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Weightlifting Tracking with Emacs on Android

Zachary Romero - https://zacromero.com/, zacromero@posteo.com

Format: 30-min talk ; Q&A: BigBlueButton conference room Etherpad: https://pad.emacsconf.org/2025-weights
Etherpad: https://pad.emacsconf.org/2025-weights
Status: TO_REVIEW_QA

00:00.000 Introduction
00:15.400 Current state of mobile ecosystem
01:05.440 Emacs replaceability
02:06.720 Weightlifting tracking
03:46.960 Difficulties
04:58.400 Demo
07:45.460 Org-mode based
08:56.320 Notifications (demo)
10:09.760 Unexpected Keyboard
10:45.160 Syncthing Fork
12:31.440 Q: Very cool! It would be nice to build some One-rep max calculation formulae into calc
13:33.040 Q: Do you have plans to extend this to clock-report kind of reporting? graphical reports, etc?
14:17.760 Q: Have you ever wanted to modify the functionality on your mobile device while working out? Any good or challenging experiences or tips with that?
15:51.560 Q: Does the rest timer end with an audible notification at the end of the time?
17:08.600 Q: Have you tried other keyboards such as Hacker's keyboard?
17:31.360 Q: Another keyboard question - have you tried the "flickboard" on f-droid? It's the craziest keyboard, you use one thumb.
19:05.360 Q: This user interface is simplified but still keyboard based, can you think of ways to make it more touch based?
20:52.560 Q: Is a touch interface something you'd prefer to dive into yourself or factor out into a higher-level API?
23:16.000 Q: You mentioned file sync, what have you found works well for you?
24:19.920 Q: I'm curious about the development experience. Do you do everything on the phone?
26:24.760 Q: Have you thought about integrating cardio tracking like timed runs, bike rides, etc?
28:20.320 Closing
Duration: 29:12 minutes

Description

The package covered in the talk can be found at https://github.com/zkry/org-fit

Emacs on Android opens up a world of new possibilities for replacing proprietary software with free alternatives. One such use case is using Emacs and org-mode to replace the popular weightlifting tracking apps like Hevy and Strong.

Org-mode provides a solid foundation to replicate these apps functionalities but by itself is cumbersome to use in the middle of a workout. With the help of Elisp however, we can provide an experience as seamless as these paid apps, but with added flexibility and freedom.

This talk will go over the package itself as well as the way org-mode can be used as the foundation for applications on top of it.

About the speaker:

I'm Zachary Romero, a software developer and Emacs enthusiast. I've been weightlifting for about three years when I grew tired of the many apps constantly trying to push subscriptions. Knowing the many things org-mode can do, I set about trying to replicate the same functionality in Emacs.

