show org-mode outline up to a certain heading level - emacs

I'm making an outline for my thesis using org-mode, and I'd like to show all headings up to a certain level (e.g. all level-1 and level-2 headings).
I haven't found anything about that in the org-mode manual. Cycling shows either only level-1 headings, or all headings, which is too much information in my outline right now.
Thanks,
daniel.
Update: I found a workaround for his: set the variable org-cycle-max-level. This is a global setting, though.

Just stumbled on this question. One year later but what the heck.. There are commands for this that allows you to show headings to a certain level.
One command is C-<n> C-c tab will show subheadings up to level <n> (<n>=1,2,3...).
Another command is C-<n> S-tab which will operate on the whole buffer. It shows all headings up to level <n> (<n>=1,2,3...)

I found a solution that suits me: The command org-content shows the folder hierarchy, and giving it a numeric argument does exactly what I want: limit the maximum level shown. In my example, I wanted to show 2 levels, so I can do C-2 M-x org-content <RET>.
I also added my own command to my .emacs init file, binding that command to C-c m
(defun org-show-two-levels ()
(interactive)
(org-content 2))
(add-hook 'org-mode-hook
(lambda ()
(define-key org-mode-map "\C-cm" 'org-show-two-levels)))

If the prefix arguments from M. Kullman's answer take too much mental capacity for you (a limited resource when you are thinking hard about something else at the same time) then you can use the following functions to expand contract headings
(defvar hf-org-depth-point nil)
(defvar hf-org-depth-depth nil)
(defun hf-org-depth-increase ()
(interactive)
(hf-org-depth-incr 1))
(defun hf-org-depth-decrease ()
(interactive)
(hf-org-depth-incr -1))
(defun hf-org-depth-incr (incr)
(when (not (equal (point) hf-org-depth-point))
(setq hf-org-depth-point nil)
(setq hf-org-depth-depth 0))a
(setq hf-org-depth-point (point))
(setq hf-org-depth-depth (max (+ hf-org-depth-depth incr) 0))
(hide-subtree)
(show-children hf-org-depth-depth))
```

I am way late to the party, but let us add a simple way for posterity. Simply use Cycle Global Visibility (<backtab>). If your headings are open, it will close them. However, if you apply it repeatedly with all headings collapsed, they will open to the level you want.
I use it from the keyboard by <SHIFT>+<TAB>. You can also find it in the Org menu (in Emacs) under Show/Hide -> Cycle Global Visibility ()

Related

Emacs org-mode: How can i fold everything but the current headline?

I use org-mode to handle my tasks and projects in multiple files.
In the weekly agenda, it is possible to jump to the location of each TODO entry using <TAB> or <RET>. If the target file was not previously open, it is loaded an the cursor is set to the correct headline and the entire document is unfolded, including drawers.
I would very much prefer to see only a sparse tree with everything but the correct headline folded (subtree visibility does not matter).
It is possible to collapse the entire tree by cycling global visibility using C-u <TAB, but then I have to find the heading again.
I know I can hide the rest by narrowing the buffer as described here:
Emacs, How can I display only current task and hide others in org-mode?
but then I loose context (parent heading, easy access to siblings) and the drawers are still open.
Ideally, I would like to have a command that shows the following:
The top level headings
The current headline, and all it's parents up to the top level
The current headline's children
Edit:
A slighty modified version of the functions user3173715 posted seems to do the trick:
(defun org-show-current-heading-tidily ()
"Show next entry, keeping other entries closed."
(if (save-excursion (end-of-line) (outline-invisible-p))
(progn (org-show-entry) (show-children))
(outline-back-to-heading)
(unless (and (bolp) (org-on-heading-p))
(org-up-heading-safe)
(hide-subtree)
(error "Boundary reached"))
(org-overview)
(org-reveal t)
(org-show-entry)
(show-children)))
This is based on the answer in the edit in the actual question.
If of help to anyone:
When I tried to bind the above to a hotkey, I kept getting an error, commandp wrong argument something something ... It turned out one had to add the (interactive) flag to make it work.
Below is an example of the function tied to M-=
(defun org-show-current-heading-tidily ()
(interactive) ;Inteactive
"Show next entry, keeping other entries closed."
(if (save-excursion (end-of-line) (outline-invisible-p))
(progn (org-show-entry) (show-children))
(outline-back-to-heading)
(unless (and (bolp) (org-on-heading-p))
(org-up-heading-safe)
(hide-subtree)
(error "Boundary reached"))
(org-overview)
(org-reveal t)
(org-show-entry)
(show-children)))
(global-set-key "\M-=" 'org-show-current-heading-tidily)
#Patrick.B thanks for edit!
