Re: Is the cascading logic of outlines a feature, or a design bug?

[Samuel Wales]

stefan's example reminded me that there is another common request,
with :noexportheading kludges, in which you do not export a headline
itself.  you could try one of those perhaps.

that assumes you want this for export and not for the .org.

On 12/28/22, Stefan Nobis <stefan-ml@snobis.de> wrote:
> abq@bitrot.link writes:
>
>> Likewise, is the inability to close an org-mode outline section
>> without starting a new section really a feature?
>
> I think so. :)
>
> First, technically, it makes the sections (and their contents) a tree
> instead of a graph (DAG) and trees are easier to understand and
> handle. As sections are a quite essential and important data structure
> of Org, it usually means that it would be hard to change it (meaning
> that it could affect a really big part of the code base).
>
> Another rather technical point is, that most export formats like HTML
> and LaTeX/PDF are also tree like structures (regarding sections).
> Therefore it is quite a challenge to export a DAG like structure to
> these formats.
>
> But also semantically I would say it is a feature. Have you ever seen
> a book, longer web page, or even article (with multiple sections) that
> tries to close one section and continue any previous sibling or its
> parent? I have never seen such kind of textual structuring and my
> guess is, that this would be hard for a reader to understand and
> follow. If the intermediate text is small, just make it a list (maybe
> a description list). If a new (sub-)section seems a good idea, then
> structure everything accordingly and tree-like. For example:
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>
>     * Topic
>     Some initial words.
>     ** Subtopic 1
>     More text.
>     ** Subtopic 2
>     Another paragraph.
>     ** Other Aspects
>     There may be more to say.
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> IMHO there is always a way to structure sections, such that a tree
> like structure suffices. And IMHO this is easier to read an follow.
>
> If you try to use Org for other kinds of data and this data is
> naturally structured like a DAG (or even a cyclic graph), then I think
> a database or other means are better suited than Org.
>
> --
> Until the next mail...,
> Stefan.
>
>


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