Discussion / notes

  • Q: Very cool! It would be nice to build some One-rep max calculation formulae into calc
    • A:
  • Q:Do you have plans to extend this to clock-report kind of reporting? graphical reports, etc? 
    • A: Yes, yeah, exactly. Graphical reports. These are all something that, It currently doesn't have, and these nice apps do have. They have charts of all kinds. You can see your progress from week to week on various exercise. They have charts galore, all these fancy apps. And in theory, it wouldn't be hard at all to like, 'cause like, you know, there's gnuplot. There's those, and then they have like very good packages on any of them. So, I mean, I assume integration would be pretty seamless. So yes, that is definitely on the list of things I want to do.
  • Q: Have you ever wanted to modify the functionality on your mobile device while working out? Any good or challenging experiences or tips with that?
    • A: Yeah, that's actually funny. There was a time where, yeah, I mean, like debugging, there was like some bug I was having with my code. And so I have, in the middle of a workout, yeah, start, like, open up the debugger and kind of, and the cool thing is that, I mean, the biggest thing, like, the biggest thing by far is unexpected keyboard. https://github.com/Julow/Unexpected-Keyboard Like, I can't state how, I don't know how much Unexpected Keyboard is, because, like, with Unexpected, with the Unexpected, with that keyboard, you can literally just, like, it's, it's not hard at all to, like, you can do M-x or C-M-x or you know C-u C-M-x to debug, like, you can do all the key bindings with unexpected keyboard. There's no problem whatsoever with that part. The only part is muscle memory. It's because you get the muscle memory of the emacs key binding and so you have to kind of like yeah... I mean that translation is actually kind of you have to think about it like, like, okay, what was that key binding again? And you have to kind of like do it with your fingers. And it was like doing it on the, on Android is, I mean, it takes a little longer and it's just a different, yeah, different set of different muscle memory.
  • Q: Sorry, if you covered this, but does the rest timer end with an audible notification at the end of the time?
    • A: That's the cool thing. So with the Emacs, with the Android notification settings, you can, I can show that again in more detail. So bonus settings, apps, pick the app, notifications. And then here we get that org-fit-rest-over. And so here you can set, for example, whether it's a silent notification. And so this won't, this won't make it make noise. You can do... or like make it have a noise, and so you can have it make sure it's popped on the screen and then you can just pick whatever ringtone you want, and you can make it look like yeah. Then obviously you have the whole volume setting, so you can, when you're working you can just set the volume pretty high, so if you do happen to set your phone kind of away, you set the volume high, maybe make a really annoying sound, a loud sound you won't miss. And then, yeah, you'll be set. So that works. That was actually one of the biggest surprises. I wasn't expecting that to work so nice.
  • Q: You mentioned file sync, what have you found works well for you?
    • A: So in terms of what, yeah, I did have to play around with this a lot, but Syncthing Fork is what I eventually settled on. I mean, this is another thing that, I mean, I don't, it wouldn't nearly be as usable, like Emacs wouldn't be nearly usable without it. So Syncthing Fork essentially, okay. And then I also have like a droplet on DigitalOcean, just like, so that's kind of like the whole, that's kind of like what bridges it together. So like, so my Emacs can sync to that, and then my machine also syncs to that. And so I don't have to have them both on the same time. It's just there, that copy. And so that works pretty well. I also found that editing code in general, I think this also goes with the development experience question.
  • Q: HAve you tried other keyboards such as Hacker\'s keyboard
    • A: Not recently. I haven't, so I couldn't compare them.
    • Q: Another keyboard question - have you tried the \"flickboard\" on f-droid? It\'s the craziest keyboard, you use one thumb
    • A: Oh, that is interesting. Let me see. Flickboard. Flickboard. Yeah, I'll have to try that. I'm curious to get the key bindings done. I wonder if the key bindings and all that work. I hope that's interesting. I'll definitely look into that.
  • Q: This user interface is simplified but still keyboard based, can you think of ways to make it more touch based?
    • A: So the only thing currently, I think, of specific touch-based functionality I have, which, so this is like, so let's see, it's C-x C-+, That key binding wrong, what was it? Okay, whatever. Yeah, so in terms of touch commands, so pressing on a headline will actually unfold it and move your cursor to the next field that you, yeah, so like, yeah, at the beginning of the table. So like, there's that, yeah, and so. It sounds like that is something you're thinking about. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, maybe like a little thing at the bottom, like, so this thing has the, this app has this, if you notice, like, if you do something, it has this rest timer at the bottom. So I mean, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be pretty, it wouldn't be, it seems quite doable to just have like, maybe something at the bottom, like for a timer, and then you can just like plus 15 seconds or cancel it or, you know, just, and then those could all be just like touch based. And so, yeah. And then obviously just like, just like classic Emacs, the Emacs, like clicking actions, they just, yeah, they work just fine. Like, so there's no like weird Android touch thing you have to worry about.

  • Q: I\'m curious about the development experience. Do you do everything on the phone? 

    • A: And that's the thing. None of my development in general is done on the phone. just because, for one, my muscle memory isn't there, and two, just in general, typing on a virtual keyboard on the phone, it's just really slow. So yeah, all the development is done on my machine, but then there's the problem of you have to have an init.l in your Android, and so you're going to have to write, you know, I found like you'd have to like, when you first get Emacs set up, you might have to like write some, I don't know, like you'll kind of have to like get into your init file and then just like, maybe just like start to put things together. But the cool thing is with Syncthing Fork, I'm syncing my, I'm setting it to load off of a sync directory. Like this, this init file, my Android file is synced with my machine. So if I wanted to, I could just edit it on my machine and just have that synced automatically. So that makes like the whole, like in it, cause like it's, it's such a, like, that is one of the, it's just like get in, sit writing your init.el in Emacs on Android is just kind of a...

  • Q: Have you thought about integrating cardio tracking like timed runs, bike rides, etc?

