On Feb 11, 2010, at 7:38 PM, Chao Lu wrote:

Dear all,

I'm writing to see if there's anyway to use org-like outline in ALL kinds of files, like my emacs configuration file, whose suffix is .el. Could I tell Emacs

;;; headline 1
;; headline 2

And it begin to have the ability to display my el file just as Org does?

Besides, is there any active mailing list of common Emacs questions?

Any suggestion is welcomed, thanks!

Chao

Aloha Chao,

Org-babel lets you keep source code for many languages in Org-mode files.  You have to tangle the Org-mode file to create the source code file, so there are some intermediate steps, but it does bring many of the advantages of Org-mode to editing and maintaining source code in other languages.  The Org-babel Introduction includes an example of how to manage an emacs configuration in Org-mode:

http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/intro.php#literate-programming

Eric Schulte has an emacs starter kit with a very useful implementation of this idea:

http://eschulte.github.com/emacs-starter-kit/

hth,
Tom