http://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/13311/make-org-blank-before-new-entry-distinguish-between-a-todo-list-and-a-text-outli
I posted this question on stackexchange, but no response yet. Does anyone
here have any ideas?

Like many of us, I use org-mode for two different things:

1. As a TODO list manager
2. As a text outliner

I'd like org-blank-before-new-entry to work differently based on context.

1. TODO list: no blank lines
2. text outline: automatically insert 1 blank line when non-heading text
precedes a heading

In other words, when I'm doing a TODO list when I have many headings in a
row, I don't want stray line breaks between them.

For TODO list mode, no blank lines:

#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
** Organize Party
** TODO Call people
*** TODO Peter
*** DONE Sarah
** TODO Buy food
** DONE Talk to neighbor
#+END_EXAMPLE

However, when I'm writing text, I want line breaks for the sake of visual
whitespace / ease of reading.

For outline mode, blank line before heading:

#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
* Heading
This is a document that has a heading, and a body. The body will consist of
two paragraphs with sub-headings.

* Body
This is an introduction to the body. The body has two sub-headings, each of
which have their own paragraph.

** The First Paragraph
This is the first of two paragraphs.

** The Second Paragraph
This is the second of two paragraphs.
#+END_EXAMPLE

I've already set org-blank-before-new-entry to auto:

     ((heading . auto)
     (plain-list-item . auto))

But I think org-blank-before-new-entry works by detecting other blank lines
in the area. I want it to detect whether the preceding line of text is a
heading or a non-heading.

How can I modify org-blank-before-new-entry so that when I'm in a TODO list
consisting only of headings, org-meta-return doesn't add a line break? but
after a block of text, it does?

Any thoughts? Thanks!


---
Jay Dixit
jaydixit.com
(646) 355-8001
Jay Dixit