    • A: Yes, I definitely thought about that. And that might be another thing where a touch interface might be helpful. I don't know if I can easily pull it up, but the app itself, oh yeah, here it is. So you can see kind of how they have, and you can kind of see how this fits. This is like an org, you can see that these are just tables, right? This is just like this whole interface in general, just like kind of screams like an org mode, file with you have you have your different headings like here's a warm-up heading and then you have the tables and you know you could just like envision how you could have a org table with one of the columns called time and then you could just imagine like there'd be a button there and you can just have it click, and then you'd have a timer in the background that would update this timer. It's so, I mean, conceptually, there's nothing really, it conceptually maps really well to this. So yeah, I mean, that's definitely something.
  • Q: Seems like a great use case to combine with some of the other talks like Ramin\'s UI demos, maybe some speech/LLM stuff. And Hyperbole\'s M-RET!
    • A:
  • Q: emacs on android can be installed on a GrapheneOS-set up device too, can't it?
    • yes it is available in f-droid
    • Oh man... I haven't used a smartphone in a while, but I'm really excited to take advantage of all of the Emacs features people have made once I pick one back up. I got a Linux phone that should hopefully be arriving relatively soon here 😊
    • Touch seems so wildly usable nowadays. That's so awesome 😊
    • which one? I'm using the Jolla C2 Community Edition with SailfishOS
    • Oh nice! 😊 I ordered a FuriPhone quite a while ago, but it got really hit hard by tariffs. It seems like it's finally happening now 😊
    • Oh I saw that one :) I think its quite a bit more powerful than my one
    • I'm so looking forward to it. 🙂 I think it'll have a little performance bump coming from my original PinePhone 😛
    • next to the fully fledged Emacs, an app on Android like beorg on iOS would be great companion. when using orgmode content especially as todo/checklist tool, then an app designed for mobile UI with touch operations is key for easy use onthego.
  • I'm very interested in this as I work on similar problems in this space at work

Transcript (unedited)

