Re: outline-demote incorrectly demotes leaf nodes

[Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com>]

Sanjoy Mahajan <sanjoy@olin.edu> wrote:

> Christian Moe <mail <at> christianmoe.com> writes:
> 
> > The Org manual (2.5 Structure editing) says to use M-S-≤right> 
> > (org-demote-subtree) for what the submitter wants to do.
> 
> (I am the original reporter of the issue on the Debian BTS.)  That is useful
> information for me, and I will use those keys.
> 
> I do worry about one point, namely that C-c C-> (outline-demote) should still
> work.

That seems like an unreasonable expectation to me. Despite the similarities,
it's a completely different function, with different pre- and post- conditions
and different assumptions about what the data looks like.

[Warning: stupid analogy ahead] When you need to turn a screw, you look
at the head and choose the right screwdriver for it. If you use a
Philips screwdriver to turn a square-drive screw, you'll damage the
screw even if you do manage to turn it a bit.

>  And it does work in regular outline mode.  For example, if I rename my
> test file to c.otl and then use C-c C-> on the main heading, all the subtrees
> are demoted as I expected.  Whereas in org mode the leaf subtree gets a space
> instead of a * when it is being demoted.
> 

To continue the analogy: sure, if you replace the square drive screw
with a Philips screw, you can turn it with the Philips screwdriver.

> So, I wonder whether org mode is somehow messing up outline-demote without
> meaning to?  I am far from an expert on the org.el lisp code, and maybe the
> current org-mode behavior is the intended result.  But I worry that it is not
> intended and instead is an accidental side effect of something else.
> 

No: orgmode uses a small subset of outline-* functions, mostly to navigate between
headings, but it does not use outline-demote at all.

Nick