Taking notes using emacs org-mode

After years of using emacs, it's surprising that I got to know org-mode so late. Better late than never. The first thing I did is to switch to org-mode to arrange my notes, on research, computer technology and life.

My criteria for a good note taker is as follows:

1. Easy to organize topics / create note
2. Full text search
3. Sync a copy to internet
4. Todo list and other tags in note
5. Mathematics formula support
6. Simple item folding and expanding
7. The editor is stable and feature rich
8. At best plain text, to access anywhere

With the help of Dropbox and some shell scripts, emacs org-mode is good for all the above aspects: (3) is implemented by putting the note folder into Dropbox. (4) - (8) are the advantages of org-mode or emacs. While here I use some simple shell scripts to implement (1) and (2) on command line.

Use emacs as a widget

Previously I used yakuake or tilda as a terminal -- press F12 to call or switch back from them. Then an idea comes: why not using emacs for this purpose, and a lot more?

Here is what I have now: press f12 to switch from a pre-configured full screen emacs window and the current window. I can run terminal commands, open frequently used files, take notes and do mathematical calculation (maxima) in emacs. Press f12 again brings me back to the previous application I was using.

The idea is as follows: