Re: Developing Moodle resources/sites with Org Mode

[Devin Prater]

I don't like Moodle's interface at all. Just a web page edit field to 
type into. So, I have everything in Markdown on Github, and I link to 
that with Moodle URL type lessons. I'd love more support for Moodle in 
other software, since a folder of files is tons easier than tons of web 
pages. I'm not a programmer, but I can manage to use Emacs and the 
command line.


On 1/17/2024 7:25 PM, Doolittle, Edward wrote:

"Fraga, Eric" e.fr...@ucl.ac.uk <mailto:e.fr...@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

 > This sounds very good!  I am particularly impressed with being able to

 > use maxima to create questions that have a random element.  I wish I'd

 > had what you have done back at the start of the pandemic when I had to

 > create quizzes for my moduless.

Thanks!  I have been thinking about getting something like this going

for a while.  WebWork sort of does some of this, but I like Moodle/STACK

so much better.

When I came across Org Mode it was quite a revelation.  Like you, I wish

I had done something some time ago: I should have learned about Org Mode

years ago.  It is very close to being exactly what I want: a rich

environment for creating and previewing randomizable test questions that

can be used to automatically generate paper tests or STACK questions for

Moodle.

I've started a GitHub site: https://github.com/edoolittle/org-moodle 
<https://github.com/edoolittle/org-moodle>


I've posted the final exam to the site.  Lots of work needs to be done

on it still: in particular the full solutions need to be added, and the

randomization needs to be implemented.  Currently versions are

varied/randomized manually by adjusting the Parameters section at the

beginning of each question.  Finally, I have just copy/pasted from one

version to another but that needs to be redesigned.  There should be

only one copy of the test in the master file, and versions could be

created by exporting Org to Org (so that the parameters chosen for the

version are stored in the secondary Org file).

 > In answer to your actual question: no, I do not believe you are off the

 > mark.  I no longer have a need for what you are doing but I'm sure

 > others would benefit greatly if they have to interact with moodle and

 > its xml formats etc.

Thank you for the assessment.  I moved very quickly into this space, but

I was fortunate to be able to have 3 full days free over the holidays to

get up to speed.  Lots of fumbling around but I have been pleased with

how it all turned out.

Going forward, I am most confused about whether to transform Org to XML

and then to Moodle XML, or whether to export from Org directly to Moodle

XML.  In the short term the first will be easier for me, I think.

Edward



--
Devin Prater

Re: "Orgdown", the new name for the syntax of Org-mode

[Devin Prater]

Or OrgMark. Simple, please no levels to show the amount of adherence to the
spec. OrgMark would symbolize the "markings" or syntax of Org-mode, and not
be close enough to Mark(down) to where people would think, like I did, that
this was Org-mode power given to a subset of Markdown to help, say,
Obsidian users come to Org-mode. No, I don't think we need that either.

Otherwise, I'm perfectly find with calling it Org. Just like Python, HTML,
all that. We don't say, in relaxed speech where the speaker assumes prior
known knowledge, or knowledge that can be easily filled in, "I'm writing a
book in Markdown markup language." We just say "I'm writing a book in
Markdown." And if the listener doesn't know what we mean, we can explain.
Devin Prater
r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com




On Sun, Nov 28, 2021 at 5:24 PM Jean-Christophe Helary <
li...@traduction-libre.org> wrote:

>
>
> > On Nov 29, 2021, at 7:57, Tom Gillespie  wrote:
> >
> > PS Another brainstormed name: Orgsyn?
>
> Org Agnostic Syntax Modules → OrgASM
>
> --
> Jean-Christophe Helary @brandelune
> https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
> https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/
>
>
>

Re: Where has the manual on one html page gone?

[Devin Prater]

I like it when I just want to read through the whole document with my screen 
reader, not having to page through it. I also like being able to search the 
whole document. And, converting it to EPUB allows me to read it on my phone 
when I'm away from the computer, if I want to.


