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Re: [O] transcluding some org-elements in multiple places
From: |
John Kitchin |
Subject: |
Re: [O] transcluding some org-elements in multiple places |
Date: |
Wed, 14 Dec 2016 11:55:44 -0500 |
User-agent: |
mu4e 0.9.16; emacs 25.1.50.1 |
David Talmage writes:
> On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 11:28 AM, Eric S Fraga <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> On Friday, 9 Dec 2016 at 15:29, John Kitchin wrote:
>> > Hi all,
>> >
>> > I have an idea for how I could transclude "copies" or links to
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> > Any thoughts? Do you see any potential issues?
>>
>> Potentially very interesting and useful idea. Some thoughts/issues:
>>
>>
> I'm interested in this, too. In my lab notebook org file, I have a section
> that should be put into its own file and either linked or transcluded in
> several places. Transclusion would be better because I could see the text
> without following a link. It suits my lazy nature. ;-)
It turns out to be pretty easy to see the text; that can be done with a
simple overlay. What is not easy, is to be able to edit the text, or use
the text with org-machinery, e.g. org-map-entries. The text in the
overlay is not visible to the org-machinery, so you can not get
properties, edit it, etc... Editing could be made possible with a
special buffer, but it doesn't seem likely that you can make the overlay
display work with many org-functions.
I did have some success making bi-directional editing possible with
modification-hooks on an overlay on the copied text, but it is tricky to
do and I ran into some other difficulties I have not been able to get past.
1. having a transcluded headline at a different level than the source.
E.g. I want to group headlines under a heading in one document, but they
are all first level headings in another document.
2. having an org-id in more than one location confuses org-id and causes
some issues. This suggests you might want some kind of transcluded id,
that is different than the source id.
>
>
>> ...
>>
>> - what about more than level of indirection: link to a trancluded
>> headline which transcludes to another etc. What is shown? Is there a
>> performance hit?
>>
>>
> It seems to me that transclusion should be transitive. A transcluded org
> file should be able to transclude other org files. It should be
> transclusion all the way down.
>
> It also seems to me that org-mode transclusion must detect cycles so that
> it does not infinitely transclude documents.
that would be a good idea!
>
> - what happens if the destination moves or gets deleted? the link to
>> it, which looked like something "complete" is now meaningless. This
>> could be quite confusing. This is probably the most serious issue.
>>
>
> How does org-mode handle broken links now? That's probably the right way
> to handle broken transclusion.
>
>
>
>> - the table aspect is almost a "view" on a database which is really
>> appealing but would benefit from a fully defined syntax a la sql?
>> Would table formulas work as expected from the view of the contents?
>>
>>
> Why wouldn't table formulas work? Transclusion is/could be/should be just
> another way to put org-mode formatted text into an org-mode buffer.
>
> ...
>>
>> - could we have "read-only" views? I may not want the original touched.
>>
>
> Perhaps that would be property of the transcluded document.
>
>
>
>> - how does an export work? On the view or the actual contents?
>>
>>
> Export works on the view.
--
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu