky and "nice" on first inspection. But less usefull than you may think.

There is a reasons why tools like notion etc. are outcompeting org-mode for note taking and it isn't just being mouse-driven or simple to use. Embedding content is really really nice, especially as a college student.

You can do similar things with any org-capture extension for a browser, even better you can select just the text you want and get the meta-data stored as well. Most tools biggest selling point compared to emacs is being a saas solution (ie you dont have to install anything or sync files) and the ability to share and collaborate with others on those documents.

That's kinda what I'd say about org-mode tbh. Even though I'm always on the computer, basically every single day, I still heavily use pen and paper notes. And it's not because I'm old ... I've just found that using a one-dimensional stream of plain text files to make notes and work through my thoughts is -- on first inspection so elegant and simple it can't possibly be a bad workflow -- actually just gimmicky and less useful in practice (for me at least, I know many people here swear by org-mode).

personally i find it very much depends on the type of notes youre taking. i swear by org mode for knowledge keeping: all the little things i forget when setting up a linux installation, once in a blue moon css problems and their simple solutions, my list of to-read blog posts or articles, etc etc. essentially, all the things i could write down physically, but i'll certainly be unable to find that piece of paper in 6 months when i suddenly need it. whereas when taking notes, working through problems, etc, nothing beats pen and paper. also, org agenda.

Maybe you don't want to collect your notes, you just want to "think through your notes" and discard them later. Org-mode is just text on the computer. (in the simplest form).

>There is a reasons why tools like notion etc. are outcompeting org-mode for note taking... "Outcompeting" is a little strong... it's not a competition :) Also, as nice as the visual features of Obsidian are, at its core it still isn't an outliner, which makes it not particularly great for detailed notes with a lot of structure. When I was in college I used to have great big outlines of every class, with topics and subtopics nested deeply, like a book. But thanks for sharing this whiteboarding functionality! That would be good as a visual index for a collection of notes. There is a package called org-real (also see org-boxes) that lets you create and manage 2D visual relationships in an org buffer. That might be a little up your alley: https://www.reddit.com/r/orgmode/comments/pfhtuh/preview_orgreal/

saas: software you don't own, don't control, and might lose access to at literally any moment night or day. Yep - that's a big selling point for me all right! Yum yum. What surprises me is that this isn't even a theoretical issue - people have been bitten by saas going away many times in the real world (hello, Google). Collaboration isn't an aspect of saas, of course, but simply of a central server or a well-designed networking protocol.

Drawing on a text editor conceived 40 years ago to work over terminals, what a fucking fine piece of engineering this is.

The truly selling point over org mode is that everyone can click on a link and see the nicely formatted document that mostly you have contributed to. If sharing my org files live were as easy as using Google docs...

As someone who was a very heavy notion user gone org-mode user. Not owning my data is a much bigger issue for me. Also: * Also you can embed images and links. * For diagraming you have PlantUML and GraphVis. * Codeblocks you can execute directly in org mode are far more useful for my programming notes. * Todos that jump directly to the code I need to edit * org-roam for zekklekasten style notes and daily journal * Tables are handled quite well too. And I own every bit of of my data, its all in plain text etc. The interface could also be expanded if you really wanted, Look at org-roam-ui's handling of nodes in both 2d and 3d.

One can dream

A not as advanced solution compared to what u/llcc_reddit made and a builtin one is [artist.el](https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/blob/master/lisp/textmodes/artist.el)

I think this should be here; https://github.com/wdavew/org-excalidraw/

Exactly why I stopped using Obsidian. I want my notes to be available for decades. I know Obsidian uses markdown so I’d never be completely locked out of my notes, but something completely open end to end is much better.