Questions about splitting a tree into multiple files

Questions about splitting a tree into multiple files

[Sébastien Gendre]

Hello,

I have some questions about splitting an Org-mode tree of headings into
multiple files.

Lets take an example: I want to track books I have read and take notes
about each book.

Each book have a title, a status, some properties and notes. The properties are:

* Author
* Editor
* Year

At first, I create one Org file where each book is a heading of level 1.
The title of the heading is the title of the book, the status is a TODO
keyword, the properties use Org-mode properties feature. And the notes
are simply headings of level 2, where the title of these headings
correspond to the chapter of the book.

Now, after adding a lot of books and notes, the file is too big. I want
to split it into multiple files: Each file is a book.

But with this, I have multiple problems:

A file doesn't have a status. If I want to assign a status, I have to
create a heading of level 1 representing the book. But in this case,
when I export the file to PDF or HTML, the result doesn't have a title.
And instead of having each notes as a level 1 section, I have 1 section
of level 1, representing the book, and all the rest are sections of level
2.

A file can have properties, but they are written before in-buffer
settings.

If I use org-agenda to summarize all the book, they have to be heading.
Not only files.

To say it simply, when I split one Org file to multiples ones: Org-mode
features, like Agenda or status tracking, need to continue using
headings to represent books. While exporting need to use files to
represent books.

And I'm a bit confuse by this.


Best regards

Re: Questions about splitting a tree into multiple files

[Ihor Radchenko]

Sébastien Gendre <seb@k-7.ch> writes:

> At first, I create one Org file where each book is a heading of level 1.
> The title of the heading is the title of the book, the status is a TODO
> keyword, the properties use Org-mode properties feature. And the notes
> are simply headings of level 2, where the title of these headings
> correspond to the chapter of the book.
> ...
> Now, after adding a lot of books and notes, the file is too big. I want
> to split it into multiple files: Each file is a book.
>
> But with this, I have multiple problems:
>
> A file doesn't have a status. If I want to assign a status, I have to
> create a heading of level 1 representing the book. But in this case,
> when I export the file to PDF or HTML, the result doesn't have a title.
> And instead of having each notes as a level 1 section, I have 1 section
> of level 1, representing the book, and all the rest are sections of level
> 2.

Rather than exporting the whole file, you can export subtree. Then, book
heading title will be used as exported document title.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>

Re: Questions about splitting a tree into multiple files

[Sébastien Gendre]

Thank you.


Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net> writes:

> Sébastien Gendre <seb@k-7.ch> writes:
>
>> At first, I create one Org file where each book is a heading of level 1.
>> The title of the heading is the title of the book, the status is a TODO
>> keyword, the properties use Org-mode properties feature. And the notes
>> are simply headings of level 2, where the title of these headings
>> correspond to the chapter of the book.
>> ...
>> Now, after adding a lot of books and notes, the file is too big. I want
>> to split it into multiple files: Each file is a book.
>>
>> But with this, I have multiple problems:
>>
>> A file doesn't have a status. If I want to assign a status, I have to
>> create a heading of level 1 representing the book. But in this case,
>> when I export the file to PDF or HTML, the result doesn't have a title.
>> And instead of having each notes as a level 1 section, I have 1 section
>> of level 1, representing the book, and all the rest are sections of level
>> 2.
>
> Rather than exporting the whole file, you can export subtree. Then, book
> heading title will be used as exported document title.