On Tue, Feb 16, 2021 at 10:37:29AM +0100, Marcin borkowski wrote:


On 2021-02-15, at 23:45, Nick Dokos  wrote:


Christine Köhn  writes:


Hi,

I always used the manual online as one html page but it does not seem to
be available since (?) the website revamp. I prefer the manual as one
page for many reasons. Is it still available online?



I've always used the one-page per section version on the web (although
I tend to use Info much more often), primarily because I thought that
downloading the whole manual to just look at a section or two or five
would be inefficient - in fact, I've wondered why the single-page
versions of various manuals (particularly the larger ones: emacs and
elisp) are made available. So it is idle curiosity on my part, but
what are the the reasons for your preference?


Converting to an ebook format to read on an ebook reader is one possible
use-case.

Best,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl



--
Devin Prater
r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: did behaviour of RET change again?

[Devin Prater]

For me, I don't like my paragraphs indented. That just adds more speech 
from Emacspeak. I'm glad y'all talked about which setting does this so I 
can turn it off.. I mean, I don't know of any reason why paragraphs 
should be indented, but that's just my opinion. Maybe visual appeal, 
looking more like a word processor?


On 12/24/20 12:35 AM, Tom Gillespie wrote:

possibly i'm misunderstanding, but my sense is that the value of org
adapt indentation doesn't change what you might actually find ("in a
.org file in the wild").  so, whatever its value, your grammar would
have to deal with all cases?

Yep, we can't magically change all the files out in the wild.
Until I wrote this email out I agreed about the grammar too, but
as it turns out I think there might be a compromise, which is that
a grammar could be allowed to interpret certain types of lines
with leading whitespace as if they were paragraph lines instead of
as say, the start of an org-babel block. That way an interoperable
org spec could be made simpler without preventing e.g. the elisp
implementation from going above and beyond the spect to provide
support for leading whitespace.

My interest in the org-adapt-indentation setting is to try to align what
most users are doing out in the wild with a representation for their
org files that is less ambiguous and more performant (among other
things).

If I had to guess I would say that most new org files have leading
whitespace precisely because org-adapt-indentation is set to t by
default. Getting users to transition their files requires an incentive,
and some users may find that they use org in such a way that they
don't need to.

While writing this email I thought of a reasonable incentive, which is
that only files without leading significant whitespace (i.e. that look like
those that are authored with org-adapt-indentation nil) have specified
behavior for things like org-babel blocks. This would allow best effort
by the elisp org-mode implementation to allow users who don't care
about interoperability to continue as they have been doing, while also
providing clear guidance for what users must do if they want
consistent behavior on other tools that consume org formatted files.
This is critical for keeping the org spec from becoming overly complex.

The first step would thus be to reduce the rate at which new org files
are created with leading whitespace by changing org-adapt-indentation
to be nil by default.

The second step would be to give users a clear way forward to safely
normalizing their files. Org has a habit of reindenting subsets of files
from time to time, but in general doing a complete switch to have no
significant whitespace can be risky.

The third step would be to let the incentives and needs of users
play out over time, but users would generally probably be happier
because by default they would be in the "my files are portable and
generally interpretable without me having to do any additional work"
state instead of the "why did no one tell me the defaults weren't
portable" state.


or, and maybe this would make sense, you'd define an "interoperability"
form of .org, that all "wild" .org files could be (programmatically)
converted into, without losing any of their semantics?

Yep exactly. For many use cases the cost of stripping the whitespace
that corresponds to heading level is not unreasonable, e.g. since it
would only have to be done once. However, if you are writing another
org implementation, then every single time you parse a heading and
its accompanying section you have to strip the whitespace, and that
will happen every single time a user modifies the file, which starts to
get expensive. Alternately you could implement it so that everything
is stripped once and then you keep a version in memory that the user
edits which doesn't have leading whitespace, but then every time you
save you have to splice it all back in to preserve the roundtrip.

This also doesn't even begin to deal with the fact that users can create
malformed org files that can have lines that are less than the expected
significant indentation. This becomes a complete nightmare when trying
to come up with some rational way of dealing with org babel blocks for
languages like python where there is significant whitespace.

