Re: Alternatives or org-capture?

[Tim Cross]

ypuntot <ypuntot@gmail.com> writes:

> I'm going to start using org-contacts. And, with that, I would like to use 
> org-capture or yankpad. Which one would you recommend using?
> I have been trying to use org-capture but it doesn't seem too intuitive for 
> me :$ 
>
> I saved time ago a tutorial for yankpad, and it looked nice. 
> Does org-capture deserve more effort or could yankpad be more friendly and as 
> useful? 
>
> Best regards 
>

The first thing to note is that org-contacts is a contrib package and
not actually part of org itself.

Where org-contacts can be really useful is when you use Emacs to read
your email. For most Emacs based MUAs, you will be able to configure the
MUA to use org-contacts to collect contact information and for
auto-completion of addresses etc. For example, the mu4e manual has a
short page about using org-contacts with mu4e.

I don't know yankpad, but from a quick look it seems to only be a basic
template system. Org capture is not quite the same - it is functionality
used to capture data and store it in an org file in a specific
format. Where it is really powerful is through its template expansion capability
which will be automatically filled in with data extracted from
the source buffer you are in when you run it. For example, if your using
a MUA which has org support, you can have an org-contgacts template
which will be automatically filled in with contact data from the current
message your viewing, you can have the message-id automatically added
and even have a permanent link to the email as well as other meta data
like date/time etc.

If your going to be using org mode a bit, I strongly recommend you spend
the time to get to understand org-capture. Because it is built into org
mode it is an integral part of many org mode based workflows. The
org-contrib package uses it to streamline collection of contact data and
it is a core part of how org-contacts works. If your going to use
something else like yankpad, you may as well not worry aboutg
org-contacts and just roll your own using yankpad and an org file as
your contacts database.  

As to documentation for org-contacts - there isn't much I could
find. The best source is really the source code, particularly the
'commentry' section. The ELPA package description also has some
information. and there are a few blogs, video etc which you can use to
piece things together.

Recommend you get to know/understand org-capture first and the rest will
become much clearer.