Line breaks in org-mode having version control in mind

Line breaks in org-mode having version control in mind

[Dror Atariah]

I am trying to extend my usage of org, and one of the things I want to integrate is version controlling of my org files. This is obviously straight forward, but I am wondering about the best line breaking approach to use. In my LaTeX docs I maintain one physical line per sentence [1]. This way, when I change one word in a paragraph, it affects only one line, and looking for differences between versions is easy. Otherwise, when using fill-paragraph for instance, one gets messy changes of the file, as the one word change can influence the whole paragraph.

Therefore, as I mentioned, in LaTeX I use visual-line-mode and I insert manually line breaks at the end of sentences (or where *I* find appropriate). What would be the best practice for org? I understand that visual-line-mode has some problems when it comes to tables... What other issues are there? What do you do when you keep your org file under VC? 

Thanks in advance,
Dror

[1] http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/4378/412

Re: Line breaks in org-mode having version control in mind

[Jambunathan K]

If you have really l...o...n...g lines you need to turn on some sort of
caching so that Emacs display doesn't start sucking.  

I believe the variable you need is this.  Just double check.  I use
development version of Emacs so the details could differ for your
specific version.

    cache-long-scans
      Variable: Non-nil means that Emacs should use caches in attempt to
                speedup buffer scans.

    ** `cache-long-line-scans' has been renamed to `cache-long-scans'
    because it affects caching of paragraph scanning results as well.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Org files in sense paragraph oriented and not line-oriented.  There was
some work on Org Merge Driver.  (Search for it in the list).  I had also
pointed out this LibreOffice GSoC project earlier -
http://gsoc-tzvetelina.blogspot.in/ - the ideas discussed therein could
be of some relevance to building a Org merge driver.

Dror Atariah <drorata@gmail.com> writes:

> I am trying to extend my usage of org, and one of the things I want to
> integrate is version controlling of my org files. This is obviously
> straight forward, but I am wondering about the best line breaking
> approach to use. In my LaTeX docs I maintain one physical line per
> sentence [1]. This way, when I change one word in a paragraph, it
> affects only one line, and looking for differences between versions is
> easy. Otherwise, when using fill-paragraph for instance, one gets
> messy changes of the file, as the one word change can influence the
> whole paragraph.
>
> Therefore, as I mentioned, in LaTeX I use visual-line-mode and I
> insert manually line breaks at the end of sentences (or where *I* find
> appropriate). What would be the best practice for org? I understand
> that visual-line-mode has some problems when it comes to
> tables... What other issues are there? What do you do when you keep
> your org file under VC?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Dror
>
> [1] http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/4378/412

Re: Line breaks in org-mode having version control in mind

[Bastien]

Hi Dror,

Dror Atariah <drorata@gmail.com> writes:

> What other issues are there? What do you do when you keep
> your org file under VC?

Only a small part of the answer, but you might be interested
in the Git Org merge driver:

http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/gsoc2012/student-projects/git-merge-tool/

-- 
 Bastien

Re: Line breaks in org-mode having version control in mind

[Samuel Wales]

Ediff shows word-level changes.  In principle, diff-mode does too.

My issue with visual-line-mode is that it disrespects fill-column.  I
would use it if it did not.  Longlines-mode is a possible workaround.

There is an intermittent bug in Magit maint where RET goes to the
wrong line in Elisp and Org buffers.  There is also an intermittent
bug in bookmark jumping to Org.  These bugs occur without visual-line
or longlines modes.

Longlines-mode might make those bugs more prominent.  I don't know
about visual-line-mode.

Samuel


On 11/3/13, Dror Atariah <drorata@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am trying to extend my usage of org, and one of the things I want to
> integrate is version controlling of my org files. This is obviously straight
> forward, but I am wondering about the best line breaking approach to use. In
> my LaTeX docs I maintain one physical line per sentence [1]. This way, when
> I change one word in a paragraph, it affects only one line, and looking for
> differences between versions is easy. Otherwise, when using fill-paragraph
> for instance, one gets messy changes of the file, as the one word change can
> influence the whole paragraph.
>
> Therefore, as I mentioned, in LaTeX I use visual-line-mode and I insert
> manually line breaks at the end of sentences (or where *I* find
> appropriate). What would be the best practice for org? I understand that
> visual-line-mode has some problems when it comes to tables... What other
> issues are there? What do you do when you keep your org file under VC?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Dror
>
> [1] http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/4378/412
>


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Re: Line breaks in org-mode having version control in mind

[Eric S Fraga]

Dror Atariah <drorata@gmail.com> writes:

[...]

> Therefore, as I mentioned, in LaTeX I use visual-line-mode and I
> insert manually line breaks at the end of sentences (or where *I* find
> appropriate). What would be the best practice for org? I understand
> that visual-line-mode has some problems when it comes to
> tables... What other issues are there? What do you do when you keep
> your org file under VC?

I use visual-line-mode (along with org-indent-mode) and it works very
well.  For tables, I simply switch back to truncate mode while working
on the table and switch back to visual-line-mode when done.  I have
toggle-truncate-lines bound to a key for easy access.
-- 
: Eric S Fraga (0xFFFCF67D), Emacs 24.3.50.1, Org release_8.2.1-87-g8e841c