[00:00:00.000] Introduction
And you're ready to go. All right, perfect. Hello, my name is Zachary Romero and today I'll be giving a talk on how I'm using Emacs for Android to replace my fitness app I normally use.
[00:00:15.400] Current state of mobile ecosystem
So it goes without saying that a lot of the mobile ecosystem these days are pretty hostile to the interest of its users. So there's privacy policies that are constantly collecting your data and selling it. without your consent, bombardment of ads. And then there's a lot of features that are locked. Sometimes features that the app gives you, they're put behind paywalls. And so a lot of the ecosystem isn't in the best interest of users. And obviously there are apps like on F-Droid and the Android ecosystem that do try to address this, but the solutions overall are lagging behind maybe desktop computers.
[00:01:05.440] Emacs replaceability
One option that has come in the past few years is Emacs on Android. It's just a normal Emacs build, and so it can do everything, in theory, that Emacs can do. And so I got to thinking how could I, how I could use Emacs to replace some of the proprietary apps that I use on a daily basis? So I just went thinking about the apps, the apps that Emacs can replace. Some of them seem quite easy. Some of them... maybe might take a little effort but seem doable. And then obviously, there's a whole class of apps that would be pretty impossible to emulate on Emacs. So I mean besides like to-do lists, note taking, Org mode, one thing that came to mind was my fitness tracking app. This is an app I use pretty often and in theory, Emacs should be quite usable for this case.
[00:02:06.720] Weightlifting tracking
So weightlifting tracking is, so it's normally used to record what exercises you do at what intensity in order to progress week by week. So you might plan on like slowly increasing the amount of effort you put into your various workouts from week to week, and then maybe you'll have put some rest weeks in there. And so you want a detailed plan and recording of what you do throughout the week. And so I guess way back, normally this would have been done on pen and paper. So you would take your notebook and just write down on paper what you did. And this obviously works, and a lot of people do do this. But these days, there are quite a few apps that make this process quite seamless and effortless. So just as an example, really fast. So this is one of the popular apps out these days that has such a feature. So you can save all your workout routines and this nice interface. And so you click a button and then it starts, you have the workout interface and then You can kind of, you go through your workout and then you can input, you can input like what things you do. And then it has this like fancy timer at the bottom. So like, this is kind of like the, kind of like what a lot of people use these days, just for, just for, to make it as frictionless as possible. So obviously you can do like this bare bone text editing in Emacs. You just have to open up an Org mode file and just right away...
[00:03:46.960] Difficulties
So, but there are a number of problems with this. So like, especially on mobile, character by character editing, just like writing all these, this text out manually, maybe some formatting, it can be pretty tedious and not, maybe not something you want to, you want to have to do, especially if you're like exhausted or tired. So, I mean, there's also like the problem of like remembering which, where in your workout you are, like how many of these, these, like which, which, like where are you, where you are, like, um like which set number are you on, are you on the first, second, and then also, like, maybe you failed, maybe you weren't able to perform this, and maybe you have to make a note that... so that's even more text editing you would have to do. Also some things like unit conversions, like you could use calc, but then you'd have to open up the calc, and then number, unit conversion, switch buffers. So it's doable, but it takes a little effort. And then also the rest timer. So if you want to make sure you're resting in between these exercises you do, you'd have to maybe open up another app, or maybe you'd have to bring your watch. So that's another thing that these apps normally would do for you.
[00:04:58.400] Demo
So writing some Elisp, I created a package to try to emulate that experience I showed you on that other app. So let me just demo this real fast. So here, the package is called org-fit. And so here, I'm going to start a new workout. And then here, I'm prompted by a list of routines that I have pre-written in Org mode. So the header name is the routine name. And so I can, out of all these routines I've written, I can select one and then also I can have it populate. So here it's populating preset weights I had for it. So yeah, so basically this is my current attempt to emulate that experience. So here we can, so here like the arrows and the tabs, they only go through like the, editable fields I can so on the notes section you see you see here in the table this is like the my plan for the day so I can press space to easily just fill out the data tab go the next the next the next set I can press quote to copy from above There's also some interesting things with Android, like you can bind the volume down key. So here I have the volume down key just like inputting the data automatically and going to the next field. So you see there it's quite seamless input of information. Notice also when all the sets of a single exercise are done, it marks that heading as done. Also, if you notice at the top, on the left, you have the session time for the workout. And then on here, we have the rest timer. So the rest timer is actually just defined as an org mode property. So here it's saying that, okay, you should start the auto rest timer for three minutes every time you do a set. So here, let's fill it in, go to the next one. And now the rest timer is set for three minutes. And so here I have, I can just rest I just have the information right here. Also, you'll notice here we have some calculations at the bottom. This is something also that those apps provide, like in order to make sure you're tracking on certain levels of intensity. Let's see, what else do we have? We can add warmups, automatic warmup set inserting, unit conversions, and then Something else to know is that all of these actions I'm doing, they're all bound to a single key to make things as effortless as possible. So yeah, that's the app in a nutshell.
