Carsten Dominik <dominik@uva.nl> writes:

> `org-columns-display-here-title'

I figured out the main problem last night: I've had the following
configuration in my XEmacs configuration for about the last seven years:

,----
| ;; turn off gutter
| (and (boundp 'default-gutter-visible-p)
|      (set-specifier default-gutter-visible-p nil))
`----

The intention there was to defeat the buffer tabs that appear in the
gutter by default. That was too strong of a defeat, as org-mode's
columns use the top gutter to display the column header line.

Replacing the above configuration with the following made the header
line visible:

,----
| ;; turn off gutter tabs
| (setq gutter-buffers-tab-enabled nil)
`----

There are still many things that are odd about the header line. If I
have a vertically-split window, with an org-mode file in the bottom
window, and I activate column mode, the header appears above the top
window. Maybe that's the only place that the top gutter can appear.

Also, the column names without explicit widths specified are truncated,
perhaps to squeeze them down to fit the actual data in the most compact
way.

Taking the same sample file as I shared at the start of this thread,
here's what I see now: