Setup for emacs org-mode outside .emacs file

Question

I would like to set up a project to be published as HTML using org-mode.

I don't want to litter my .emacs with project definitions, and I was wondering where I could put the (setq org-publish-project-alist) variable.

Can I somehow put it in the same dir?

Answer 1

Ryan McGeary describes what I think is a good way to organize emacs startup files.

Update:
The domain emacsblog.org expired :(
You can look at the cached copy of the originally linked page.

Answer 2

You could just add a new file in your .emacs.d (or whereever) and do a load-file in your .emacs file.

-- EDIT --

For example, you could have the following in your .emacs

(load (expand-file-name "~/.emacs.d/lisp/personal-org-mode-stuff.el"))

and then put all of your customization stuff in ~/.emacs.d/lisp/personal-org-mode-stuff.el and it will load that file and import all of your .emacs

Another poster also posted a link to a description of how to add your lisp files to the load path and require them.

Answer 3

If you don't set it manually at all, but rather use Emacs' customize mechanism to control the value of this variable, your .emacs file will not be cluttered if you add the following two lines to your .emacs:

(setq custom-file "~/.emacs-custom.el")
(load custom-file 'noerror)

Although some might claim that it's kind of ironic that you have to add two lines two your .emacs file to declutter it that way...