Making an org file more readable

Making an org file more readable

[PT]

My main gripe with org is that the appearance is too
crowded. Even if the header lines have different colors the
individual projects and sections I keep in the file have no visual
separation between them. For example, sometimes I'd like to add
empty lines after a header, so there is some visual space before
the next header begins. The problem is the empty lines at the end
of the content are folded too when the content is folded.

I know it's more of an outline issue than an org issue, but I ask
here nevertheless: did anyone find a good way to separate the
headers from each other in a big org file visually, so it is more
readable?

Re: Making an org file more readable

[Nick Dokos]

PT <spamfilteraccount@gmail.com> wrote:

> My main gripe with org is that the appearance is too
> crowded. Even if the header lines have different colors the
> individual projects and sections I keep in the file have no visual
> separation between them. For example, sometimes I'd like to add
> empty lines after a header, so there is some visual space before
> the next header begins. The problem is the empty lines at the end
> of the content are folded too when the content is folded.
> 
> I know it's more of an outline issue than an org issue, but I ask
> here nevertheless: did anyone find a good way to separate the
> headers from each other in a big org file visually, so it is more
> readable?
> 

You *can* get an empty line between two headers by having two empty lines at
the end of the first section: the first empty line is considered part of
the section and is folded with it, but the second one remains. E.g.


,----
| 
| * foo
| This is a test.
| ** baz
| and another
| 
| 
| ** hunoz
| and one more
| 
| 
| * bar
`----

When you fold it, it becomes

,----
| 
| * foo...
| 
| * bar
`----

HTH,
Nick

Re: Making an org file more readable

[PT]

Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos <at> hp.com> writes:
> 
> You *can* get an empty line between two headers by having two empty lines at
> the end of the first section: the first empty line is considered part of
> the section and is folded with it, but the second one remains. E.g.

For some reason, I didn't try that. :) Thanks. One annoyance less.

Re: Making an org file more readable

[PT]

Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos <at> hp.com> writes:
> 
> You *can* get an empty line between two headers by having two empty lines at
> the end of the first section: the first empty line is considered part of
> the section and is folded with it, but the second one remains. E.g.

One more thing for those who don't know this:

I took a look at the relevant part of outline.el and turns out
one empty line is enough if outline-blank-line is set to t.


It's almost perfect. It would be perfect if outline would leave
alone all empty lines after the content, so if I have e.g. two
empty lines there then it would fold non-empty lines only leaving
both empty lines visible, so that I could use as many
empty lines for separation as I want.

Re: Re: Making an org file more readable

[Carsten Dominik]

On Aug 24, 2009, at 1:11 PM, PT wrote:

> Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos <at> hp.com> writes:
>>
>> You *can* get an empty line between two headers by having two empty  
>> lines at
>> the end of the first section: the first empty line is considered  
>> part of
>> the section and is folded with it, but the second one remains. E.g.
>
> One more thing for those who don't know this:
>
> I took a look at the relevant part of outline.el and turns out
> one empty line is enough if outline-blank-line is set to t.
>
>
> It's almost perfect. It would be perfect if outline would leave
> alone all empty lines after the content, so if I have e.g. two
> empty lines there then it would fold non-empty lines only leaving
> both empty lines visible, so that I could use as many
> empty lines for separation as I want.

Actually, Org pretty much overrules what outline does in this context.

I have just pushed a modification so that you can, after pulling
from git, set org-cycle-separator-lines to a negative number.
If you set it to -N, N empty lines will be required in order
to get a separation.  But, if there are enough empty lines,
all will be shown.

You might want to set this to -1., I like my old value of +2 best.

- Carsten

Re: Making an org file more readable

[PT]

Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> I have just pushed a modification so that you can, after pulling
> from git, set org-cycle-separator-lines to a negative number.
> If you set it to -N, N empty lines will be required in order
> to get a separation.  But, if there are enough empty lines,
> all will be shown.
> 
> You might want to set this to -1., I like my old value of +2 best.

I tried this new setting with 6.30 and it works well, thanks for
this.

The only strange case is when a header line doesn't have any
content, only empty lines.

So if there are 2 empty lines between headers

* header1


* header2


Then the first empty line after header1 is folded regardless of
the -1 setting.  If I understand the feature correctly no folding
should occur in this case either.

Re: Re: Making an org file more readable

[Carsten Dominik]

Fixed, thanks.

- Carsten

On Sep 4, 2009, at 7:10 AM, PT wrote:

> Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>>
>> I have just pushed a modification so that you can, after pulling
>> from git, set org-cycle-separator-lines to a negative number.
>> If you set it to -N, N empty lines will be required in order
>> to get a separation.  But, if there are enough empty lines,
>> all will be shown.
>>
>> You might want to set this to -1., I like my old value of +2 best.
>
> I tried this new setting with 6.30 and it works well, thanks for
> this.
>
> The only strange case is when a header line doesn't have any
> content, only empty lines.
>
> So if there are 2 empty lines between headers
>
> * header1
>
>
> * header2
>
>
> Then the first empty line after header1 is folded regardless of
> the -1 setting.  If I understand the feature correctly no folding
> should occur in this case either.
>
>
>
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