[00:07:45.460] Org-mode based
And then, so how is this done? So the philosophy behind this is to use Org mode as a base. So all the functionality, the timer for the session, that's just clock in or clock in. The various, all the data you fill in, the exercises, routines, those are just org headings, like with nested entries. So yeah, and then all the movement, like a lot of the editing stuff is just going off of the Org mode API. So like here, my upper field, is actually just using the, so it's using like the org-table-goto-line function. Adding a note is org-table-put. So like all of my functions I'm using, they're just building off of the org mode API. And I found that this pattern worked work pretty well. So you get the benefits of Org mode and then the ease of using it on mobile. And so I guess in the last few minutes of this talk, I'll just go over some quick things about working with Android that might come up.
[00:08:56.320] Notifications (demo)
So the first thing is notifications. This is actually an interesting feature. So In the Android build for Emacs, you have the function android-notifications-notify. And so here, this is how you can send a notification. So my rest timer, for example, utilizes this function to let you know when your rest is over. And the cool thing about this is that the build for Emacs lets you, so here in the app settings, under notifications, so here you can actually pick a notification group, which is here set, which is, yeah, so it's set right here and you can just customize it. So like what sound do you want it to make? Do you want it to vibrate? Do you want to show on the screen? And so this way, like you can easily, so if you are resting, you will get a notification. It will vibrate. it might make a really loud noise if you want it to. And so this is all customizable. And the cool thing is that if you have other packages that utilize these notifications, all of the notification groups, they're all customizable separately. So, and there we go. So that notification you see on the top is actually from the Emacs app. So you notice here, we're not even running Emacs and yet we got that rest timer is over.
[00:10:09.760] Unexpected Keyboard
So that's one thing. Next, keyboard. So just when working with Emacs, I found using the unexpected keyboard, in particular, to be really helpful with all the keybinding. So if you just want to try out Emacs from F-Droid or something, I would recommend using a keyboard like this to let you use the meta keys and the control keys. And then yeah, using this keyboard, I haven't really noticed any problems with Emacs key bindings. And then lastly, just like my setup...
[00:10:45.160] Syncthing Fork
So Syncthing Fork is another app I rely on heavily. So as I mentioned, all the, this is org-fit files, they're all org-mode files. So I use Syncthing Fork to synchronize them between my laptop and my Android. And then also like to get this package, just syncing a list folder might be helpful if you want to easily edit your init file on Android on your machine. So yeah, Syncthing Fork is another helpful thing that you might wanna look into if you're exploring Android, the Emacs build of Android. So yeah, Emacs on Android does actually have the potential to replace a decent number of common use cases. And org mode can be a solid foundation for any of these applications that you're thinking of. And yeah, I highly recommend giving giving Emacs on Android a shot. And that concludes this presentation. Thank you so much, Zachary. That was an awesome talk, and I appreciate your preparing it for us. A couple questions on the pad, if anybody wants to jump in and throw in your questions or comments. Of course, happy to read them out on screen here. I think when we were talking backstage before, you had asked me to kind of read them out, but feel free to jump in and kind of take over at any point. This is the You Show. I'm kind of... So the first question we had was a comment. This is very cool.
[00:12:31.440] Q: Very cool! It would be nice to build some One-rep max calculation formulae into calc
It would be nice to build up some org rep max calculation formula into calc. Is that something that you've thought about? Um, well, I mean, um, one rep max. Yeah. I mean, not in honesty, I'm not sure about extending calc itself. Like if there's... what are the ways of extending calc itself, but this package org-fit, I mean, it does have the one rep max. I had to dig into that... I can find the code, but yeah, I mean, it does, I mean, you know, so this is specifically this package, but yeah, you can use the various one rep max formulas for this.
[00:13:33.040] Q: Do you have plans to extend this to clock-report kind of reporting? graphical reports, etc?
Extend this clock report. Yes, yeah, exactly. Graphical reports. These are all something that, It currently doesn't have, and these nice apps do have. They have charts of all kinds. You can see your progress from week to week on various exercise. They have charts galore, all these fancy apps. And in theory, it wouldn't be hard at all to like, 'cause like, you know, there's gnuplot. There's those, and then they have like very good packages on any of them. So, I mean, I assume integration would be pretty seamless. So yes, that is definitely on the list of things I want to do.
[00:14:17.760] Q: Have you ever wanted to modify the functionality on your mobile device while working out? Any good or challenging experiences or tips with that?
