Appendix

Awesome

Notes and Thoughts

In no particular order.

• Examples of other window managers: Aqua in OS X (under Quartz), explorer.exe in windows, Metacity in GNOME, and scores of alternatives for X11.

• There is a lua library that supports dynamic tagging called "shifty" that lets you create, destroy, and rename tags on the fly.

• There is a lua library for "Growl style" notification pop-ups called "naughty" if you like that kind of interruption, and they work much the same way that widgets do.

• Tiling window managers are less flexible that stacking/composting window managers. That's the point, but that isn't to say they're inflexible.

Awesome for the rest of us.

• Applescript and the Spark Framework make it possible to script and customize some aspects of your environment in OS X. I'm not as familiar with options for similar scripting/custom key-binding support for windows.

• Awesome can be used--more or less--as a drop in replacement for metacity in GNOME or for Kwin in KDE so if you use one of the other mainstream X11 desktop environments, you might consider trying one of these methods.

• I've seen evidence of successful Xmonad installation on OS X (though it can't manage native OS X applications); and there is a package for awesome in macports it's for the oldstable (stale) version. But possible and useful aren't always the same thing.

• There are some applications that feel particularly suited to the Awesome experience for their minimalism and keyboard-driven interfaces. Awesome is great alone, but it's better with the right apps. The reverse is also true: you can get a little bit of the experience by using these apps inside of your current environment. For example, mutt, emacs, vimperator, irssi, and so forth. More links at the end.

Awesome Applications

• vimperator (firefox)
• emacs (or vim, if you're like that)
• mutt
• mcabber
• bash
• mocp
• irssi / weechat

Org Mode

I think one of the most beautiful things about org-mode is that it's possible to only use parts of it: You don't need to know all of the possible agenda views in order to use it for outlines, you don't need to know how to use the export functionality, or the RSS import functionality for this to enhance to manage your tasks, brainstorming and work.

Org-remember from anywhere.

You can also, with some nifty lisp from Jack Moffit call up a remember buffer from anywhere. I of course have this set to a key-binding in Awesome, but you could quicksilver (or other similar alternatives) to get the same effect in OS X, and something in windows.

• On org-remember:

  • Org-remember allows you to specify templates to automatically capture some information, and provide prompts if necessary.

  • With the emacs server (and emacsclient) trigger remember even if you're not in emacs. Information in the appendix.

• On navigating outlines in org-mode:

  • tab cycles visibility of the current heading.

  • shift tab cycles visibility of entire outline.

  • meta-arrow navigates the position of the current heading.

Links and Resources

• Window Managers for X11
• http://metajack.im/2008/12/30/gtd-capture-with-emacs-orgmode/
• http://identi.ca/group/awesome
• http://identi.ca/group/orgmode
• http://awesome.naquadah.org/
• http://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki