Re: refile ideas

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

On Jul 8, 2009, at 6:59 AM, Samuel Wales wrote:

> With ido completion, refiling works excellently.  Here are
> more ideas.
>
> First (and foremost), input history for refiling recalls the user's
> input, not refile targets.  I think the latter would work
> better, because in ordinary use, the user can specify
> further with C-SPC and arrow keys.  So the first completion
> candidate for any of the history items can be different from
> the target that it originally specified.  Thus, the natural
> action of up arrows can specify an unexpected location.
> Even when the user notices the problem, he has to specify
> further to duplicate the effort if he wants the original
> target.
>
> In my use since ido completion began, I almost never want
> the original string, and almost always want the original
> target.  I don't know if others use refile history differently.
>
> Thus, the proposal is to have the history contain the
> fully-specified targets.

This is a good idea, and it works now just so.

> The next idea is that we already have a specification of
> potentially useful targets in remember templates.  I wonder
> if a useful interface (perhaps a triple c-u to org-refile or
> perhaps using remember) can allow the user to use the
> remember templates to specify a target location.  Thus a
> single key can uniquely specify a target without the user
> having to verify.

This is not easy, the remember and refile interfaces
do not easily mix.  Here is an alternative idea:

If you mark some headlines (for example you remember targets)
with a tag like "r", you could make yourself a restricted
refile command like this:

(defun my-org-restricted-refile ()
   (interactive)
   (let ((org-refile-targets '((org-agenda-files :tag . "r"))))
     (call-interactively 'org-refile)))

Not what you proposed, but maybe useful.


Most of the ideas below require hacking ido.el, which I am not
ready to do.  In particular, coloring the vertical bars should
be a feature request to Kim.

Coloring the path, or uniquifying the path is something that
*might* work on the Org side, and I have added these to my
list.

- Carsten

> Another idea is that in ido completion for refile and other
> commands that require specification of headlines, perhaps a
> more familiar context can be provided.  In particular, the
> todo keyword and priority, with their original colors, might
> be a familiar way of seeing them, and might visually
> indicate the start of a new completion candidate.  This will
> make it quicker to know whether more specification is
> necessary or whether right arrows will work.
>
> Another idea is to color the paths separately from the
> leaves, or color the olpath components that are matched by
> the input string, or color the input string matches.  This
> might be difficult to implement or too slow.  Since ido is already too
> slow (but very useful), it would only be worth it if it did not slow
> it down.
>
> Another idea is to color the vertical bars.
>
> Another idea we've already discussed, but I will mention it
> here just for completeness.  The olpath could perhaps be
> displayed using a uniquification algorithm similar to that
> used by uniquify.el.  This might or might not be worth it.
>
> Thanks.
>
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