Consider the horror if trying to specify the correct behavior in a situation
like this. Better just to declare it a malformed babel block and move on.
Unfortunately you can't always detect that such things are malformed
during the first pass of parsing because you have to count the number of
spaces.

#+begin_src org
# -*- org-adapt-indentation: t -*-
,*** Oh No
 ,#+begin_src python
   class What:
   have = 'you'
   done = 'now'
,#+end_src
#+end_src

In order to ensure that org files can be reliably interpreted this either
means that the specification for handling cases like this becomes
extremely complex, or the spec can say "you can have leading
whitespace, but nasal demons may come 

Re: Thoughts on the standardization of Org

[Devin Prater]

I'm coming at this from the viewpoint of accessibility. I am a blind
person, who is pretty technical, but not technical enough to bend Emacs to
my will as easily as some of you do. But I have begun bending Org-mode to
fit what I use it for, and love heading folding and having all things
pertaining to work, for example, in one document, and being able to easily
find things from there and navigate using folding. I've since moved from
Mac, where I used Emacs and Emacspeak, to Windows, where most blind people
use VS Code. And I love how streamlined VS Code is. No linter is
inaccessible because of using parts of the interface that the TTS extension
author hasn't made accessible yet, because the whole UI works with the
screen reader. Sure, it's not perfect yet, but Language Tool, Grammarly,
all Markdown extensions, all work great with my screen reader in VS Code,
and I love using those tools. But no Markdown extension comes close to the
power and flexibility of Org-mode in Emacs.

Yes, this could be me just wishing Emacs worked better with accessibility
tools in Windows and we didn't have to rely on Emacspeak and such in other
operating systems, because ultimately Emacspeak pretty much relies on the
author or other contributors working around Emacs, to make Emacs' modes
work well in an auditory environment. And that works great, until you roam
outside of the use cases set forth by the developers. And not all
Emacs/Emacspeak users are developers, so cannot then make these use cases,
like Hugo-mode and Jekyll-mode, before I asked the maintainer of those
modes if there was anything they could do to make their modes work better
with Emacspeak, work better. And I'm not saying that we should dumb down
Emacs for people like me, but I do think that VS Code and other editors
that try to help out the writer or developer and such, have their place,
and so Org-mode should have a more prominent place within these editors.
Besides, I think bringing Org-mode to VS Code would help bring Org-mode to
the web, which would be pretty cool, since VS Code is pretty much built on
web technologies. And there is an Emacspeak package for Windows, but it is
no longer maintained, and I think most Emacspeak users use Linux or Mac
anyways. And one can sort of use Emacs in a Terminal with a screen reader,
but you can't use C-N, C-P, or other Emacs-specific keys, defeating one
purpose of even having Emacs in the first place. I might just get a virtual
machine up and going and just use that, just for Emacs and Org-mode. :)

And yes, there are things that Emacspeak can do that current screen readers
do not. Emacspeak shows syntax highlighting through speech effects and
parameter changes, and has many sounds for common actions, which helps a
lot. But the non-standardization of many Emacs packages, and the popularity
of VS Code among blind people who want to code, or learn to code, or are
more technically inclined like me, make it far easier for me to recommend
VS Code with a current screen reader than to recommend blind people switch
to Linux or Mac, and use Emacs with Emacspeak.

Of course, I'm only one blind person. There are blind people who have
mastered Emacs and use it for everything, but I just want things to work
for me nowadays, and find myself much more productive on Windows and VS
Code, but really miss Org-mode and its simple power that I could actually
grasp.
Devin Prater



On Tue, Nov 3, 2020 at 6:15 AM Ken Mankoff  wrote:

