Recent Changes

2025-07-14

• 06:48 UTC (diff) (history) Comments on 2025-07-07 Mass resetting Org mode checkboxes . . . . mbork – Thanks for your comments! I knew about org-checklist but it doesn't fully work in my case - I have several checkbox lists in the same file, and I . . .
• 05:58 UTC (new) (history) 2025-07-14 Interacting with an unreliable process . . . . mbork – Previously, we learned how to send some input to an external process via its stdin and receive its output from its stdout. The process, however, was simple and very reliable. In the real world, an external process can take its time (especially if it uses a database or a network to operate), die or even hang, and it’s good to support such cases.

2025-07-07

• 15:47 UTC (new) (history) 2025-07-07 Mass resetting Org mode checkboxes . . . . mbork – I’m a big fan of checklists. There are many cases where I need to follow some procedure containing many steps, and I really do not want to forget about any of them. This is especially challenging when it is something I need to do not very often, say, once a month, since it is very easy to forget about one or more steps, and properly memorizing the procedure would take many months. One example is preparing and sending invoices, which I need to do at the beginning of every month. Another (slightly less typical) example is packing for vacations – it’s very easy to forget to take something, and very important not to. In fact, I prepared a generic list of things to take with me on vacation more than fifteen years ago, and I use it several times a year, sometimes adding some new item, sometimes removing some no longer needed item. Me being me, I keep these checklists in Org mode, and they consist of one or more headings with a bunch of checkboxed lists.

2025-06-30

• 15:46 UTC (new) (history) 2025-06-30 Interacting with an external process via stdin and stdout . . . . mbork – For a project I’ve been recently working on, I needed Emacs to interact with an external process, sending things to it via its stdin and receiving responses via its stdout. I never did anything like that before, so I started with checking my options.

2025-06-23

• 06:20 UTC (new) (history) 2025-06-23 Making functions interactive . . . . mbork – I have to admit that I probably have a bit of OCD, and when I finish my work, I like to put my Emacs in a sort of “clean slate” state. By that I don’t mean closing it or killing all buffers (although when I leave the office, I do kill all work-related buffers). Instead, I mean going back to displaying just one window with the *GNU Emacs* buffer (the one with the logo and links to the tutorial etc.) The problem is, I sometimes accidentally kill that buffer, and then I have no place to go back to;-). Well, some time ago it occurred to me that something in Emacs must create that buffer, and I can find that something and learn how to do that whenever I want.

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