No matter what line of work you're in, it's inevitable you have to take a few notes. Often, more than a few. If you're like many people in this day and age, you take your notes digitally.
Open source enthusiasts have a variety of options for jotting down their ideas, thoughts, and research in electronic format. You might use a web-based tool[1]. You might go for a desktop application[2]. Or, you might turn to the command line[3].
If you use Emacs[4], that wonderful operating system disguised as a text editor, there are modes that can help you take notes more efficiently. Let's look at three of them.
Deft
On those rare occasions I'm forced to use a Mac, there's one tool I can't do without: the nvALT[5] note-taking application. Deft mode[6] brings the nvALT experience to Emacs.
Deft stores your notes as text files in a single folder on your computer. When you enter Deft mode, it displays a list of your notes along with a short summary. The summary is taken from the first line of the text file. If you add, say, Markdown, LaTeX, or even Emacs Org mode formatting to the first line, Deft ignores the formatting and displays only the text.
To open a note, just scroll down to it and press Enter. Deft does a bit more, though. According to Deft's developer, Jason Blevins, its primary operation is searching and filtering. Deft does that simply but efficiently. Type a keyword and Deft displays only the notes that have that keyword in their title. That's useful if you have a lot of notes and want to