While I mostly use the keyboard when doing everything Org related, there are a few times in the day, when I cannot. These are mostly mornings and evenings when I bustle about home, doing this thing and that. Things that are part of my routine. Things that are checkboxes in my routine.org file.
It helps me get through the day without thinking of whether, I gave the better half her meds or whether I remembered to call my mum or if I drank enough water by the end of the day or whether my stretches for the day are done or if the plan for the next day is made.

Little things. Everyday things. Important things.

And at those times, the keyboard gets in the way.
I don’t want to arrow to get to some task and C-c C-c to tick it off.
Besides my hands are nearly always messy with something or the other and I don’t want to get gunk into my keyboard.1
Easier to just mosey the cursor to said task and click to done!
But click to done, would not done! What?! Org Mode would not let me click to complete my checkboxes?

So, off to the documentation I went and did a search for mouse, and stumbled across this line.

Piotr Zielinski wrote org-mouse.el, proposed agenda blocks and contributed various ideas and code snippets.

Well, Piotr understands my pain!
Some more spelunking led me to org-mouse.el, which seems to be really well documented. Its commentary begins with …

;; Org-mouse provides mouse support for org-mode.
;;
;; http://orgmode.org
;;
;; Org-mouse implements the following features:
;; * following links with the left mouse button (in Emacs 22)
;; * subtree expansion/collapse (org-cycle) with the left mouse button
;; * several context menus on the right mouse button:
;;    + general text
;;    + headlines
;;    + timestamps
;;    + priorities
;;    + links
;;    + tags
;; * promoting/demoting/moving subtrees with mouse-3
;;    + if the drag starts and ends in the same line then promote/demote
;;    + otherwise move the subtree

Line 101, was what put a smile on my face though.

;; Version 0.17
;; + toggle checkboxes with a single click


All it took, to get it working was to put (require 'org-mouse) into my init.el et voilà. I can clicky-clicky-to-done to my heart’s content.



P.S. Subscribe to my mailing list!
Forward these posts and letters to your friends and get them to subscribe!
P.P.S. Feed my insatiable reading habit.


  1. well, more gunk than is necessary. ↩︎