>
> On 2020-11-03 at 00:24 -08, David Rogers 
> wrote...
> > I disagree (in principle, not just because it would be difficult) with
> > the idea of “expanding beyond Emacs”. Org-mode benefits greatly from
> > current and future Emacs development, and asking to standardize “just
> > the parts that are not Emacs” would cause Org-mode to lose that huge
> > advantage. Org-mode relies heavily on the editor it’s built on, and if
> > it ceased to rely on Emacs, it would be forced to rely on “nothing at
> > all” instead. Not only that, but for Org-mode users being able to
> > count on all of Emacs is a big part of why it works. This means
> > separating Org-mode from Emacs is a “lose-lose” idea.
>
> It seems like you have never used Orgzly or read on Org file on GitHub.
> Those are not ideas, but are actual current real-world win-win
> implementations of parts of Org outside of Emacs.
>
> More of these would be better.
>
> Everyone on this thread who says you can't separate Org from Emacs is
> correct that it is unreasonable to expect a 100 % bit-compatible and
> keystroke-compatible experience outside of Emacs. I don't think that level
> of re-implementation was what the OP was suggesting.
>
> Again: GitHub. Orgzly. The conversation should move from "it can't be
> done" or "it isn't helpful" (why so much negativity on this thread?) to
>
> + What parts can be standardized and re-implemented o

Re: The Website Revamp: The final stretch

[Devin Prater]

Thank you very much for this. I wasn't sure if accessibility was something
you'd care about or not, but I figured I'd give it a shot, as any blind
user of Emacs, through Emacspeak or otherwise, who wanted to get into
Org-mode would appreciate it. One more small thing or two:

On the features page, the description:

Demonstration of planing with org, managing a scheduled todo list

should be:

Demonstration of planning with org, managing a scheduled todo list

After the "simple syntax" heading, the figure is empty. Is that supposed to
be the case?
Devin Prater
sent from Gmail.


On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 6:02 AM TEC  wrote:

>
> Hi Devin, thanks for checking up on this!
>
> Devin Prater  writes:
>
> > [no alt texts for images]
>
> This should be fixed now! (
> https://github.com/tecosaur/orgwebsite/commit/545d0c7d28)
>
> > Also, I cannot find the area to view the Org-mode source of a page.
>
> Ah, yes. This was removed at the request of Bastien.
>
>
> Thanks for your help, and please let me know if you notice anything
> else!
>
> Timothy.
>

Re: The Website Revamp: The final stretch

[Devin Prater]

I'm just going over the site to check accessibility with screenn readers,
and here are a few things I've found:

On https://orgmode.tecosaur.com/features.html:

The first figure is not labeled, so I do not know what it is. The second
figure is just labeled "babel.gif", which doesn't tell me much (pretending
to be some one who knows nothing of Org-mode). After the "Collapsable
Editing" heading, that figure is labeled "folding.gif" which is slightly
better, but could be described much more, and without the .gif extension in
the alt-text.
After the "Task Management" heading, this figure likewise isn't described,
only having its file name, "planning.gif", as the alt-text or description.
After the "tables" heading, the figure, tables.gif, should be described
using Alt-text instead of just leaving the file name there.
After the "publishing" heading, the "exports.gif" figure should be
described. Also after that heading, in the list of export formats, the
second item just says "clickable" as the list item.
After the "Extensibility" heading, the figure does not even have a file
name as its Alt-text. After the "Time Tracking (Clocking)", the figure has
no Alt-text. After the "Agendas" heading, the figure has no Alt-text.
After the "Capturing" heading, the figure only has "capturing.gif" as the
Alt-text. After the "With your mobile phone" heading, the figure below has
"beorg.png" as the Alt-text.

Also, I cannot find the area to view the Org-mode source of a page.
Basically, describe the figures, don't just leave the description as the
file name. I tested this with Google Chrome 85, and the NVDA
<https://www.nvaccess.org/> screen reader. The rest of the site looks good.



Devin Prater
sent from Gmail.


On Tue, Sep 22, 2020 at 11:13 AM Stefan Nobis  wrote:

> TEC  writes:
>
> > 2. Picking the best 'Hero banner' on the home page ::
>
> I like Variant 1-1 the most - all other variants are a bit too big and
> yelling for my eyes.
>
> Maybe use size and layout of Variant 1-1 with colors of the last
> variant (page 9, gray background)?
>
> --
> Until the next mail...,
> Stefan.
>
>

Re: Get Grades Done: the joys of Org's simple power

[Devin Prater]

Ah, I’m using Safari on MacOS 10.15. I can try with Chrome as well, though.

