An Org file at its core is a heirarchy of headings. Much like a research paper. There are headings and subheadings. These headings all start with stars. The number of stars denotes the level in the org file.
To facilitate this, OrgExtended has multiple syntax scopes to allow each heading to be highlighted differently.
Org files can look kind of frumpy if you color all the stars the same:
orgmode.preamble * Heading 1 ** Heading 2 *** Heading 3 **** Heading 4
In Emacs, many org mode configurations use different fonts, unicode string replacement and variable indenting tricks to make the file look very pretty. Many of those features are not possible in this plugin.
That said, we offer a orgmode.preamble that matches the leading stars, allowing us to color them the same as the background and thus give a semblance of indenting to our file:
orgmode.preamble * Heading 1 * Heading 2 * Heading 3 * Heading 4
This seems pretty similar to markdown?
If that was it, Org would not be a very powerful format. That said org offers a plethora of extensions and tools for working with this heirarchy that make this format truly flexible and unique. Org does offer the same types of things you find in markdown. For instance it supports the basic formatting options:
Built into orgmode is the concept of todo lists. Org headings can have a state identifier that can flow through various states.
,-> (unmarked) -> TODO -> DONE --. '--------------------------------'
These todos can be used to create projects with sub tasks. In turn these todos can be listed and filtered or scheduled to appear in the org agenda.
This in turn makes org mode a flexible and full features personal information manager. Tools like:
- OrgTodoChange
- Lets you dynamically change the todo state of a heading.