Have you ever wanted to modify the functionality of your mobile device while working out any good or challenging experiences or tips with that? Yeah, that's actually funny. There was a time where, yeah, I mean, like debugging, there was like some bug I was having with my code. And so I have, in the middle of a workout, yeah, start, like, open up the debugger and kind of, and the cool thing is that, I mean, the biggest thing, like, the biggest thing by far is unexpected keyboard. Like, I can't state how, I don't know how much Unexpected Keyboard is, because, like, with Unexpected, with the Unexpected, with that keyboard, you can literally just, like, it's, it's not hard at all to, like, you can do M-x or C-M-x or you know C-u C-M-x to debug, like, you can do all the key bindings with unexpected keyboard. There's no problem whatsoever with that part. The only part is muscle memory. It's because you get the muscle memory of the emacs key binding and so you have to kind of like yeah... I mean that translation is actually kind of you have to think about it like, like, okay, what was that key binding again? And you have to kind of like do it with your fingers. And it was like doing it on the, on Android is, I mean, it takes a little longer and it's just a different, yeah, different set of different muscle memory. Gotcha. Sorry, if you've covered this,
[00:15:51.560] Q: Does the rest timer end with an audible notification at the end of the time?
does the rest timer end with an audible notification? That's the cool thing. So with the Emacs, with the Android notification settings, you can, I can show that again in more detail. So bonus settings, apps, pick the app, notifications. And then here we get that org-fit-rest-over. And so here you can set, for example, whether it's a silent notification. And so this won't, this won't make it make noise. You can do... or like make it have a noise, and so you can have it make sure it's popped on the screen and then you can just pick whatever ringtone you want, and you can make it look like yeah. Then obviously you have the whole volume setting, so you can, when you're working you can just set the volume pretty high, so if you do happen to set your phone kind of away, you set the volume high, maybe make a really annoying sound, a loud sound you won't miss. And then, yeah, you'll be set. So that works. That was actually one of the biggest surprises. I wasn't expecting that to work so nice.
[00:17:08.600] Q: Have you tried other keyboards such as Hacker's keyboard?
One of the next question relates to the Unexpected Keyboard. Question is, have you tried other keyboards, such as Hacker's Keyboard? Not recently. I haven't, so I couldn't compare them. Fair enough. Another keyboard question.
[00:17:31.360] Q: Another keyboard question - have you tried the "flickboard" on f-droid? It's the craziest keyboard, you use one thumb.
Have you tried Flickboard on F-Droid? The commenter says, this is the craziest keyboard. You use one thumb. Oh, that is interesting. Let me see. Flickboard. Flickboard. Yeah, I'll have to try that. I'm curious to get the key bindings done. I wonder if the key bindings and all that work. I hope that's interesting. I'll definitely look into that. So I'll hold on just a moment as people are typing in more questions. A good moment to just thank you for the talk. It's personally, it's one of my favorite things to see at EmacsConf is, you know, a glimpse into a world that kind of isn't mine, right? but it shows how, you know, Emacs is sort of the bazaar in the cathedral and bazaar sense of we're all just here sort of hauling our bags of toys into the center square and, you know, making a, you know, I don't know if it's a house of cards or what exactly it is, but it, you know, it's managing to keep me afloat personally. And I just appreciate your, you know, kind of expanding my world. It's pretty cool. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, I agree. There's a lot of different, yeah. So, next commenter. I'm curious, oh, sorry, I skipped one here.
[00:19:05.360] Q: This user interface is simplified but still keyboard based, can you think of ways to make it more touch based?
This user interface is simplified, but still keyboard based. Have you thought about ways to make it more touch-based? Good question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the only thing currently, I think, of specific touch-based functionality I have, which, so this is like, so let's see, it's C-x C-+, That key binding wrong, what was it? Okay, whatever. Yeah, so in terms of touch commands, so pressing on a headline will actually unfold it and move your cursor to the next field that you, yeah, so like, yeah, at the beginning of the table. So like, there's that, yeah, and so. It sounds like that is something you're thinking about. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, maybe like a little thing at the bottom, like, so this thing has the, this app has this, if you notice, like, if you do something, it has this rest timer at the bottom. So I mean, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be pretty, it wouldn't be, it seems quite doable to just have like, maybe something at the bottom, like for a timer, and then you can just like plus 15 seconds or cancel it or, you know, just, and then those could all be just like touch based. And so, yeah. And then obviously just like, just like classic Emacs, the Emacs, like clicking actions, they just, yeah, they work just fine. Like, so there's no like weird Android touch thing you have to worry about. So let me ask a question of my own here.
[00:20:52.560] Q: Is a touch interface something you'd prefer to dive into yourself or factor out into a higher-level API?