> On Jun 14, 2020, at 11:59 AM, Richard Lawrence  wrote:
> 
> Hi Devin,
> 
> Devin Prater  writes:
> 
>> I tried that on my file, but the checkboxes didn’t update. I’ll give you the 
>> kind of file I’m working with:
> 
> OK, sorry about that!  Two things:
> 
> 1) I see now that my code assumes the script block runs immediately, so
> it doesn't work if the script runs before the document is completely
> loaded. I'll fix that and send an update.
> 
> 2) When I move the script to the end of your file, it works here for me
> (on Firefox Nightly). But it could also be that there are browser
> differences getting in the way; I used some newer Javascript features, I
> think. What browser are you using?
> 
> -- 
> Best,
> Richard

Re: Get Grades Done: the joys of Org's simple power

[Devin Prater]

I tried that on my file, but the checkboxes didn’t update. I’ll give you the 
kind of file I’m working with:

#+title: Performance test
#+begin_export html

 function updateCookiesIn(div) {
 const headline = div.querySelector("h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6");
 if (!headline) return;
 const cookies = Array.from(headline.querySelectorAll("code"))
   .filter(c => c.innerText.startsWith("[") && 
c.innerText.endsWith("]"));
 const fracCookies = cookies.filter(c => c.innerText.includes("/"));
 const pctCookies = cookies.filter(c => c.innerText.includes("%"));

 // The ugly query strings here restrict the selection to checkboxes at 
*this* level of the hierarchy
 const allTasks = div.querySelectorAll(`#${div.id} > div > ul 
input[type=checkbox], #${div.id} > div > ol input[type=checkbox]`);
 const completedTasks = div.querySelectorAll(`#${div.id} > div > ul 
input[type=checkbox]:checked, #${div.id} > div > ol 
input[type=checkbox]:checked`);

 const newFrac = `[${completedTasks.length}/${allTasks.length}]`;
 const newPctText = allTasks.length
   ? (100 * completedTasks.length / allTasks.length).toFixed(0)
   : "100"; // Org shows 100% for a cookie when there are no checkboxes 
 const newPct = `[${newPctText}%]`;

 fracCookies.forEach(c => c.innerText = newFrac);
 pctCookies.forEach(c => c.innerText = newPct);
 }

 function replaceWithCheckbox(code) {
 const isChecked = code.innerText.includes("X");

 const checkbox = document.createElement("input");
 checkbox.setAttribute("type", "checkbox");
 if (isChecked) checkbox.setAttribute("checked", "checked");
 checkbox.onclick = function (e) {
 const container = findContainingSection(e.target);
 if (!container) return;
 updateCookiesIn(container);
 };

 code.replaceWith(checkbox);
 }

 function findContainingSection(el) {
 if (!el.parentElement) return null;

 const parent = el.parentElement;
 const classes = Array.from(parent.classList);
 if (classes.some(cl => cl.startsWith("outline") && 
!cl.startsWith("outline-text"))) {
 return parent;
 } else {
 return findContainingSection(parent);
 }
 }

 const orgCheckboxes = document.querySelectorAll(".off > code, .on > code");
 orgCheckboxes.forEach(replaceWithCheckbox);

 const orgSections = document.querySelectorAll("div.outline-1, div.outline-2, 
div.outline-3, div.outline-4, div.outline-5, div.outline-6");
 orgSections.forEach(updateCookiesIn);

#+end_export

* Performance test
**  Student Name [0/10] [0%]

Date

The student will perform the following features:

1. [ ] 
2. [ ] 
3. [ ] 
4. [ ] 
5. [ ] 
6. [ ] 
7. [ ] 
8. [ ] 
9. [ ] 
10. [ ] 

When I do C-E h o, and check one of the boxes, the grade isn’t updated.

