I just saw that #+STARTUP: showstars is the opposite of #+STARTUP: hidestars, #+STARTUP: showlaststar would have been a more appropriate subject header.

org-indent-mode can be activated using #+STARTUP: indent according to http://orgmode.org/manual/Clean-view.html, however in the same page I see that " All headline stars but the last one are made invisible using the org-hide face", however I want there to be no actual stars except the last and then org-mode using the right color for each heading like:

* first heading

<SPACE>* second heading

<SPACE><SPACE>* third heading

Best wishes,

Enda

From: Yagnesh Raghava Yakkala <hi@yagnesh.org>
To: Enda <enda_k2@yahoo.com>
Cc: "nicholas.dokos@hp.com" <nicholas.dokos@hp.com>; "emacs-orgmode@gnu.org" <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2012 6:52 PM
Subject: Re: #+STARTUP: showstars

Hello Enda,

Enda <enda_k2@yahoo.com> writes:

> Otherwise is like in vi, the additional stars (like **, opposed to
> <SPACE>*) are too noisy, and since I do not want to see them whether
> it is in org-mode or in vi, etc, so I wondered was there a way to have
> the file like
>
> * first level heading
> * second level heading
> * third level heading

are you looking for org-indent-mode.?

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(add-hook 'org-mode-hook
(lambda ()
(org-indent-mode 1)))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

--
YYR