On Sat, Aug 12, 2017 at 12:52 PM, Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> wrote:

Ken Mankoff <mankoff@gmail.com> writes:

> and second, if I make changes and then exit the expanded block
> (via C-') without saving, the changes are lost. If I enter
> =org-edit-special= and exit w/o saving, the changes are propagated
> back to the buffer.

I don't understand. "C-c '" is `org-edit-special'. "C-'" is
`org-cycle-agenda-files'.

Typo. I meant C-c '.

If you use "C-c '", make changes to the remote editing buffer and exit
with "C-c '", changes are propagated to the source buffer. Remote
editing is just a convenient way to edit another part of the same
buffer.

OK. I think I have a slightly different workflow, or desired workflow. I often *run* code in the org-edit-special buffer. I find it is useful to debug and evaluate there as I develop it, have the Python or other REPL (using session) also available, etc. Then when the development matures, save changes to the source buffer and evaluate it from there in the future.

This works, but not if I'm debugging something with a variable. I got excited when I discovered org-babel-expand-src-block because now I can more easily debug code with input variables. But apparently this is not the purpose of that function, since a) the buffer is read-only and b) if read-only mode is changed, the changes are not always sent back to the primary buffer.

Is there a way to get variables into org-edit-special? Maybe by pre-pending C-u to C-c '? How do others debug code with input variables? Would others like this enough to make it a feature request?

Thanks,

-k.