> On Jun 14, 2020, at 4:02 AM, Richard Lawrence  wrote:
> 
> Hi Devin and all,
> 
> Devin Prater  writes:
> 
>> Yeah, I was hoping to just have an HTML page or something that could
>> be put on Github or just sent in an email attachment, where checking
>> checkboxes would update the fraction cookie.
> 
> I hacked together a quick solution for this. You should be able to just
> drop this Javascript into an Org file. When it is included in HTML that
> has been exported via the standard Org exporter, it replaces the static
> "[ ]" and "[X]" code elements with actual HTML checkboxes, and updates
> any progress cookies in the relevant headlines when those boxes are
> checked or unchecked.
> 
> I haven't tested it extensively, and the code can surely be improved,
> but it works for the cases I could think to test.
> 
> #+begin_export html
> 
>  function updateCookiesIn(div) {
>  const headline = div.querySelector("h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6");
>  if (!headline) return;
>  const cookies = Array.from(headline.querySelectorAll("code"))
>.filter(c => c.innerText.startsWith("[") && 
> c.innerText.endsWith("]"));
>  const fracCookies = cookies.filter(c => c.innerText.includes("/"));
>  const pctCookies = cookies.filter(c => c.innerText.includes("%"));
> 
>  // The ugly query strings here restrict the selection to checkboxes at 
> *this* level of the hierarchy
>  const allTasks = div.querySelectorAll(`#${div.id} > div > ul 
> input[type=checkbox], #${div.id} > div > ol input[type=checkbox]`);
>  const completedTasks = div.querySelectorAll(`#${div.id} > div > ul 
> input[type=checkbox]:checked, #${div.id} > div > ol 
> input[type=checkbox]:checked`)

Re: Get Grades Done: the joys of Org's simple power

[Devin Prater]

Yeah, I was hoping to just have an HTML page or something that could be put on 
Github or just sent in an email attachment, where checking checkboxes would 
update the fraction cookie.

> On Jun 12, 2020, at 9:17 PM, Phil Regier  wrote:
> 
> Oh, my.  I would not have imagined that setting up Emacspeak could be so 
> complicated.  Was your initial thought that if you could export the 
> mechanisms in your assignment to interactive HTML (of whatever form) then you 
> could let the browsers and their various accessibility APIs (of which I 
> should confess right now I have almost no knowledge) to present that 
> interactive content in whatever way the consumer of said content has 
> requested?
> 
> I'm far from being an expert, but I've spent my share of time hacking around 
> and I think there are a variety of ways that one could embed something like 
> JavaScript (I know, not an ideal choice of languages) in a variety of ways at 
> several stages in the composition-to-export process that could render the 
> output "live" if it was sufficiently simple.  And while I'm especially bad at 
> this part, a long time ago I had limited success wrapping some 
> transformations in lisp within Org-mode and I've seen others perform similar 
> trickery with greater success.
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 6:22 PM Devin Prater  <mailto:r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> Well, some teachers are blind, which means Emacspeak, and Spacemax does have 
> visual stuff, so Emacspeak may not work well with that. I’ll have to try Doom 
> Emacs though, maybe that’ll work better. The bigger problem though, is that 
> Emacspeak relies on speech servers, and the one for Windows hasn’t been 
> updated in… quite a while. I just want not only myself and technically 
> inclined sighted teachers to be able to access this, plus its good to have 
> accessible teaching tools no matter what, because you never know when another 
> blind person may want to use it later on.
> 
>> On Jun 12, 2020, at 6:23 PM, Phil Regier > <mailto:phil.reg...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> A friend showed me Org-mode running in spacemacs a few years back, and I was 
>> pretty impressed with how well it seemed to be working, though I haven't 
>> messed with it much myself.  Especially not sure how much sugar it offers as 
>> far as sharing a particular experience with new users, but at the very least 
>> you should be able to include basic usage instructions within the Org file?
>> 
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 9:56 PM George Mauer > <mailto:gma...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> You know...I believe some people have gotten emacs running in browser... You 
>> could do it by compiling it to wasm. So in theory you could create a 
>> completely in-browser emacs which is optimized primarily for org mode usage.
>> 
>> Would be kind of an awesome thing for someone to tackle as it would greatly 
>> increase the reach of org. Not easy though. Could probably be a whole thesis 
>> project.
>> 
>> Not sure how well it would work with screen readers and other accessibility 
>> tech though. That would be even more work
>> 
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 10:24 PM Russell Adams > <mailto:rlad...@adamsinfoserv.com>> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 03:38:43PM -0500, Devin Prater wrote:
>> > Now, I do wish I could share these “self-grading” performance tests with
>> > others. I’ve tried exporting one to HTML, but the grade doesn’t seem to 
>> > update
>> > automatically like it does in Org-mode.
>> 
>> Unfortunately updating the count is performed by a hook in Org when you use 
>> C-c
>> C-c to check/uncheck a box. That information is static in the text, and 
>> static
>> in html.
>> 
>> I'm not aware of a built-in way to handle that case. Sorry.
>> 
>> --
>> Russell Adamsrlad...@adamsinfoserv.com 
>> <mailto:rlad...@adamsinfoserv.com>
>> 
>> PGP Key ID: 0x1160DCB3   http://www.adamsinfoserv.com/ 
>> <http://www.adamsinfoserv.com/>
>> 
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Re: Get Grades Done: the joys of Org's simple power

