From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Robert Horn <rjhorn@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: are super-hidden technical blocks required?
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2012 09:23:32 -0400
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To: Jonathan Leech-Pepin <jonathan.leechpepin@gmail.com>, Ivy Foster <joyfulgirl@archlinux.us>
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Jonathan Leech-Pepin <jonathan.leechpepin@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
>>> This blocks could be hidden under all normal means unlike
>>> really someone want to see them and hit a special
>>> key-combo.
>>
>> Hmm, personally I'd rather have it visible but clearly
>> labeled. Transparency is nearly always a good thing.
>>
>
I agree.  The real use needs more clarification.  Things like ID are
already well hidden as :PROPERTIES: until the user explicitly opens the
drawer for viewing.  I don't understand the need to hide those further, so
a better explanation of why is needed.

I could see a use for a "blob" property.  Suppose I have a JPEG of
someone's portrait that I want to incorporate into a contact's
properties.  Some mechanism to indicate:

:PROPERTIES:
:Portrait: blob-flag application/jpeg alternate-text="Joe's picture" <<hidden-content>>
:END:

with a third level of lisp-function that will open the blob contents as
ugly encoded text or with a decoding/viewing function instead of the
text "<<hidden-content>>".  I could see this being useful for both
textual items like S-exprs, XML, JSON, etc. and for binary things like
JPEG, PDF, etc.  It could be similar to the current embedding done for
literate programming with a way to separate blob content from org
content.

Right now the link capabilities are available for blob-like uses, but
links don't work if I need to move the org-mode files between machines,
etc.

R Horn
rjhorn@alum.mit.edu