Check your org startup options (customize-group > org-startup) like org-startup-folded or org-agenda-inhibit-startup (others have mentioned these already) and set the options to show only the folded view. Org mode variables like #+STARTUP are discussed here.
You may notice that everything is folded when you now jump to the agenda, even the parents of the active item may not be visible. You can then make the context (parents, children, next sibling) visible with org-reveal (C-c C-r as per the manual)
I am not very sure if this is your demand (I just think it is suitable for your question title), but I use these two functions with plenty of pleasures by binding them in the speed command of org-mode. You can find these two functions in org-mode hacks. I slightly modified them to meet my purposes.
The two functions support:
Unfold every other headings except current heading
Move current heading to top of screen for wider reading area.
In order to accomplish (2), you need to (setq recenter-positions '(top bottom)), there may be some better solutions, but I did not dig into it.
(defun ded/org-show-next-heading-tidily ()
"Show next entry, keeping other entries closed."
(if (save-excursion (end-of-line) (outline-invisible-p))
(progn (org-show-entry) (show-children))
(outline-next-heading)
(unless (and (bolp) (org-on-heading-p))
(org-up-heading-safe)
(hide-subtree)
(error "Boundary reached"))
(org-overview)
(org-reveal t)
(org-show-entry)
(recenter-top-bottom)
(show-children)
(recenter-top-bottom)))
(defun ded/org-show-previous-heading-tidily ()
"Show previous entry, keeping other entries closed."
(let ((pos (point)))
(outline-previous-heading)
(unless (and (< (point) pos) (bolp) (org-on-heading-p))
(goto-char pos)
(hide-subtree)
(error "Boundary reached"))
(org-overview)
(org-reveal t)
(org-show-entry)
(recenter-top-bottom)
(show-children)
(recenter-top-bottom)))
And you can bind them with org-mode speed key with j and l, then you can use j and l to control the folding of headings when your cursor is in the beginning of headings.
(setq org-speed-commands-user
'(("j" . ded/org-show-next-heading-tidily)
("l" . ded/org-show-previous-heading-tidily))))
It is perfect for reading org-mode files, cheers!
Current (2022) emacs no longer requires elaborate setup to achieve the goals stated in the Question:
The top level headings
The current headline, and all it's parents up to the top level
The current headline's children
In the current Emacs and org-mode versions (Emacs 27.1, as of August 2022), you can press Shift-Tab Tab to close all headings, then open the current heading. Crucially, the cursor remains on the current collapsed heading so Tab reopens it.
The only significant change that I have from a default install is Evil, which may or may not affect the fact that the cursor remains on the collapsed heading.

Sublime Text 2's "Goto Anything" (or instant search) for Emacs?

I tried out Sublime Text 2 recently, and I found Goto Anything superbly useful for navigating source code (Ctrl-P file#symbol seems to work really well). Is there something similar for Emacs? Preferably something that just works, without a ton of custom elisp.
What I've tried so far:
I've seen Helm and Anything, but as far as I understand neither of them is capable of actual "instant" search (see edit below).
I've used multi-occur-in-matching-buffers, but it too seems unable to satisfy the "instant" criterion.
imenu / idomenu works well for single files, but doesn't work across files.
I currently use #2 and #3 together, as a poor substitute for Goto Anything.
If not an exact clone of Goto Anything, then I could make do with a naive instant search solution (one that searches for a given string across all open buffers and displays results dynamically). So that's acceptable too.
I use Emacs 24.2, so any v24-only elisp is also fine.
EDIT: I gave Helm another shot, at event_jr's suggestion, and I found that it does support instant searching across all open buffers. helm-multi-occur + helm-follow-mode comes surprisingly close to meeting my needs, the only minor issues being (at the risk of sounding nit-picky):
I haven't found a way to turn on helm-follow-mode automatically when I run helm-multi-occur. I have to invoke it manually with C-c C-f. Anyone care to take a shot at this with a snippet of elisp? (see edit #2 below)
it isn't "intelligent" like ST2's Goto Anything (i.e., it doesn't understand "symbols" in source code, like Goto Anything does).
EDIT #2: Now I've got most of Goto Anything, thanks to event_jr's answer below (and of course, thanks to Helm's creator, Thierry Volpiatto). I recommend it heartily to anyone looking for a similar feature. Below is the elisp I'm currently using:
;; instant recursive grep on a directory with helm
(defun instant-rgrep-using-helm ()
"Recursive grep in a directory."
(interactive)
(let ((helm-after-initialize-hook #'helm-follow-mode))
(helm-do-grep)))
;; instant search across all buffers with helm
(defun instant-search-using-helm ()
"Multi-occur in all buffers backed by files."
(interactive)
(let ((helm-after-initialize-hook #'helm-follow-mode))
(helm-multi-occur
(delq nil
(mapcar (lambda (b)
(when (buffer-file-name b) (buffer-name b)))
(buffer-list))))))
;; set keybindings
(global-set-key (kbd "C-M-s") 'instant-search-using-helm)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-M-S-s") 'helm-resume)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-M-g") 'instant-rgrep-using-helm)
Just use helm.
It is perhaps more configuration than you asked for, but once you get it
configured how you like, it should be quite comfortable. Very much like Emacs
;).
And you should file a bug with Thierry for getting some more newbie friendly
defaults. He is quite responsive with issues.
helm-multi-occur
Primarily multi-buffer interactive "occur" is provided through
helm-multi-occur. If you execute the command, you'll notice that you have
to pick some buffers first (use C-SPC to select from the list,
M-SPC to select all). Then you can enter your query at the next
prompt. It's easy to make your own version that skips the buffer selection
like so:
(eval-after-load "helm-regexp"
'(setq helm-source-moccur
(helm-make-source "Moccur"
'helm-source-multi-occur :follow 1)))
(defun my-helm-multi-all ()
"multi-occur in all buffers backed by files."
(interactive)
(helm-multi-occur
(delq nil
(mapcar (lambda (b)
(when (buffer-file-name b) (buffer-name b)))
(buffer-list)))))
helm-buffers-list
Often you don't care about the exact occurrences of the query string, but want a
list of all buffers that contain it.
helm-buffers-list has some tricks up its sleeve. The first symbol you
specify is filtering by major-mode, and you can use the "#" prefix to narrow
the list to buffers that contain a string.
To wit, "ruby #prompt" will show you a list of buffers whose major-mode
contains "ruby" and whose contents contains "prompt". Or you can just use "#prompt" to show all buffers that contain "prompt".
Powerful and comfortable once you get used to it.
EDIT modified my-helm-multi-all to enable helm-follow-mode.
EDIT 2 update helm-follow-mode code to reflect helm changes.
EDIT 3 updated again to reflect helm changes
Emacs has Projectile satisfy your need:
jump to a file in project
multi-occur in project buffers
Heml is far from the fuzzy searching of ST3.
Fiplr looks promising but doesn't work on my laptop (see first issue on the github)
Simp.el looks like Fiplr but doesn't work either on my end.
Projectile works for me! Here's your solution!
I used also ido-mode and flx-ido for the fuzzy searching,
and for the vertical way of displaying results I use this in my .emacs:
;; Display ido results vertically, rather than horizontally
(setq ido-decorations (quote ("\n-> " "" "\n " "\n ..." "[" "]" " [No match]" " [Matched]" " [Not readable]" " [Too big]" " [Confirm]")))
(defun ido-disable-line-truncation () (set (make-local-variable 'truncate-lines) nil))
(add-hook 'ido-minibuffer-setup-hook 'ido-disable-line-truncation)
(defun ido-define-keys () ;; C-n/p is more intuitive in vertical layout
(define-key ido-completion-map (kbd "C-n") 'ido-next-match)
(define-key ido-completion-map (kbd "C-p") 'ido-prev-match))
(add-hook 'ido-setup-hook 'ido-define-keys)
Icicles offers some features that are similar to what it seems you are looking for.
C-x b and C-x C-f, to choose buffers or files, allow multi-completion: you can type a pattern to match the buffer/file name and/or a pattern to match content in the buffer/file. Candidates are filtered incrementally as you type (what you call "instant" is what Emacs calls "incremental"). You can refine either or both search patterns progressively, narrowing the choices in different ways. You can visit any number of buffers/files that match, at the same time. You can also use the same method to search the marked files in Dired: C-F.
C-c `(icicle-search) incrementally searches across multiple buffers or files. Again, progressive refinement etc.
The main difference between #1 and #2 is this:
For #1, you just want to find matching buffers or files. You don't care immediately about finding particular occurrences --- any match suffices.
For #2, you provide the buffers or files to search, and you want to navigate among search hits.
You can also use #1 to locate the buffers and files you want, then search their contents: The content-matching pattern you last used is available as the search pattern for Isearch (C-s).
for emacs I customize and modify this solution (for use install helm):
(defun helm-occur-from-point (initial-value)
"Invoke `helm-occur' from point."
