Re: Recent folding issues

[Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com>]

Jack Kamm <jackkamm@gmail.com> writes:

> I started noticing a couple issues with folding, after updating my
> org-mode in recent months:

May you provide the output of M-x org-version?

> 1. Inserting text below or above a folded headline will cause it to
> unfold. I am not sure if this is an intentional change, but I find the
> new behavior confusing -- usually I am trying to enter a new headline,
> and the unfolding causes me to lose my context and forget what level I
> wanted my new headline to be.

I cannot reproduce. Please, update your Org to the latest version, try
to reproduce, and provide the detailed steps required to obtain the
confusing behaviour you are seeing.
See https://orgmode.org/manual/Feedback.html

> 2. When folded, I frequently found multiple headlines to be displayed on
> the same line, like so:
>
> * Headline 1...
> * Headline 2...* Headline 3...
> * Headline 4
>
> Hitting Shift-Tab a few times (org-global-cycle) usually fixed the
> problem.

Again, I cannot reproduce. If you can reliably obtain this erroneous
behaviour, please give us the information how to reproduce it. Then, we
will be able to fix it.

> After reading ORG-NEWS, I found out about org-fold-core-style, and have
> set it to 'overlays, which solved both of my problems.
>
> However, this makes me wonder whether it should be the default
> value. The help for it says:
>
>> Can be either ‘text-properties’ or ‘overlays’.
>> The former is faster on large files, while the latter is generally
>> less error-prone.
>
> Since the latter is less error-prone, shouldn't it be the default? And
> then a user can switch the value if they have really large files and
> need better performance. It's great that performance is being improved
> for large files, but I'm not sure this is ready to be the default yet.

I now clarified the docstring of org-fold-core-style.
"Error-prone" there refers to third-party packages that are relying on
the old implementation detail of folding.

Note that this feature is not a part of the stable Org release. It is
the development branch. We are trying our best to avoid bugs, but bugs
are pretty hard to avoid when introducing major changes like this.

Of course, we will fix the reported bugs given that enough information
is provided to reproduce them.

So, no, 'overlays should not be the default. You may also check out
https://blog.tecosaur.com/tmio/2022-05-31-folding.html

Best,
Ihor