From: Dave Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com>
To: Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Feature request [7.3]
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:48:47 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <m2k4jjiru8.wl%dave@boostpro.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87aakg17g5.fsf@ucl.ac.uk>
At Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:20:44 +0000,
Eric S Fraga wrote:
>
> Dave Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com> writes:
>
> > When using Org for planning, I often find myself corrupting my Org
> > files. All kinds of things can go wrong, but the basic issue is that
>
> I do have a couple of rules I follow to avoid problems.
>
> 1. I usually have a blank line between the meta data (scheduled,
> properties) and any subsequent text, whether part of that entry or
> the following headline. I accomplish this by ensuring that my
> capture templates all insert such a blank line, typically followed by
> the date of insertion.
Nice idea; I'll get right on it.
>
> 2. I also always use the =C-c C-d=, =C-c C-s= and =C-c C-x p= sequences
> to manage the meta data so org takes care of keeping things sane.
Understood; I do that too ... well, sometimes I add properties
manually but only because I forget the keybinding, and I always get
that right because it's trivially easy. The problems creep in when
I'm not watching carefully and typing fast, or maybe when my
3-year-old visits my keyboard, or... life happens. Then things can
effectively drop off my TODO list silently, which is really
problematic! I know there are ways to mitigate the risk, but I really
want a new feature: in general I really don't want Org to *let* me
edit most of the file as plain text most of the time.
> However:
>
> [...]
>
> > So I'm requesting some more help from Org in maintaining proper Org
> > syntax. Could Org have a mode that prevents things from being modified
> > incorrectly? For example, it'd be awesome if dates were smart (TAB into
> > one, hit return, get a smart date editor).
>
> This would be quite nice, even something as simple as having RET, within
> a time stamp, doing the equivalent of org-time-stamp or
> org-time-stamp-inactive depending on the current state of the time
> stamp.
Right. But Org could be smart about the whole "grammar" of items and
only allow freeform editing where it wouldn't do any serious damage.
> > It'd be great if there were a way to make the ID property
> > read-only (or really really hard to change).
>
> This is where column mode comes in quite handy?
Link please?
> I tend to use column mode to edit properties and so I never come
> near the ID property as it usually isn't displayed.
My properties are usually collapsed, so I usually don't see them
either. But I don't want a special mode. I want org to understand
and manage its own syntax.
> > I'd love it if there were a way to create a link to an org
> > item that narrows the view to just that item, so I don't inadvertently
> > mess anything else up.
>
> org-narrow-to-subtree does some of this...
Yes, some of it, but not all of it. But the point is that these are
just examples. I think Org wasn't designed with the idea that it
would end up having much of a "grammar," but it grew one. I'm arguing
for a UI re-think for the tool Org has become.
--
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2010-12-09 2:48 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2010-12-07 20:59 Feature request [7.3] Dave Abrahams
2010-12-08 4:37 ` Jeff Horn
2010-12-08 16:20 ` Eric S Fraga
2010-12-09 2:48 ` Dave Abrahams [this message]
2010-12-09 8:57 ` Eric S Fraga
2010-12-09 10:42 ` Dave Abrahams
2010-12-08 17:41 ` Manish
2010-12-08 22:14 ` Dave Abrahams
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