Just thinking about that myself, how would you, you know, ideally approach that as that you'd most prefer to sort of dive into yourself? Or would you think about factoring that out into like some kind of org touch higher level API or? Oh, I mean, personally, personally, I mean, I mean, I think just like the clicking and just like adding a lambda to it. That works. I mean, that feels like it works just fine. And you can add the code, like the command right there. So it's all like, yeah, it's all, I mean, and that's kind of a nice thing is like having everything like close, just like not having those, a lot of layers of abstraction. It's just like, you have a lambda to the click and then just do... Yeah, just do. This is a few years ago now, but when I was starting on the Dungeon Mode project that a friend and I presented several years ago at Emacs Conference, we were shocked to learn just how usable, this is echoing a comment I see from ElephantErgo on IRC, who says, touch seems so wildly usable nowadays, that's so awesome. And that was really my experience too with Dungeon. We were just working on it, we got the fog of war going, and then just took it onto a touchscreen laptop at the time, and we're just shocked to learn, you know, everything just worked. Yeah. is actually just the default font size. You know, you have to like, you can't, you can't have your font too small or you'll, you'll like, you'll touch, you'll, you'll miss touch things a lot. Yeah. large enough to make me, you know, to make me comfortable on a smart device, unfortunately. But, but that, I think it may be a me problem. I think this question we might've missed. So the file sync. Yeah, so the file sync in terms of what's worked for me, I did have to play around with this a lot. Let me go ahead and read it out.
[00:23:16.000] Q: You mentioned file sync, what have you found works well for you?
You mentioned file sync, what have you found works well for you? Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in terms of what, yeah, I did have to play around with this a lot, but Syncthing Fork is what I eventually settled on. I mean, this is another thing that, I mean, I don't, it wouldn't nearly be as usable, like Emacs wouldn't be nearly usable without it. So Syncthing Fork essentially, okay. And then I also have like a droplet on DigitalOcean, just like, so that's kind of like the whole, that's kind of like what bridges it together. So like, so my Emacs can sync to that, and then my machine also syncs to that. And so I don't have to have them both on the same time. It's just there, that copy. And so that works pretty well. I also found that editing code in general, I think this also goes with the development experience question.
[00:24:19.920] Q: I'm curious about the development experience. Do you do everything on the phone?
So I'm curious about the development experience. Do you do everything on the phone? And that's the thing. None of my development in general is done on the phone. just because, for one, my muscle memory isn't there, and two, just in general, typing on a virtual keyboard on the phone, it's just really slow. So yeah, all the development is done on my machine, but then there's the problem of you have to have an init.l in your Android, and so you're going to have to write, you know, I found like you'd have to like, when you first get Emacs set up, you might have to like write some, I don't know, like you'll kind of have to like get into your init file and then just like, maybe just like start to put things together. But the cool thing is with Syncthing Fork, I'm syncing my, I'm setting it to load off of a sync directory. Like this, this init file, my Android file is synced with my machine. So if I wanted to, I could just edit it on my machine and just have that synced automatically. So that makes like the whole, like in it, cause like it's, it's such a, like, that is one of the, it's just like get in, sit writing your init.el in Emacs on Android is just kind of a... I can't help but throw in a comment there. I think that's like. That's an extremely good tip, right? That if we're, as we're exploring Android, we want to think about that as adding support for another port of Emacs. So the whole dance of, oh, I took, you know, I took, you know, I took my init and I wanted to use it on BSD after mostly using GNU Linux. Now we're going in and we're looking at our Emacs. all of our Emacs and it stuff and thinking about compatibility, turning features on and off based on the OS that we're running underneath and so on. I think that's pretty heads up advice. Let me read out this other question.
[00:26:24.760] Q: Have you thought about integrating cardio tracking like timed runs, bike rides, etc?
Have you thought about integrating cardio tracking like time runs, bike rides, and so on? And that might be another thing where a touch interface might be helpful. I don't know if I can easily pull it up, but the app itself, oh yeah, here it is. So you can see kind of how they have, and you can kind of see how this fits. This is like an org, you can see that these are just tables, right? This is just like this whole interface in general, just like kind of screams like an org mode, file with you have you have your different headings like here's a warm-up heading and then you have the tables and you know you could just like envision how you could have a org table with one of the columns called time and then you could just imagine like there'd be a button there and you can just have it click, and then you'd have a timer in the background that would update this timer. It's so, I mean, conceptually, there's nothing really, it conceptually maps really well to this. So yeah, I mean, that's definitely something. So I think we're just at about 90 seconds left. Perfect amount of time, I think, to just wrap up. Closing thoughts. I'll share mine first. Really appreciate you, Zach. Thank you for putting this talk together. I think this is the type of talk that's really going to tie the room together for people that may be, you know, not sure how they can take although they've been interested in that, this can be a really good way to kind of open up the world. Thank you. Thank you for putting it together.
[00:28:20.320] Closing
like definitely just try things out. Like if you think, you know, they're just like random ideas, like a book tracking app or like a recipe app, like, you know, there's a lot of things that you do on your mobile device that aren't like banking apps that you could easily, that seem like they could be done in Emacs. So yeah, just try different things out and I would love to hear what other people do. Bravo. and especially you're doing it live. I know that as a conference, we have a lot of preference for those recorded talks and getting the captioning together, but I just have a special place in my heart for the energy that comes with a live talk and I appreciate you doing it. Thanks for putting this on.

Questions or comments? Please e-mail zacromero@posteo.com

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