Make M-up and M-down transpose paragraphs in org buffers

Make M-up and M-down transpose paragraphs in org buffers

[Paul Sexton]

By default, if used within ordinary paragraphs in org mode, M-up and M-down 
transpose *lines* (not sentences). This was not useful to me. The following 
code makes these keys transpose paragraphs, keeping the point at the start
of the moved paragraph. Behaviour in tables and headings is unaffected. It
would be easy to modify this to transpose sentences.


(defun org-transpose-paragraphs (arg)
  (interactive)
  (when (and (not (or (org-at-table-p) (org-on-heading-p) (org-at-item-p)))
             (thing-at-point 'sentence))
    (transpose-paragraphs arg)
    (backward-paragraph)
    (re-search-forward "[[:graph:]]")
    (goto-char (match-beginning 0))
    t))

(add-to-list 'org-metaup-hook 
  (lambda () (interactive) (org-transpose-paragraphs -1)))
(add-to-list 'org-metadown-hook 
  (lambda () (interactive) (org-transpose-paragraphs 1)))

Re: Make M-up and M-down transpose paragraphs in org buffers

[Bastien]

Hi Paul,

Paul Sexton <psexton@xnet.co.nz> writes:

> By default, if used within ordinary paragraphs in org mode, M-up and M-down 
> transpose *lines* (not sentences). This was not useful to me. 

To me neither.

> The following 
> code makes these keys transpose paragraphs, keeping the point at the start
> of the moved paragraph. Behaviour in tables and headings is unaffected. It
> would be easy to modify this to transpose sentences.

I like it, and have a patch to integrate this directly in org-metaup and
org-metadown.  

There is one problem though: when you try to move down a paragraph when
it is followed by a list, Emacs doesn't understand the list should be
treated as a paragraph.  

Any idea on how to circumvent this?  Or should we live with this and
implement the solution?

Thanks for this idea,

-- 
 Bastien

Re: Make M-up and M-down transpose paragraphs in org buffers

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Bastien <bzg@altern.org> writes:

> There is one problem though: when you try to move down a paragraph when
> it is followed by a list, Emacs doesn't understand the list should be
> treated as a paragraph.  
>
> Any idea on how to circumvent this?  Or should we live with this and
> implement the solution?

Imo, a clean way to implement this (because it would also simplify
existing functions) would be to define a forward paragraph-function for
Org. It isn't difficult, but it raises some questions that need to be
answered. For example, should forward-paragraph move into constructs or
skip them. I.e. if point is outside a block and that block contains
paragraphs, should forward-paragraph skip the block or move inside?

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou