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Re: [O] Continuation of main section text after subsections ?


From: Mark Elston
Subject: Re: [O] Continuation of main section text after subsections ?
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:26:54 -0700
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110303 Thunderbird/3.1.9

On 3/27/2011 8:02 AM, Marcel van der Boom wrote:
Hi,

When I'm using orgmode to write out largish documents, I often run into
the outlining problem that it's apparently not possible to continue
text of a higher level outline once subsections have been started.

A simplified example of such an outline would be:

---
* Main headline
   Some thoughts expressed here

** Subheading 1
    More thoughts expressed here
** Subheading 2
    More thoughts expressed here

  I would like to have this text part of 'Main headline', not of
  'Subheading 2'
----

I have been following this thread with some interest.  But I must admit
to being a little confused as to what is meant by the last sentence,
above.

If this is just a matter of indentation in the org file that can be
handled by the user.  Org will honor any user-specified indentation for
entered text and all subsequent text will maintain the same indentation
until a new heading is encountered or the user enters text with a new
indentation level.

If, OTOH, what is asked for is having org "understand" that the final
sentence was part of the main heading so that folding subheading 2 would
not fold the last sentence as well, that is something else entirely.  I
would suggest that the common rules of outlining should be observed so
as to minimize the principle of least surprise to the end user.  Org
mode is, after all, an outliner (albeit one with a /lot/ of bells and
whistles added for convenience).

On those occasions where I ran into something similar I wound up
restructuring my organization to suit.  For example, the above might be
better structured as:

* Main headline
  Some thoughts expressed here
** Initial points
*** Subheading 1
    More thoughts expressed here
*** Subheading 2
    More thoughts expressed here
** Next set of points
   I would like to have this text part of 'Main headline', not of
   'Subheading 2'.  However, as it doesn't belong to the previous
   set of points it starts a new subsection of the 'Main headline.'

etc.

This seems more in line with what you were intending, anyway.

Something to keep in mind here is that in the final output, unless you
really jump through some hoops, there isn't going to be any difference
in the text associated with the different heading levels.  That is, text
under "Main headline" will look (font/indentation/etc) identical to text
under "Subheading 1", etc.  So the only real difference is going to
come from the nature of the outline and the subsequent sectioning
commands in the output.  Of course, if "Subheading 1/2" were changed to
lists this is /not/ the case as lists are visually distinct from the
surrounding text...

I have recently been playing with Freemind and find it a pretty
interesting alternative to a purely textual listing as in org-mode.
However, mind-maps seem to be rather isomorphic with outlines in many
ways and *still* follow most of the same rules (adapted for a graphical
environment, of course).

I guess I am just not certain how "free floating" text in an outline
is to be viewed conceptually, or to be rendered in the final output.

Mark



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