[Devin Prater]

Well, some teachers are blind, which means Emacspeak, and Spacemax does have 
visual stuff, so Emacspeak may not work well with that. I’ll have to try Doom 
Emacs though, maybe that’ll work better. The bigger problem though, is that 
Emacspeak relies on speech servers, and the one for Windows hasn’t been updated 
in… quite a while. I just want not only myself and technically inclined sighted 
teachers to be able to access this, plus its good to have accessible teaching 
tools no matter what, because you never know when another blind person may want 
to use it later on.

> On Jun 12, 2020, at 6:23 PM, Phil Regier  wrote:
> 
> A friend showed me Org-mode running in spacemacs a few years back, and I was 
> pretty impressed with how well it seemed to be working, though I haven't 
> messed with it much myself.  Especially not sure how much sugar it offers as 
> far as sharing a particular experience with new users, but at the very least 
> you should be able to include basic usage instructions within the Org file?
> 
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 9:56 PM George Mauer  <mailto:gma...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> You know...I believe some people have gotten emacs running in browser... You 
> could do it by compiling it to wasm. So in theory you could create a 
> completely in-browser emacs which is optimized primarily for org mode usage.
> 
> Would be kind of an awesome thing for someone to tackle as it would greatly 
> increase the reach of org. Not easy though. Could probably be a whole thesis 
> project.
> 
> Not sure how well it would work with screen readers and other accessibility 
> tech though. That would be even more work
> 
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 10:24 PM Russell Adams  <mailto:rlad...@adamsinfoserv.com>> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 03:38:43PM -0500, Devin Prater wrote:
> > Now, I do wish I could share these “self-grading” performance tests with
> > others. I’ve tried exporting one to HTML, but the grade doesn’t seem to 
> > update
> > automatically like it does in Org-mode.
> 
> Unfortunately updating the count is performed by a hook in Org when you use 
> C-c
> C-c to check/uncheck a box. That information is static in the text, and static
> in html.
> 
> I'm not aware of a built-in way to handle that case. Sorry.
> 
> --
> Russell Adamsrlad...@adamsinfoserv.com
> 
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Get Grades Done: the joys of Org's simple power

[Devin Prater]

So, I’ll try to not turn this into a novella. I am a “Technical Assistant”, and 
I teach at an adult education sort of trade school. This probably sounds 
normal, but the only sort of catch is that I am blind, and so are  many of my 
students, the rest having some vision loss.

So, I have to find workarounds for just about everything I do. I teach 
Assistive Technology, which is basically how to use tech as a blind/visually 
impaired person. We have our courses on Moodle, because apparently no one has 
created a learning system that deals with directories and config files for 
those who do best in that environment, instead of freaking databases, and web 
interfaces even fatter than I am. I do hate web interfaces, and web interfaces 
wrapped in “apps” too. It shouldn’t be an app if its built on web tech. Yes, 
you too, Electron!

