[ESS] ESS and org-mode

[ts]

Rodney Sparapani <rsparapa <at> mcw.edu> writes:

> Thanks for the info. However, after reading the following, I don't
> have much enthusiasm at the moment:

If you are put off by the large number of areas org-mode covers, don't be. One
of the really nice things about org-mode is that it's easy to use for basics.
The advanced features don't get in the way. I use it mainly for two things: (1)
a project organizer -- basically a super outliner and (2) a to-do list. 

Because you can use org-mode in different ways, it's easy to adapt for your
style of working. For example, I normally time-tag phone-call notes and that
sort of thing, but I don't use it for deadlines or daily planner type
activities. I don't use the tables and such, but they don't get in the way,
either. It's quite easy to get started with.

Org-mode works in gnu emacs 21 and 22, and the website says it works with
xemacs, but I don't use that.

As far as integration with ESS, currently, you can set it up to have a block as
follows:

\begin{Scode}
  plot(sin)
\end{Scode}

When in the block, you can hit C-c ', and it moves the R code into it's own
indirect buffer with ESS activated. It doesn't try to run both modes in the same
file like MMM-mode. When you're done messing with it in that buffer, you can
return to the org-mode buffer with another C-c '. It's useful for contained R
snippets.

The setup above requires a recent org-mode and the setup shown here:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/8241/match=latex+begin+scode+3+end

The following link that I gave earlier provides a more ambitious attempt to use
org-mode as a way to author documents for latex or html output. I haven't tried
it, so I don't know how well it works.

http://github.com/eschulte/org-contrib/tree/master

This integration is early in the game, so I can understand being gun-shy about
using org-mode with ESS. I do recommend trying org-mode for organizing and
taking notes and such.

tom