Re: A question about overlays and performance.

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com> writes:

>> On Jul 28, 2020, at 12:43 PM, Jeff Norden <jnorden@tntech.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> From what little I've seen of them, I'm quite inclined to agree with
>> Stefan's opinion about indirect buffers.  Is their main use in org to
>> provide multiple views of a buffer with different foldings?
>
> AFAIK org-sidebar relies on that: the sidebar showing headings is an indirect 
> buffer.

An important use is the capture system: when capturing text to be
inserted in an Org buffer, the text is entered in an indirect buffer, so
that it's already in place as the user is typing. The old system used a
temporary buffer, then inserted the text on finalization.

I don't remember the whole history, but I do remember that switching to
indirect buffers solved several issues, and ended up being a pretty
clean solution to the problem. I think they still have their uses.