Anyways, I have some manual tests I do. I have the questions in an Org-mode 
file, with checkboxes I can check or leave unchecked. Up until recently, I went 
down the list and graded them manually. But I thought “Now wait, can’t the 
computer do this for me? I mean, Org-mode is so powerful, why not make a Lisp 
thing that does that for me?” So, being a very beginner programmer who still 
finds it daunting to move my blog from Jekyll to Hugo—I’m almost done with 
that—and can only print stuff with Python, that didn’t work out so well. I’ll 
have to actually read through the Elisp Intro to get better at that.

Then, I thought I’d look into the Org manual and see if there was a way to 
“count” checkboxes. And there is !  
So, I can just put [%] on the heading where I want the grade, and my goodness, 
it works! I no longer have to manually grade the assignments! That saves so 
much time for me, and now I just wish the world was in Org-mode so I could just 
manage everything else through its power as well.

Now, I do wish I could share these “self-grading” performance tests with 
others. I’ve tried exporting one to HTML, but the grade doesn’t seem to update 
automatically like it does in Org-mode. And no, other teachers around me are 
*not* going to switch to Org-mode, let alone Emacs, for this. So, does anyone 
have any ideas for how this can be shared? I don’t know any Javascript or 
anything.

So, thanks so much to the Org maintainers, and the community that keeps Org 
alive. It’s allowed me to write and share so much, and soon I’ll be using it 
even more with Hugo.

Re: Testimony on how to publish a book using Org-mode

[Devin Prater]

I write my Fanfiction in Org-mode, I’d love to publish it using that, but 
ArchiveOfOurOwn doesn’t support Markdown, let alone Org. I love the fact that I 
can export subtrees (chapters,) giving them specific titles, like “Chapter 1” 
as output file names and page titles, and can, no matter what, have my notes 
heading to not be exported.

> On Jan 28, 2020, at 9:43 AM, Diego Zamboni  wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have self-published 3 books so far written with org-mode, using Leanpub. I 
> have been meaning to write a proper post about my setup, which allows me a 
> fully-automated export from org-mode to the Leanpub format and structure. In 
> the meantime, if anyone is interested, you can see my config here: 
> https://zzamboni.org/post/my-emacs-configuration-with-commentary/#publishing-to-leanpub
>  
> 
> 
> (one of the reasons I haven't written the post is that my modules are not yet 
> in MELPA, I hope to get some time to do it soon)
> 
> Cheers,
> --Diego
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 2:09 AM Bob Newell  > wrote:
> At first glance this is indeed interesting and I must study it
> carefully. Thank you for pointing this out.
> 
> I have published quite a number of books (both fiction and
> non-fiction) starting with org-mode. Inevitably, though, there
> is lots of hand work with LaTeX, and anything to reduce that
> will be very welcome.
> 
> -- 
> Bob Newell
> Honolulu, Hawai`i
> - Via Gnus/BBDB/Org/Emacs/Linux
> 

[O] Pandoc and Org-mode: list indention

[Devin Prater]

Hi all. I am not a programmer, but have found Org-mode useful for editing 
course lessons.
I, blind myself, teach other blind people how to use technology and software, 
along with my supervisor and quite a few others. We have many courses on the 
use of Microsoft Office, Gmail, Internet basics, and so on. These courses are 
handled by Moodle, which accepts HTML and Markdown formatted text. Why it 
doesn’t use Org-mode, which is superior to Markdown in every way, is beyond me.
So, these course lessons are awfully malformed HTML. Empty  tags, misused 
 things litter these files, and “middle dot” characters are used instead 
of  elements.
I’ve taken it upon myself to clean all this up, and Org-mode does it all. The 
only problem is, when I convert from HTML to Org-mode using Pandoc, just doing:
Pandoc -I lesson1.html -o lesson1.org 
The lists are not made into indented ones, just a paragraph, which I manually 
have to indent, marking the lines below the list marker line, and doing C-x 
C-I, then indenting 3 or four spaces, then filling the paragraph just to make 
sure.
Is there anything I can do to make this less tedious?
Other than all that, Org-mode does amazingly for everything I’ve used it for, 
so thanks so much for all who, knowing much more than I do about code, work on 
Org-mode, and Emacs in general.