(interactive)
(let ((input initial-value)
(bufs (list (buffer-name (current-buffer)))))
;; (isearch-exit)
(helm-occur-init-source)
(helm-attrset 'moccur-buffers bufs helm-source-occur)
(helm-set-local-variable 'helm-multi-occur-buffer-list bufs)
(helm-set-local-variable
'helm-multi-occur-buffer-tick
(cl-loop for b in bufs
collect (buffer-chars-modified-tick (get-buffer b))))
(helm :sources 'helm-source-occur
:buffer "*helm occur*"
:history 'helm-grep-history
:input input
:truncate-lines t)))
(defun get-point-text ()
"Get 'interesting' text at point; either word, or region"
(if mark-active
(buffer-substring (mark) (point))
(thing-at-point 'symbol)))
(defun helm-occur-1 (initial-value)
"Preconfigured helm for Occur with initial input."
(helm-occur-from-point initial-value))
(defun bk-helm-occur ()
"Invoke helm-occur with initial input configured from text at point"
(interactive)
(helm-occur-1 (get-point-text)))
(global-set-key (kbd "M-s-o") 'bk-helm-occur)
primary it based on
#see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6872508 but on last helm versions not work but fixed with my changes (just copy/paste from some internal helm modules)

Overload a Keybinding in Emacs

I've looked through a number of other questions and el files looking for something i could modify to suit my needs but I'm having trouble so I came to the experts.
Is there anyway to have a key behave differently depending on where in the line the cursor is?
To be more specific I'd like to map the tab key to go to the end of the line if I'm in the middle of the line but work as a tab normally would if my cursor is positioned at the beginning of the line.
So far I have braces and quotes auto-pairing and re-positioning the cursor within them for C++/Java etc. I'd like to use the tab key to end-of-line if for example a function doesn't have any arguments.
Behaving differently depending on where point is in the line is the easy bit (see (if (looking-back "^") ...) in the code). "[Working] as a tab normally would" is the harder bit, as that's contextual.
Here's one approach, but I was thinking afterwards that a more robust method would be to define a minor mode with its own binding for TAB and let that function look up the fallback binding dynamically. I wasn't sure how to do that last bit, but there's a solution right here:
Emacs key binding fallback
(defvar my-major-mode-tab-function-alist nil)
(defmacro make-my-tab-function ()
"Return a major mode-specific function suitable for binding to TAB.
Performs the original TAB behaviour when point is at the beginning of
a line, and moves point to the end of the line otherwise."
;; If we have already defined a custom function for this mode,
;; return that (otherwise that would be our fall-back function).
(or (cdr (assq major-mode my-major-mode-tab-function-alist))
;; Otherwise find the current binding for this mode, and
;; specify it as the fall-back for our custom function.
(let ((original-tab-function (key-binding (kbd "TAB") t)))
`(let ((new-tab-function
(lambda ()
(interactive)
(if (looking-back "^") ;; point is at bol
(,original-tab-function)
(move-end-of-line nil)))))
(add-to-list 'my-major-mode-tab-function-alist
(cons ',major-mode new-tab-function))
new-tab-function))))
(add-hook
'java-mode-hook
(lambda () (local-set-key (kbd "TAB") (make-my-tab-function)))
t) ;; Append, so that we run after the other hooks.
This page of Emacs Wiki lists several packages (smarttab, etc.) which make TAB do different things depending on the context. You can probably modify one of them to do what you want.

How to archive all the DONE tasks using a single command

To archive the DONE tasks i am using
C-c C-x a
command. The draw back is i have to manually move over the DONE tasks one by one and then archive it.
How to archive all the DONE tasks using a single command.
You can bulk archive (or refile/change todo etc) from within the Agenda view.
http://orgmode.org/manual/Agenda-commands.html#Agenda-commands
If you call Org-Agenda from within the buffer you want to archive you can temporarily restrict it to only that buffer and view only todo entries and filter for only DONE
C-c a < t
N r
Where N corresponds to the shortcut for your DONE state (with default states it would be 2)
Then you'd simply need to mark all the desired headlines and bulk archive
m (mark for bulk action)
B a (or B $ for arch->sibling)
Here's a corrected version of madalu's snippet. Note that this version also only operates on the current subtree (change 'tree back to 'file to operate over the entire file).
(defun org-archive-done-tasks ()
(interactive)
(org-map-entries
(lambda ()
(org-archive-subtree)
(setq org-map-continue-from (org-element-property :begin (org-element-at-point))))
"/DONE" 'tree))
You can write a function using org-map-entries:
(defun my-org-archive-done-tasks ()
(interactive)
(org-map-entries 'org-archive-subtree "/DONE" 'file))
Also from http://orgmode.org/manual/Moving-subtrees.html#Moving-subtrees
C-u C-c C-x C-s
Check if any direct children of the current headline could be moved to the archive. To do this, each subtree is checked for open TODO entries. If none are found, the command offers to move it to the archive location. If the cursor is not on a headline when this command is invoked, the level 1 trees will be checked.
There is now a command org-archive-all-done that is built into org-mode, and in org-archive.el.
If you want to do it in the source Org buffer (as opposed to in an Org agenda view), and if they are following each other, you can select all of them in a region, and apply a command (such as C-c C-t d).
Only setting needed:
;; Some commands act upon headlines in the active region.
(setq org-loop-over-headlines-in-active-region 'start-level)
I found the direct "org-map-entries" method in a couple of these answers to be a little "fragile" for some reason in situations with more varied nesting and TODOs at multiple levels.
This method - generating a list and then archiving in reverse (to avoid changes in positioning) seems to cover every use case I've thrown at it. Sharing it here for anyone else that runs into trouble.
Note the "TODO" string match on the last line needs to match how you have your TODOs defined exactly (for example in a vanilla case, the match may be: "TODO=\"DONE\"").
(defun org-archive-done-tasks ()
"Archive all tasks marked DONE in the file."
(interactive)
(mapc (lambda(entry)
(goto-char entry)
(org-archive-subtree))
(reverse (org-map-entries (lambda () (point)) "TODO=\"★ DONE\"" 'file))))
Based on Robert's Answer
(require 'org)
(require 'org-archive)
(add-hook 'org-mode-hook (lambda () (add-hook 'after-save-hook 'org-archive-all-done nil t)))

Emacs: highlighting TODO *only* in comments

This question is related to another one, Emacs :TODO indicator at left side. I recently came across a minor mode I like a lot called FixmeMode. It supports auto highlighting of TODO marks, and navigating between them. However, I think it makes more sense to recognize the "TODO" strings only in comments, rather than polluting the whole file. Is it possible?
Check out the library fic-mode.el, it has been verified in C++ and Emacs-Lisp.
It was written specifically to answer this question.
The installation is like any standard package:
(require 'fic-mode)
(add-hook 'c++-mode-hook 'turn-on-fic-mode)
Though Wei Hu did ask for an easy way to add it to multiple modes, so here goes:
(defun add-something-to-mode-hooks (mode-list something)
"helper function to add a callback to multiple hooks"
(dolist (mode mode-list)
(add-hook (intern (concat (symbol-name mode) "-mode-hook")) something)))
(add-something-to-mode-hooks '(c++ tcl emacs-lisp) 'turn-on-fic-mode)
It's possible but quite a bit trickier. Fixme mode uses font-lock to do its highlighting, so it works on an as-you-type basis to highlight the keywords. Font-lock hooks in at a very low level, basically running after every change is made to the buffer's contents. It is highly optimized, though, which allows it to appear instantaneous on modern computers.
The TODO indicator in the left fringe is static. Execute the function and all current TODO's are highlighted; change the buffer (adding or removing TODO's) does not change the fringe indicator; that's only changed when the function runs again.
Your approach would have to get into syntax tables, determining first when you're in a comment and then looking for the keywords. The tricky part comes in doing this interactively (i.e. as you type). You should be able to hook into the font-lock constructs to do this, but the function you provide to search for the comment syntax table and then for the keywords better be very efficient, as it will be run each and every time a buffer changes (though it will only run on the changed region, I think). You would want to stuff all of this in font-lock-syntactic-keywords rather than font-lock-keywords because the syntactic-keyword pass happens before the syntactic pass (which happens before the keyword pass), and you need to set TODO inside comments before comments themselves are set.
Sorry it's not a full working-code answer.....
Maybe this will help: there's a fn c-in-literal in
cc-mode, and a similar csharp-in-literal in csharp mode. The
return value is c if in a C-style comment, c++ if in a C++
style comment. You could add that to the code at
Emacs :TODO indicator at left side
to get what you want.
(defun annotate-todo ()
"put fringe marker on TODO: lines in the curent buffer"
(interactive)
(let (lit)
(save-excursion
(goto-char (point-min))
(while (re-search-forward "TODO:" nil t)
(progn
(setq lit (c-in-literal)) ;; or csharp-in-literal
(if (or (eq lit 'c) (eq lit 'c++))
(let ((overlay (make-overlay (- (point) 5) (point))))
(overlay-put overlay 'before-string
(propertize "A"
'display
'(left-fringe ;; right
horizontal-bar
better-fringes-important-bitmap))))))))))
https://github.com/tarsius/hl-todo seems to do exactly what you want. I just tried it and love it.