I’ll speak often of things Emacs and Linux. I do not consider myself an expert in either (but won’t let that stop me!). In future posts, I’ll give a bit of a history for my use of these and similar tools (everything is ultimately a tool to get your work done). For now, I’m going to talk about my latest find, and it’s great.
Muse
Muse is a mode for Emacs. This may mean little to you. Eventually, it should mean a lot, if I can persuade you to “convert” to Emacs. But, if you’re there already, you should know about Muse. For those interested in getting to know Emacs now, you should start with the excellent O’Reilly book, Learning GNU Emacs
I’m trying out Muse for the first time in writing this post. This is, my friends, some tasty dog food. I am using that term a bit loosely (as I have nothing to do with developing Muse), but I think you get the point.
What is it?
Muse allows you to write plain text with really simple mark-up (similar to wiki markup). From this plain text, you can generate other formats. Examples include HTML, XHTML, PDF, LaTeX (more on this in other posts), etc.
So, to me, it’s a dream tool. One source, many output formats. One source to rule them all… Sorry, letting my geek flag fly.
What’s the input look like?
Truthfully, your best bet is to look at the QuickStart guide. Just a few items here to pique your interest. First, to indicate a new paragraph, you just leave one or more blank lines in the text file. Simple, eh?
Headings are indicated by asterisk(s). So, this input:
* First level heading
** Second level heading
*** Third level heading
will format as:
First level heading
Second level heading
Third level heading
Emphasizing text is also easy, and wiki-like. Examples:
*emphasis*
**stronger**
***really strong***
_underlined_
=verbatim, monospaced=
give, when output:
emphasis
stronger
really strong
underlined
verbatim, monospaced
I’ll leave it to you to look further. You can really easily do tables, verse (great, for us researcher types…), footnotes, lists (bullet, numbered, and definition). URLs and email are as simple as typing them in (i.e. you’ll end up with a clickable link in the formatted output), and there are other options if you want to make it more complicated. You can (with additional Emacs modules) produce syntax-highlighted source code. You can even use embedded bits of Lisp (who does that?), Python, Perl, shell, and Ruby, and these end up being interpreted when the output gets generated. This is so cool, and opens up so many possibilities, it makes me want to quit my day job! Oh wait, that’s right, I was already thinking about that!
Where can you find out more?
Well, I first heard about Muse in a post by Credmp about using Emacs for Getting Things Done (GTD). I found a reference to the post on 43 Folders. I then went to the outstanding Emacs wiki, and quickly found info on Muse. Ultimately, I ended up at the project’s site. Yes, a simple Google search would have been easier, but far less interesting!
To date, I’ve been using org mode in Emacs for GTD. If you’re interested, check out Using Emacs org-mode for GTD. It’s a really useful tool, but based on the little bit I’ve seen of Muse, I think I’m heading towards Muse for GTD and other tasks. I will say that “org” is nice and light-weight (as is Muse), but I’ve found too many ways to easily abuse it and the whole GTD process at the same time. Muse won’t be any better in that regard, but looks like a closer match for my needs. I did also try GTD.php, but, for me, too process-intensive. A nice tool, and if it fits your style, I would still recommend it. Ultimately, Muse looks at least as good as “org” mode for GTD, and better for many other things (e.g. blogs, research notes, tutorials, etc.).
By the way, you can provide links in the following manner:
[[http://www.emacswiki.org][Emacs wiki]]
and this will get formatted in the output as Emacs wiki.
I believe the Muse project’s maintainer now is Michael Olson. He’s currently (as of September 2007) near graduating with a BS in CS. I mention this, as it is, to me, staggering. These kids (no offense intended) aren’t even out of school, and they’re releasing tools that may become key enablers for my work and research, as well as my blogging. Astounding.
On a side note, I tooled around Michael’s pages, and found some quite interesting things. First, he lists his tastes in music. Now, I really feel old. I can’t say whether any of this music is good or not, as I don’t recognize a single group/artist. Some, I can’t even pronounce. Elsewhere, Michael speaks of his philosophy, and I found out something about myself. I always referred to myself as anti-social (hence, I’m talking to you via a blog), but this never felt quite right. Michael uses the term social minimalist, and somehow it’s like a light going on. This is it for me! And he provides an interesting systems-oriented view of people, their need for acknowledgment, and how he, as a minimalist, deals. You may not agree with him, but I find it interesting.
