Exporting columnviews

Exporting columnviews

[Lele Gaifax]

Hi all,

I use Org (Emacs 24.4.90, with Org mode 8.2.10) to analyze and plan the
development of new projects/features, with a persistent columnview containing
a summary, something like the following:

    #+TITLE: Test
    #+PROPERTY: Effort_ALL 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00 8:00
    #+COLUMNS: %40ITEM(Item) %13Effort(Estimated){:} %CLOCKSUM(Spent)

    * Main

    #+BEGIN: columnview :hlines 1 :id local
    | Item            | Estimated | Spent |
    |-----------------+-----------+-------|
    | * Main          |      3:00 |       |
    | ** Subpoint     |      1:00 |       |
    | *** Subsubpoint |      1:00 |       |
    | ** Other        |      2:00 |       |
    #+END:

    ** Subpoint

    *** Subsubpoint
        :PROPERTIES:
        :Effort:   1:00
        :END:

    ** Other
       :PROPERTIES:
       :Effort:   2:00
       :END:

When I export the above, while the headings get numbered the columnview table
does contain the items introduced by either one or two asterisks, something
like the following (cut&pasted&manually aligned from the HTML output):


    Table of Contents

        1. Main
            1.1. Subpoint
                1.1.1. Subsubpoint
            1.2. Other

    1 Main
    
    Item         Estimated      Spent
    * Main            3:00       
    ** Subpoint       1:00       
    * Subsubpoint     1:00       
    ** Other          2:00       

    ...
    
Apparently, all items at an odd-level get one asterisk and all the others
two. The same happens with PDF and ODT...

I tried to play with some of the options, but I did not find something that
impacts the export of the columnview.

I wonder if there is something I am missing to obtain either

    Item             Estimated      Spent
    * Main                3:00       
    ** Subpoint           1:00       
    *** Subsubpoint       1:00       
    ** Other              2:00       

or

    Item               Estimated      Spent
    1. Main                 3:00       
    1.1 Subpoint            1:00       
    1.1.1 Subsubpoint       1:00       
    1.2 Other               2:00       

Thanks in advance for any hints!

ciao, lele.
-- 
nickname: Lele Gaifax | Quando vivrò di quello che ho pensato ieri
real: Emanuele Gaifas | comincerò ad aver paura di chi mi copia.
lele@metapensiero.it  |                 -- Fortunato Depero, 1929.

Re: Exporting columnviews

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Lele Gaifax <lele@metapensiero.it> writes:

> I use Org (Emacs 24.4.90, with Org mode 8.2.10) to analyze and plan the
> development of new projects/features, with a persistent columnview containing
> a summary, something like the following:
>
>     #+TITLE: Test
>     #+PROPERTY: Effort_ALL 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00 8:00
>     #+COLUMNS: %40ITEM(Item) %13Effort(Estimated){:} %CLOCKSUM(Spent)
>
>     * Main
>
>     #+BEGIN: columnview :hlines 1 :id local
>     | Item            | Estimated | Spent |
>     |-----------------+-----------+-------|
>     | * Main          |      3:00 |       |
>     | ** Subpoint     |      1:00 |       |
>     | *** Subsubpoint |      1:00 |       |
>     | ** Other        |      2:00 |       |
>     #+END:
>
>     ** Subpoint
>
>     *** Subsubpoint
>         :PROPERTIES:
>         :Effort:   1:00
>         :END:
>
>     ** Other
>        :PROPERTIES:
>        :Effort:   2:00
>        :END:

This is a silly bug actually: *...* is for bold markup, so *** is
exported as a bold star.

I'd rather not make an exception and modify bold parsing, so other
characters should be inserted to represent headline's level. I find
numbers too verbose. Replacing stars with dots is not possible either as
"..." will be exported differently with some export back-ends.

Maybe "* * *" instead of "***"? Any better idea?


Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Re: Exporting columnviews

[Lele Gaifax]

Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:

> This is a silly bug actually: *...* is for bold markup, so *** is
> exported as a bold star.

Oh, I see, thank you!

