Re: Note buffer killed unexpectedly

From: "Raymond Zeitler" <r.zeitler@ieee.org>
To: nicholas.dokos@hp.com
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org, r.zeitler@ieee.org
Subject: Re: Note buffer killed unexpectedly
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 11:27:42 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <348B25F568A44C6EA5BCBCED2BD2FA55@PHONON.COM> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <5180.1298588757@alphaville>

Thank you so much for responding.  This is very helpful!

First I tried getting rid of just current-prefix-arg in that section of
code.  When I byte compiled I got the message "the function `org-note-abort'
is not known to be defined."  And C-u C-c C-c resulted in an error:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-function org-note-abort)
  org-note-abort()
  org-store-log-note()
  org-ctrl-c-ctrl-c(nil)
  call-interactively(org-ctrl-c-ctrl-c nil nil)

The buffer was killed and I lost the note.

When I commented out that entire "when" statement that you quoted, C-u C-c
C-c appeared to do the same as C-c C-c, which is good.  I did *not* get 4
identical notes.  Of course, C-c C-k does not kill the note, but I can
always press C-x C-k and achieve the same result.

So for me, note taking is a bit safer with the code removed.  Still the
buffer is only temporary, so any notes must be brief things that can be
executed between interruptions.

I know so little about Org that I daren't issue any sort of change request
to remove the code.  I'd prefer to leave that to someone who's very
knowledgeable about the project.

All the best!

- Ray

PS: Subject changed to replace [Orgmode] with [O] per new convention.

--
Raymond Zeitler <r.zeitler@ieee.org> 

-----Original Message-----
From: nicholas.dokos@hp.com [mailto:nicholas.dokos@hp.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 6:06 PM
To: Raymond Zeitler
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; nicholas.dokos@hp.com
Subject: [education] Re: [Orgmode] Note buffer killed unexpectedly

Raymond Zeitler <r.zeitler@ieee.org> wrote:

> After typing a note, I pressed C-u C-c C-c and unintentionally killed the
> buffer without saving the note.  I should've pressed C-c C-c, but I'm so
> used to pressing C-u C-c C-c to refile each new task, that I used that key
> combination instead.
> 
> Why would adding a prefix argument to C-c C-c kill *Org Note*?
> 

It seems it's by design: org-store-log-note() contains the following code:

    ...
    (when (or current-prefix-arg org-note-abort)
      (when org-log-into-drawer
	(org-remove-empty-drawer-at
	 (if (stringp org-log-into-drawer) org-log-into-drawer "LOGBOOK")
	 org-log-note-marker))
      (setq lines nil))

so current-prefix-arg causes lines to be set to nil, and the note is just
thrown away.

> In general I'm nervous about using scratch buffers such as *Org Note* for
> anything I wish to save.  Is there an option to auto-save its contents to
a
> visited file called something like ~/#Org Note#?  Or can I add a
> confirmation before I close the buffer?  Perhaps if I modified
> org-add-log-note to somehow change the call to
> (org-switch-to-buffer-other-window "Org Note")...?
> 

You can try getting rid of the current-prefix-arg and see if you get
into other problems, but only Carsten can say why it is that way to
begin with.

Nick

PS. I did some git archaelogy:

commit 3d2e1c0f04c4bb3eaeb2627d00c8cba6e376f8eb modified things a bit in
this part of the code, but the current-prefix-arg behavior predated
it. The earliest commits I found were commit
2b3fe71634d8afb7e5e6da7606223e82481f0fa8 which added the capability to
add a note interactively and also remotely from the agenda, and commit
fe939ecb95d36377162bf1cb9ce63c2b6047612b which was a massive structure
cleanup/reorg with no substantive code changes, but I think the
org-store-log-note() function existed before the git era.

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