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1

While working on a document in emacs I often find myself opening a new buffer, doing something in org-mode, copying the org-mode content, and pasting it into my document. I used to create a new org-mode document every time I needed to do this. Now I have a file ~/.scratch.org where I keep my this work.

Would it be possible to create an *org-scratch* buffer that behaved analogously to the *scratch* buffer?

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2 Answers 2

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The initial major-mode for the *Scratch* buffer is controlled by the variable initial-major-mode -- the value needs to be a symbol (which in layman's terms means put a single quote in front of the major-mode name): http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Auto-Major-Mode.html

(setq initial-major-mode 'org-mode)

EDIT: Based on a comment of the original poster, here is a sample function to create non-file-visiting buffers in sequential order with the major-mode of org-mode:

(defun my-scratch-buffer ()
"Create a new scratch buffer -- \*hello-world\*"
(interactive)
  (let* (
      bufname
      buffer
      (n 0) )
    (catch 'done
      (while t
        (setq bufname (concat "*hello-world"
          (if (= n 0) "" (int-to-string n))
            "*"))
        (setq n (1+ n))
        (when (not (get-buffer bufname))
          (setq buffer (get-buffer-create bufname))
          (with-current-buffer buffer
            (org-mode))
          ;; When called non-interactively, the `t` targets the other window (if it exists).
          (throw 'done (display-buffer buffer t))) ))))
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So would it be possible to have two *Scratch* buffers then? –  Brian Fitzpatrick yesterday
    
I added a sample function that creates new non-file-visiting buffers in numerical order, and I included an org-mode designation. The name can be changed from hello-world to anything the user desires that is recognized by the operating system -- e.g., Windows doesn't like astrisks. –  lawlist yesterday
    
Very cool. Thanks for looking at this! –  Brian Fitzpatrick yesterday
    
I am happy to have been able to help. I decided to throw the result and display the buffer in one fell swoop -- the functionality is the same, but the function looks a little more compact this way. :) –  lawlist yesterday
up vote 6 down vote

There's an extension called scratch, which allows creating mode-specific scratch buffers. It is available from MELPA, so you should be able to install it easily.

With this package installed, when you are in an org-mode buffer, you can run M-xscratch to get a scratch buffer in org-mode.

If you give a prefix argument, you get the opportunity to choose the mode (instead of selecting the currently active major mode).

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