Re: Whitespace and outline structure...

[Bastien <bzg@altern.org>]

Hi Daniel,

Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> writes:

> There are two specific problems:
>
> I put multiple blank lines before a top level heading to get visible
> whitespace, in this sort of structure:
>
> * Some Stuff
> ** A first item.
> ** Blah Blah
>
>
> * Other Stuff -- with a line even when 'Some Stuff' is folded.
> ** Another Item.
>
>
> If I was then to move '** Blah Blah' under the 'Other Stuff' heading
> using the built-in structure management tools those extra blank lines
> move with it.
>
> This means that 'Other Stuff' is now joined up, visually, to 'A First
> Item', which I didn't want, and that there is visible whitespace between
> 'Blah Blah' and 'Another Item' as well...

The problem is that there is no way to tell that the two blank lines
after "** Blah blah" are part of "** Blah blah" or part of "* Some
stuff".  If they are part of "** Blah blah" they should move with it.
If they are part of "* Some stuff" then they should move with this
first-level tree, not with the second-level tree.

But instead of trying to decide to what subtree blank lines belong, we
should instead let the user define how many blank lines he wants to
allow after headings / list items.

(setq org-allow-blank-lines
         '((org-level-1 . 2)
           (org-level-2 . 1)
           (list-item   . 1))

This way we would have:

  M-x org-delete-trailing-blank-lines 

which would delete blank lines that are not allowed.

And possibly a way to decide whether trailing lines at the end of a
subtree should move with the subtree or not. 

What do you think?

-- 
Bastien