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From: "Kévin Le Gouguec" <kevin.legouguec@gmail.com>
To: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
Cc: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>,
	Emacs developers <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: Convert some files from outline-mode to org-mode
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2020 13:45:15 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87mu6xtano.fsf@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20200427102311.GA4976@ACM> (Alan Mackenzie's message of "Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:23:11 +0000")

(Apologies for the duplicate message Alan, I hit reply instead of
followup.)


Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:

> Hello, Kévin.
>
>> - I don't think I will ever manage to remember any of the keybindings
>>   for the outline-(show|hide)-… functions, which means I will never be
>>   able to use the "selective display" feature advertised in
>>   outline-mode's docstring without a cheatsheet.
>
> Neither can I.  When I need it, which is rarely, there's C-h m.

As I said in my reply to Drew, this is what I call a "cheatsheet" :)

I have no complaint about C-h m, C-h b, C-c C-h, as long as I need them
"rarely", as you say.  When reading an outline, I _frequently_ open and
close headings.

>> - With org-mode, I can simply TAB my way through a document without
>>   figuring out whether what I want to show/hide are entries, subtrees,
>>   children, branches, leaves, sublevels, bodies…
>
> But you can't use TAB to indent a line, or alternatively to insert a tab
> character.  

A fair point, though correct me if I'm wrong, but it does not look like
we indent NEWS entries?

org-mode has a few ways to work around this conflict:

- TAB on an "empty" heading (e.g. right after one inserts a heading)
  cycles through section levels (by adding/removing asterisks),

- If org-indent-mode is nil, sections bodies are "hard-indented"; TAB on
  section bodies indents them to (1+ section-level), C-j auto-indents
  new lines.

  (Frustratingly, org-mode uses what I think of as the "old" convention
  to use RET as "plain newline" and C-j as "smart newline with indent".)

- If org-indent-mode is t, bodies are "soft-indented" (with line-prefix
  and wrap-prefix).

Any of these could be useful additions to outline-mode IMO.

>             And how is a non-specialist user reading NEWS for a new
> release going to find out about this TAB binding?

By default, org-mode only shows top-level section headings; subheadings
and bodies are elided.  The ellipsis is a visual cue that there are
things to expand.

Once the non-specialist user has this "EXPAND-ME" cue, admittedly they
still need to learn the binding.  Luckily with org-mode, there's just
one: TAB.

I wish I could reply "well obviously the non-specialist user will just
click on the heading and voilà!", but it looks like one needs to
(require 'org-mouse) first.  Ah well.  No reason this couldn't be
enabled by default in outline-mode.

>> So, while I agree that org-mode is a sledgehammer for e.g. idly browsing
>> NEWS, from a user's point-of-view (at least this user) and to borrow
>> your terms, outline-mode "is a monster" with countless esoteric
>> keybindings;
>
> There are not "countless" keybindings in outline-mode; there are just 26
> defined commands, only some of which will have bindings.  By contrast,
> in org-mode there are 798 defined commands.  That's a factor of 30
> greater.

Right, let me qualify this better:

- There are 11 commands with bindings for selecive display in
  outline-mode (5 show, 6 hide).

- There is only 1 command I care about for selective display in
  org-mode: TAB.

>> meanwhile, I definitely don't "have to know" org-mode to use it; I
>> just mindlessly hit TAB on the thing I want to show/hide.
>
> That may be true up until somebody decides to insert some obscure
> org-mode construct into NEWS.  With over 4 magabytes of source code
> implementing it, there will be more than a few such constructs.

No argument there; I'm not advocating for using org-mode with NEWS.

