2) No good Android interface, Orgzly is OK, but doesn't do advanced features and often crashed for me.
3) Despite lots of trying, I couldn't get "into" using the Emacs shortcut keys, which are different to every other application on Windows.
4) I like variable width fonts, and variable width fonts don't seem to work with various bits of org mode (for example tables)
I'm sure you love org-mode, and that's great, but plenty of people over the years have tried and failed to love emacs, and lost a whole lot of time in the process.
For 3 -- I've always been a vim user, and I know maybe 3-4 native Emacs hotkeys, thanks to evil-mode. Also Spacemacs/Doom emacs provides a reasonable layer of bindings outside org-mode
1) Is there any note taking application that makes a good spreadsheet? Just use a dedicated spreadsheet program.
2) I'm using Orgzly and yeah, it's OK. For me, OK is all I really need here since I mostly need org-mode when I'm infront of a computer. When I'm away all I really need it for is quickly adding things to do.
3) Definitely takes getting used to. I started using org-mode a couple years ago as a vim user.
I've also lost a lot of time trying different apps such as Evernote, OneNote, and Trello. And setting everything up to integrate between them. Eventually I decided on markdown files for notes, but the TODO and tag integration of org-mode is what made me switch.
It should be possible to use monospaced fonts only for tables.
They're syntax highlighted in a distinct way and that should be all you need.
This is the fundamental tradeoff of emacs, basically: it's nearly always possible to get exactly what you want, in exchange for an unreasonable amount of effort.
I've actually found, that for me org mode spreadsheets (table with formulas) make a lot of sense and I like having them together with all other stuff I put in an org mode file. I appreciate a lot, that it is still all plain text.
Once one gets the hang of using those spreadsheets and has written oneself a few examples, from which one can always copy or look things up, I think they are pretty amazing. Perhaps this is exactly the time you do not wish to spend on it, which is fine. Just saying, that for many purposes those spreadsheets work very well. There is after all GNU Calc behind them and if you want a complete programming language in form of Elisp as well. Power they do not lack, that is for sure.
> 4) I like variable width fonts, and variable width fonts don't seem to work with various bits of org mode (for example tables)
Same. I use mixed-pitch[1], a package on MELPA[2]
M-x package-install mixed-pitch
will take care of Org tables and more. Doesn't attack the problem minimally, but comes with sensible choices; it's been basically a drop-in-and-forget activation snippet.
1) org-mode makes a good spreadsheet
2) Not being Android user myself, I have only heard good things about Orgzly from Emacs people around. What features exactly are you missing?
3) you can use any keys you want with Emacs. I have my own setup that I am using along with the Vim key bindings/text objects.
4) pretty much everything else works well with fonts and colors; tables yeah, tend to keep simple formatting.
Emacs is not ideal. But it is the most flexible and configurable piece of software in the world - and org-mode is the best outliner ever created.
Thanks, I hope this will be useful for other people!
1) When I google for some advanced operations (like multi-column sort), the advice seemed to be export as CSV and do it in openoffice.
2) While orgzly is a good attempt, if you google around you will find lots of limitations (it's too long since I've used it), as it is a reimplementation of org-mode so can't hope to be feature complete.
The noob probably won't even be aware of the collisions if they're a new emacs user. The org-mode keybindings will override the cua-mode bindings. Afaik, it's only shift+arrow keys.
A noob can pick up emacs, type M-x cua-mode M-x org-mode and have a simple to use outliner which recognizes most of the keyboard shortcuts they're familiar with.
1) org-mode makes a bad spreadsheet
2) No good Android interface, Orgzly is OK, but doesn't do advanced features and often crashed for me.
3) Despite lots of trying, I couldn't get "into" using the Emacs shortcut keys, which are different to every other application on Windows.
4) I like variable width fonts, and variable width fonts don't seem to work with various bits of org mode (for example tables)
I'm sure you love org-mode, and that's great, but plenty of people over the years have tried and failed to love emacs, and lost a whole lot of time in the process.