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Kungsgeten / org-brain

Org-mode wiki + concept-mapping
MIT License
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Could I use org-brain in a path-independent manner? #367

Closed drcxd closed 3 years ago

drcxd commented 3 years ago

I am looking for a tool which could convert a org-mode file to something like a mind map.

I have found org-mind-map and org-graph-view. They are, however, not in active maintenance.

Then I found org-brain. It has many advantages comparing to the other tools. First it's an online tool, I mean, I could easily edit my org file and see the results in org-brain-visualize rather than converting org file to another file. Second, I could jump into anywhere in the org file from the org-brain-visualize buffer.

However, I could not find a way to use org-brain in a path-independent manner. I mean, I have to put every org file into a particular path, if I want to visualize it using org-brain. Is there anyway I could just open a random org file located in anywhere, and then visualize it using org-brain? Of course, org-brain could only use headlines as entries, but this suffices in many situations.

After a second thought, I think it is still good to limit a brain in a certain path. However, could you apply a pattern like git? I mean, each brain is like a repository or a project. At the root of each brain, a folder named like .brain could be used to store all the meta data of the brain. Currently, I saw the pinned nodes are stored in a local file. However, information like history is stored globally.

Kungsgeten commented 3 years ago

Hi! No, there's no functionality to visualize a single file. The closest thing would be to use M-x org-brain-switch-brain and visualize the directory containing the file. This, however, creates an org-brain datafile, which adds some clutter to your directories.

michaelsjackson commented 3 years ago

Hey drcxd, did you try obvz? https://github.com/swhalemwo/obvz

You might like it. It can export the concept maps as .svg or .png for example. You have various settings like showing a few more sentences for each entry in your concept map or not. Showing the edge labels or not for example.

drcxd commented 3 years ago

Hi! No, there's no functionality to visualize a single file. The closest thing would be to use M-x org-brain-switch-brain and visualize the directory containing the file. This, however, creates an org-brain datafile, which adds some clutter to your directories.

Thanks for the answer. I am quite satisfied with how org-brain currently works while I am getting more and more familiar with it. Could you consider my suggestion of creating something like .git in the brain directory to store metadata, including pinned nodes, history or anything is related to the brain in question?

Finally, thanks for creating such a terrific productivity tool in emacs. I like it so much.

drcxd commented 3 years ago

Hey drcxd, did you try obvz? https://github.com/swhalemwo/obvz

You might like it. It can export the concept maps as .svg or .png for example. You have various settings like showing a few more sentences for each entry in your concept map or not. Showing the edge labels or not for example.

Thank you for the heads-up. I just read the README file and it would be a good add-on for org-brain.

michaelsjackson commented 3 years ago

Just use both together. Working nicely here. I would recommend changing colors a bit. Then all looks more interesting imo.

Kungsgeten commented 3 years ago

Thanks for the answer. I am quite satisfied with how org-brain currently works while I am getting more and more familiar with it. Could you consider my suggestion of creating something like .git in the brain directory to store metadata, including pinned nodes, history or anything is related to the brain in question?

org-brain already stores a data file including some meta data. It is named .org-brain-data.el.