Re: Feature suggestion: highlights

[Ali Tofigh <alix.tofigh@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 20:44, Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> wrote:
> Ali Tofigh <alix.tofigh@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> First, I want to thank everyone who has worked on creating org-mode. I
>> am a new user and I enjoy using org-mode a lot! Thank you for your
>> efforts.
>>
>> Second, I have a suggestion for a feature: A new "highlight" feature
>> which can also be tagged and made into a todo item, just like
>> headlines. For example (using -:: text ::- as example begin/end pairs)
>>
>> ---8<-----
>> * journal
>> ** group meeting [2010-02-17 Wed 14:00]
>>    text text text...
>>
>>    -:: should try the above in project 1 ::-    :idea:
>>    -:: Sandy made a good point there! ::-
>>    -:: TODO Sandy wants me to mail her the details ::-
>> ---8<-----
>>
>> This would allow users to stay in the same level when writing their
>> documents instead of creating new ones with headlines. Also, it would
>> allow users to create todo items in the context in which they arose.
>>
>> An alternative that may be easier to implement is to extend tagging
>> and todos to list items:
>>
>> - should try the above in project 1    :idea:
>> - Sandy made a good point there!
>> - TODO Sandy wants me to mail her the details
>>
>> Perhaps this has not been a feature that has been requested before.
>> But I believe that if it is implemented, it will be used frequently by
>> users. What do you think?
>
> Hi Ali,
>
> There are a few problems with this proposal.  Currently tags can only
> live on headlines so tagging your list items and general text isn't
> going to work as an org-mode tag.  I doubt this will change anytime soon.
>
> I take meeting notes in org-mode regularly and just use lists for point
> form notes which I distribute.  I have non-org-mode todo and done
> entries in my notes as part of the list.  Something like this:
>
> ,----
> |   - notes for meeting go here
> |   - more notes
> |   - TODO: remember to do something
> |   - more notes
> |     - DONE: did that thing
> |   - etc...
> `----
>
> then I highlight the notes for the meeting and run a function to convert
> the - TODO: and - DONE: entries into something easily seen in the flow
> of text.
>
> (defun bh/prepare-meeting-notes ()
>  "Prepare meeting notes for email
>   Take selected region and convert tabs to spaces, mark TODOs with leading >>>, and copy to kill ring for pasting"
>  (interactive)
>  (let (prefix)
>    (save-excursion
>      (save-restriction
>        (narrow-to-region (region-beginning) (region-end))
>        (untabify (point-min) (point-max))
>        (goto-char (point-min))
>        (while (re-search-forward "^\\( *-\\\) \\(TODO\\|DONE\\): " (point-max) t)
>          (replace-match (concat (make-string (length (match-string 1)) ?>) " " (match-string 2) ": ")))
>        (goto-char (point-min))
>        (kill-ring-save (point-min) (point-max))))))
>
> which gives me this:
>
> ,----
> |   - notes for meeting go here
> |   - more notes
> | >>> TODO: remember to do something
> |   - more notes
> | >>>>> DONE: did that thing
> |   - etc...
> `----
>
> then I can just paste them into some mail client and mail them to all of
> the participants.  The TODO: and DONE: entries are easy to see in the
> text and the body of the heading is just plain text.  I'm free to link
> to these meeting notes as a reference.  If any of the TODO items in the
> meeting are for me I create a separate set of TODOs for each of those --
> the meeting is over and the task for the meeting is marked DONE.  The
> original TODOs are easy to see in the context they were created.
>
> It's not fancy... but it works and it's _fast_.

Thanks for sharing that! I'll have to play around to see what works
for me. But this setup sounds really interesting. Thanks for the
elist-code too. After all these years of programming, maybe I'm
finally motivated enough to actually learn elisp. Not a small feat by
org-mode given years of resistance.

Cheers,
/Ali