Re: want a file format easily edited and read by emacs that allows (multiple) pictures to be included

[Dan Espen]

Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sat, Dec 2, 2017 at 5:06 AM, Daian YUE <sheepduke@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 2017-12-02 08:02, Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> For the notes i keep, sometimes i would like to sometimes include a
>>> picture (jpg or png or maybe some other format).
>>>
>>> emacs seems to have no problem displaying a picture but i would like
>>> to add words to it.
>>>
>>> So reading the file in emacs would be something like looking at html,
>>> but i would prefer it something to be hot-editable, just like text
>>> files are.
>>>
>>> That is, i would prefer not to have any markup in the file whatsoever,
>>> just a block of text, then a picture, then more text, then another
>>> picture, and so on.  Perhaps an unprintable character could divide the
>>> sections, and each section type could be recognized as either starting
>>> with the magic words of a jpg or png and be presented as a picture, or
>>> otherwise, presented as utf-8.  (So i guess the unprintable character
>>> would be markup, but certainly i wouldn't want something as lengthy as
>>> <img> to appear in the file.)
>>>
>>> Ideally, emacs would recognize the type of file it was by a
>>> mode-defining like at the top, like -*- text -*- (except, of course,
>>> not text).
>>>
>>> Does any file format/mode combo like this exist?
>>>
>>> TIA for any clues!! :)
>>>
>>> dan
>>
>> Hi Dan,
>>
>> I think Org Mode is what you are looking for.
>>
>> From what you want, it contains following features:
>> - pure text based
>> - Emacs built-in, very easy to works with
>> - can embed pictures easily [[some_picture.jpg]]
>> - has many inline declaration for controlling titles, code blocks etc
>> - can be exported to Makrdown, HTML, etc etc
>>
>> I personally used it to generate development documentation (pictures
>> included) in a small project.
>>
>> It is really handy to edit org file in Emacs, then "C-e h h" to generate
>> HTML. The style of generated HTML file can be modified by external CSS
>> file.
>>
>> Also, many people (including me) use Org Mode for task
>> scheduling/management, taking notes, writing documentations, blogs, etc.
>>
>> I highly recommend you to give it a try. :-)
>>
>> Danny
>>
>
> Thanks Danny!!
>
> People talk a lot about org-mode but i had never actually used it
> until you recommended it.
>
> It looks very useful, and it can indeed show images
> (org-redisplay-inline-images).  So i appreciate your introducing it to
> me.
>
> The one aspect of org mode (or html) that is a sort of problem is that
> the images it shows cannot exist in the file itself, but rather float
> in the file system (or presumably served remotely over http).
>
> The problem here is breakage.  The image can get renamed or deleted,
> and then the file.org is broken.
>
> That's why i would like something where the image is copied directly
> into the file.
>
> Thanks again for the suggestion, which has an appearance close to what
> i want, and which will be useful independently of whether i can
> actually embed an image inside a file in a way emacs can see and
> display it inline.

If your images are SVG, HTML lets you code images inline.

<https://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_svg.asp>

Emacs shr.el shows SVGs.

Especially if your images are line drawings, SVG is pretty neat.
Of course SVG is useless for photos.

-- 
Dan Espen