> I'd rather not make an exception and modify bold parsing, so other
> characters should be inserted to represent headline's level. I find
> numbers too verbose. Replacing stars with dots is not possible either as
> "..." will be exported differently with some export back-ends.
>
> Maybe "* * *" instead of "***"? Any better idea?

What about having an option to use alternative chars, maybe some fancy
Unicode glyph? "→", "⇒", "⦿", or even some kind of non-breakable-space come to
mind.

ciao, lele.
-- 
nickname: Lele Gaifax | Quando vivrò di quello che ho pensato ieri
real: Emanuele Gaifas | comincerò ad aver paura di chi mi copia.
lele@metapensiero.it  |                 -- Fortunato Depero, 1929.

Re: Exporting columnviews

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Lele Gaifax <lele@metapensiero.it> writes:

> What about having an option to use alternative chars, maybe some fancy
> Unicode glyph? "→", "⇒", "⦿", or even some kind of non-breakable-space come to
> mind.

Alternative chars doesn't solve the problem with the default one. Also,
we try to keep Org syntax ASCII compatible.


Regards,

Re: Exporting columnviews

[Rasmus]

Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:

> Maybe "* * *" instead of "***"? Any better idea?

Maybe ~***~.  But it has side-effects of course.  Using \star in place
of * is another easy possibility.

—Rasmus

-- 
I almost cut my hair, it happened just the other day

Re: Exporting columnviews

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> writes:

> Maybe ~***~.  But it has side-effects of course.  Using \star in place
> of * is another easy possibility.

I introduced \nbsp at some point, but there were complaints from users
not prettifying entities. So I guess \star is not an option either.

I have no opinion about ~***~.


Regards,

Re: Exporting columnviews

[Rasmus]

Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:

> I introduced \nbsp at some point, but there were complaints from users
> not prettifying entities. So I guess \star is not an option either.

Don't worry I use \nbsp sometimes!
For what reason do people not want to use entities?  Speed?

Perhaps we could make it easier to whitelist or blacklist certain
entities?  That would also (partly) address this issue:

     http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/94198

I guess it would just be an easy API to remove entries from
`org-entities'.  But perhaps it's a solution to a different "problem"...

—Rasmus

-- 
Warning: Everything saved will be lost

Re: Exporting columnviews

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> writes:

> Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:
>
>> I introduced \nbsp at some point, but there were complaints from users
>> not prettifying entities. So I guess \star is not an option either.
>
> Don't worry I use \nbsp sometimes!
> For what reason do people not want to use entities?  Speed?

Because it breaks table alignement and looks ugly if, e.g., "\nbsp"
doesn't appear as " ".

> Perhaps we could make it easier to whitelist or blacklist certain
> entities?  That would also (partly) address this issue:
>
>      http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/94198

Entities are customizable. There's no need to add another mechanism on
top of this.


Regards,

Re: Exporting columnviews

[Francesco Pizzolante]

Hi Nicolas,

> Rasmus <rasmus-0UDz38MK/Mo@public.gmane.org> writes:
>> Nicolas Goaziou <mail-Gpy5sJQTEQHwkn9pgDnJRVAUjnlXr6A1@public.gmane.org> writes:
>>
>>> I introduced \nbsp at some point, but there were complaints from users
>>> not prettifying entities. So I guess \star is not an option either.
>>
>> Don't worry I use \nbsp sometimes!
>> For what reason do people not want to use entities?  Speed?
>
> Because it breaks table alignement and looks ugly if, e.g., "\nbsp"
> doesn't appear as " ".

I think the issue is the opposite: the table is not aligned if "\nbsp"
appears as space (as explained by Stormking in a different thread):

  ┌──── http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/91379
  |
  │ The code that aligns the clocktable seems to count the "\emsp" entity as
  │ five characters. But with pretty entities turned on, it's displayed as
  │ only one character.
  └────

Any idea how to fix it?

Thanks,
 Francesco

PS Here's a small screencast where you can see the alignment issue:
http://screencast.com/t/qpmxDV8R543G