Though for all of org-mode's complexity, I have yet to see an Org file
where "mindlessly hitting TAB" does not show/hide the heading at point
(… as long as point is on a heading).



  reply	other threads:[~2020-04-27 11:45 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 77+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-04-26 15:43 Convert some files from outline-mode to org-mode Stefan Kangas
2020-04-26 16:13 ` Clément Pit-Claudel
2020-04-26 18:36   ` Stefan Monnier
2020-04-26 19:52     ` Stefan Kangas
2020-04-26 20:54       ` Stefan Monnier
2020-04-26 22:53         ` Clément Pit-Claudel
2020-04-26 16:16 ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-04-26 17:22 ` Alan Mackenzie
2020-04-26 19:29   ` Stefan Kangas
2020-04-26 21:54   ` Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-04-26 22:09     ` Stefan Monnier
2020-04-26 22:41       ` Drew Adams
2020-04-27  7:20         ` Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-04-27 15:23           ` Drew Adams
2020-04-27 15:31             ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-04-27  7:39       ` Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-04-27 14:27         ` Reveal-mode (was: Convert some files from outline-mode to org-mode) Stefan Monnier
2020-04-27 10:23     ` Convert some files from outline-mode to org-mode Alan Mackenzie
2020-04-27 11:45       ` Kévin Le Gouguec [this message]
2020-04-27 20:30         ` Juri Linkov
2020-04-27 21:24           ` Drew Adams
2020-04-27 23:05           ` John Yates
2020-04-28  2:51           ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-24  6:23             ` Bastien
2020-04-28 15:12           ` Nicolas Goaziou
2020-04-28 16:41             ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-04-28 17:56               ` Nicolas Goaziou
2020-04-28 19:22                 ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-04-28 23:35             ` Juri Linkov
2020-04-29 10:53               ` Nicolas Goaziou
2020-04-29 11:37                 ` Reconciling org-mode idiosyncrasies with Emacs core (was: Convert some files from outline-mode to org-mode) Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-04-29 12:30                   ` Reconciling org-mode idiosyncrasies with Emacs core Nicolas Goaziou
2020-05-04 10:45                     ` Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-05-04 14:50                       ` Nicolas Goaziou
2020-05-04 16:14                         ` Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-05-06 14:54                           ` [PATCH] Make RET and C-j obey `electric-indent-mode' in org-mode (was: Reconciling org-mode idiosyncrasies with Emacs core) Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-05-07 10:48                             ` [PATCH] Make RET and C-j obey `electric-indent-mode' in org-mode Nicolas Goaziou
2020-05-07 12:03                               ` Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-05-07 12:21                                 ` Nicolas Goaziou
2020-05-07 16:45                                   ` Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-05-07 16:50                                     ` Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-05-07 19:38                                       ` Nicolas Goaziou
2020-05-24  6:25                                         ` Bastien
2020-05-07 13:53                             ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-07 15:33                               ` Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-05-24  6:23             ` Convert some files from outline-mode to org-mode Bastien
2020-05-24  6:18           ` Bastien
2020-04-27 12:14       ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-05-24  6:13   ` Bastien
2020-04-26 18:40 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-24  6:15   ` Bastien
2020-04-27  2:23 ` Richard Stallman
2020-04-27  6:37   ` Michael Albinus
2020-04-27  7:12     ` tomas
2020-04-28  2:49     ` Richard Stallman
2020-04-28  9:40       ` Michael Albinus
2020-04-29  3:30         ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-24  6:16     ` Bastien
2020-04-27  9:59 ` Po Lu
2020-04-27 14:36   ` Stefan Monnier
2020-04-27 14:49     ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-04-29  3:27       ` Howard Melman
2020-04-29  3:52         ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-04-29 13:54           ` Howard Melman
2020-04-29 14:08             ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-04-29 14:17             ` Nicolas Goaziou
2020-04-29 14:52               ` Howard Melman
2020-04-29 14:03         ` Stefan Kangas
2020-04-30 10:25           ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-05-07 21:01           ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-08 17:50             ` Yuri Khan
2020-05-08 17:55               ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-24  6:35             ` Bastien
2020-04-29 17:52         ` Alan Mackenzie
2020-04-29 19:19           ` Howard Melman
2020-04-30  2:24         ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-24  6:04 ` Bastien

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