Re: What's the use of Column View?

[Bastien <bzg@altern.org>]

Leo <sdl.web@gmail.com> writes:

> Any one find the column view feature of any use?

Yes!  I do love the column view feature.

For example, when I want to add milestones to tasks.  My project gets a
:MILESTONE: property, accepting :MILESTONE_ALL: 1.8 1.9 2.0 2.1 2.2, etc.

Then being able to see the different milestones just by switching to the
column view is great.  It helps reorder the tasks - among other things.

But this is just one small example, I guess many people will use the
column view in many other ways.

> 1. It reduced the readability of .org files. 

For me it doesn't reduce the readability.  You can always pick up other
faces that look less intrusive to your eyes, or not use this feature at
all (if you don't like it.)

> I think the syntax of the file should be kept as close as possible to
> plain text file.

What is a "plain text file"?  If you mean: a "plain text file, as it is
displayed in Emacs' text-mode", then I think that :

1) It has always been the philosophy behind org-mode (as far as it makes
   sense...)

2) a mode is a toolbox helping the user to interact with a file: Org is
   an Emacs tool that helps people using "text" files to store notes and
   do some planning - in this context, the column view is just a feature
   of the tool itself, not a property of the file

3) the only syntactic notion involved behind the curtain of the column
   view is that of _properties_.  But this notion is so deeply rooted in
   org-mode that I don't think it makes sense discussing it...

> 2. It barely has a role in any GTD work flow.

AFAICT org-mode itself is - hopefully - not limited to the GTD
methodology.

> All in all, I fail to understand this feature.

Don't try to understand it, try to *use* it :)  

Hints on deciding whether this can be useful for you:

1. are you using properties?
2. is there a property that you are using *often*?
3. is there a property that you are often searching by?
4. is there a property that you are often changing?
5. is there a property you need to view your file is folded?

If you replied "yes" to one of these, chances are that you might be a
happy column-view user in a near future :)

-- 
Bastien