Necessity of `org-fill-paragraph'

Necessity of `org-fill-paragraph'

[Dominik Schrempf]

Hello,

I am using a global keybinding for =M-q=, so that I can fill and unfill
paragraphs with one key stroke (unfill.el):

: (global-set-key (kbd "s-q") 'unfill-toggle)

For a long time, I thought that =fill-paragraph= was broken in Org mode, because
it doesn't work well on code blocks, on lists, and on many other things [1].
Just now, I realized that Org mode uses a specialized version of
`fill-paragraph`, called `org-fill-paragraph`.

Hence, the aforementioned global key binding breaks behavior in Org mode,
although the function =unfill-toggle= is just a wrapper around =fill-paragraph=.

Is it necessary to have the specialized function =org-fill-paragraph=? Is it
possible to use the canonical =fill-paragraph=?

Thanks,
Dominik

[1] https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/13384

Re: Necessity of `org-fill-paragraph'

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Dominik Schrempf <dominik.schrempf@gmail.com> writes:

> I am using a global keybinding for =M-q=, so that I can fill and unfill
> paragraphs with one key stroke (unfill.el):
>
> : (global-set-key (kbd "s-q") 'unfill-toggle)
>
> For a long time, I thought that =fill-paragraph= was broken in Org mode, because
> it doesn't work well on code blocks, on lists, and on many other things [1].
> Just now, I realized that Org mode uses a specialized version of
> `fill-paragraph`, called `org-fill-paragraph`.
>
> Hence, the aforementioned global key binding breaks behavior in Org mode,
> although the function =unfill-toggle= is just a wrapper around
> =fill-paragraph=.

You could detect if you're in an Org document beforehand.
`org-fill-paragraph' obeys to `fill-column'.

> Is it necessary to have the specialized function =org-fill-paragraph=? Is it
> possible to use the canonical =fill-paragraph=?

There is `fill-paragraph-function', but it only kicks when no region is
selected. Using it would break region filling. There is also
`fill-forward-paragraph-function', but I think it is too limited.

In a nutshell, I didn't find any way to fill correctly Org documents
using `fill-paragraph' mechanism. So I wrote the current implementation
of `org-fill-paragraph', which is a wrapper around `org-fill-element'.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Re: Necessity of `org-fill-paragraph'

[Dominik Schrempf]

Dear Nicolas!

Thank you for your fast reply! I now use a custom =org-unfill-toggle= which does
the same as =unfill-toggle= but uses =org-fill-paragraph=. It just took me a
while to see where the problem lies! For cases like these, it would be
advantageous if major modes could redefine certain functions. Like
=fill-paragraph= in this case. Instead, they usually (have to?) rebind the
keys...

Kind regards,
Dominik

Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Dominik Schrempf <dominik.schrempf@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I am using a global keybinding for =M-q=, so that I can fill and unfill
>> paragraphs with one key stroke (unfill.el):
>>
>> : (global-set-key (kbd "s-q") 'unfill-toggle)
>>
>> For a long time, I thought that =fill-paragraph= was broken in Org mode, because
>> it doesn't work well on code blocks, on lists, and on many other things [1].
>> Just now, I realized that Org mode uses a specialized version of
>> `fill-paragraph`, called `org-fill-paragraph`.
>>
>> Hence, the aforementioned global key binding breaks behavior in Org mode,
>> although the function =unfill-toggle= is just a wrapper around
>> =fill-paragraph=.
>
> You could detect if you're in an Org document beforehand.
> `org-fill-paragraph' obeys to `fill-column'.
>
>> Is it necessary to have the specialized function =org-fill-paragraph=? Is it
>> possible to use the canonical =fill-paragraph=?
>
> There is `fill-paragraph-function', but it only kicks when no region is
> selected. Using it would break region filling. There is also
> `fill-forward-paragraph-function', but I think it is too limited.
>
> In a nutshell, I didn't find any way to fill correctly Org documents
> using `fill-paragraph' mechanism. So I wrote the current implementation
> of `org-fill-paragraph', which is a wrapper around `org-fill-element'.
>
> Regards,

Re: Necessity of `org-fill-paragraph'

[Eric S Fraga]

On Thursday,  4 Jun 2020 at 14:49, Dominik Schrempf wrote:
> For cases like these, it would be advantageous if major modes could
> redefine certain functions. 

fill-paragraph will check fill-paragraph-function and, if that this
defined, it will be used instead of the default behaviour.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga via Emacs 28.0.50, Org release_9.3.6-640-g9bc0cc