Re: Feature suggestion: highlights

[Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca>]

Ali Tofigh <alix.tofigh@gmail.com> writes:

> First, I want to thank everyone who has worked on creating org-mode. I
> am a new user and I enjoy using org-mode a lot! Thank you for your
> efforts.
>
> Second, I have a suggestion for a feature: A new "highlight" feature
> which can also be tagged and made into a todo item, just like
> headlines. For example (using -:: text ::- as example begin/end pairs)
>
> ---8<-----
> * journal
> ** group meeting [2010-02-17 Wed 14:00]
>    text text text...
>
>    -:: should try the above in project 1 ::-    :idea:
>    -:: Sandy made a good point there! ::-
>    -:: TODO Sandy wants me to mail her the details ::-
> ---8<-----
>
> This would allow users to stay in the same level when writing their
> documents instead of creating new ones with headlines. Also, it would
> allow users to create todo items in the context in which they arose.
>
> An alternative that may be easier to implement is to extend tagging
> and todos to list items:
>
> - should try the above in project 1    :idea:
> - Sandy made a good point there!
> - TODO Sandy wants me to mail her the details
>
> Perhaps this has not been a feature that has been requested before.
> But I believe that if it is implemented, it will be used frequently by
> users. What do you think?

Hi Ali,

There are a few problems with this proposal.  Currently tags can only
live on headlines so tagging your list items and general text isn't
going to work as an org-mode tag.  I doubt this will change anytime soon.

I take meeting notes in org-mode regularly and just use lists for point
form notes which I distribute.  I have non-org-mode todo and done
entries in my notes as part of the list.  Something like this:

,----
|   - notes for meeting go here
|   - more notes
|   - TODO: remember to do something
|   - more notes
|     - DONE: did that thing
|   - etc...
`----

then I highlight the notes for the meeting and run a function to convert
the - TODO: and - DONE: entries into something easily seen in the flow
of text.

(defun bh/prepare-meeting-notes ()
  "Prepare meeting notes for email
   Take selected region and convert tabs to spaces, mark TODOs with leading >>>, and copy to kill ring for pasting"
  (interactive)
  (let (prefix)
    (save-excursion
      (save-restriction
	(narrow-to-region (region-beginning) (region-end))
	(untabify (point-min) (point-max))
	(goto-char (point-min))
	(while (re-search-forward "^\\( *-\\\) \\(TODO\\|DONE\\): " (point-max) t)
	  (replace-match (concat (make-string (length (match-string 1)) ?>) " " (match-string 2) ": ")))
	(goto-char (point-min))
	(kill-ring-save (point-min) (point-max))))))

which gives me this:

,----
|   - notes for meeting go here
|   - more notes
| >>> TODO: remember to do something
|   - more notes
| >>>>> DONE: did that thing
|   - etc...
`----

then I can just paste them into some mail client and mail them to all of
the participants.  The TODO: and DONE: entries are easy to see in the
text and the body of the heading is just plain text.  I'm free to link
to these meeting notes as a reference.  If any of the TODO items in the
meeting are for me I create a separate set of TODOs for each of those --
the meeting is over and the task for the meeting is marked DONE.  The
original TODOs are easy to see in the context they were created.

It's not fancy... but it works and it's _fast_.

HTH,
Bernt