Re: Reconciling org-mode idiosyncrasies with Emacs core

[Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr>]

Hello,

Kévin Le Gouguec <kevin.legouguec@gmail.com> writes:

> I took a stab at making RET obey electric-indent-mode in org-mode.

Thank you!

> I've got something working; I'd like to ask for a review before moving
> on to Changelog and ORG-NEWS entries (and tackling C-j… and maybe
> writing a few unit tests?).

Tests for `org-return' (named "test-org/return") are in the
"test-org.el" file in the "testing/lisp" directory. We only need to test
if electric-indent-mode has an effect, but only in regular cases.

> Here's the patch, with some additional comments below:

It looks good.

> - INTERACTIVE is what makes 'newline' run 'post-self-insert-hook' (thus
>   triggering indentation through electric-indent-mode),

OK. I thought it was necessary to call
`electric-newline-and-maybe-indent'.

> - ARG wasn't strictly necessary, but it seemed harmless to add it, and
>   it allows inserting multiple newlines, thus removing one more "Org
>   idiosyncrasy".

Good idea.

> I felt that introducing org--newline made the code clearer, but I can
> understand if it seems too trivial to keep.

No, that's fine.

> I took the liberty of using
> this function in the "list item" case too, otherwise there's no way to
> indent the trailing text.

I'm not sure what you mean. It would be a regression if you didn't use
the function there, too, wouldn't it?

> (Out of curiosity, could it be argued that this is solving a "bug" in
> org-mode and, as such, could be committed to Emacs core first, then
> backported to the org-mode repository?  I don't feel strongly either
> way, I wouldn't want to make things more complicated for Org
> maintainers.)

I cannot speak for the Emacs side, but it should land in Org 9.4, not
Org 9.3.6.

It is a very visible change, one that every Org user is going to face.
This requires a new ORG-NEWS entry. Those only appear in new minor+
releases. Therefore, if you apply it in Emacs 27.1, the change will be
announced nowhere.

> Now for C-j, in order to minimize breakage (for anyone calling
> org-return-indent from Lisp code) and simplify disabling the new
> behaviour (by simply turning off electric-indent-mode in Org), should we
> bind C-j to a new function?  E.g.:
>
> (defun org-return-and-maybe-indent ()
>   (interactive)
>   (org-return (not electric-indent-mode)))

I think so. Then we can mark `org-return-indent' as obsolete and suggest
to call `org-return' instead.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou