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Org-mode list of user-visible changes

Version 6.21

Details

Changes to some default values of variables:

Here are the new default values:

(setq org-return-follows-link t)

(setq org-use-fast-todo-selection t)

(setq org-yank-adjusted-subtrees nil)

(setq org-tags-column -77)

(setq org-agenda-sorting-strategy
     '((agenda time-up priority-down category-keep)
	(todo time-up priority-down category-keep)
	(tags time-up priority-down category-keep)
	(search category-keep)))

Final cleanup for Emacs 21.1 pretest

Version 6.20

Details

Support for simple TODO dependencies

John Wiegley's code for enforcing simple TODO dependencies has been integrated into Org-mode. Thanks John!

The structure of Org files (hierarchy and lists) makes it easy to define TODO dependencies. A parent TODO task should not be marked DONE until all subtasks (defined as children tasks) are marked as DONE. And sometimes there is a logical sequence to a number of (sub)tasks, so that one task cannot be acted upon before all siblings above it are done. If you customize the variable org-enforce-todo-dependencies, Org will block entries from changing state while they have children that are not DONE. Furthermore, if an entry has a property ORDERED, each of its children will be blocked until all earlier siblings are marked DONE. Here is an example:

* TODO Blocked until (two) is done
** DONE one
** TODO two

* Parent
,  :PROPERTIES:
,    :ORDERED: t
,  :END:
** TODO a
** TODO b, needs to wait for (a)
** TODO c, needs to wait for (a) and (b)

The command C-c C-x o toggles the value of the ORDERED property.

The variable org-agenda-dim-blocked-tasks controls how blocked entries should appear in the agenda, where they can be dimmed or even made invisible.

Furthermore, you can use the variable org-enforce-todo-checkbox-dependencies to block TODO entries from switching to DONE while any checkboxes are unchecked in the entry.

Support for shift-selection in Emacs 23

Customize the variable org-support-shift-select to use S-cursor key for selecting text. Make sure that you carefully read the docstring of that variable first.

Adding and removing checkboxes from many lines

The command C-c C-x C-b normally toggles checkbox status in the current line, or in all lines in the region. With prefix argument it now either adds or removes the checkbox.

This was a requested by Daniel Clemente.

Version 6.19

Overview

  • Improved behavior of conversion commands C-c - and C-c *
  • Table formulas may now reference fields in other tables
  • A final hline is imagined in each table, for the sake of references
  • A tags-todo search can now ignore timestamped items
  • \par can be used to force a paragraph break, also in footnotes

Details

Improved behavior of conversion commands C-c - and C-c *

The conversion commands C-c - and C-c * are now better behaved and therefore more useful, I hope.

If there is an active region, these commands will act on the region, otherwise on the current line.

C-c -
This command turns headings or normal lines into items, or items into normal lines. When there is a region, everything depends on the first line of the region:

  • if it is a item, turn all items in the region into normal lines.

    • if it is a headline, turn all headlines in the region

    into items.

  • if it is a normal line, turn all lines into items.

  • special case: if there is no active region and the current line is an item, cycle the bullet type of the current list.

    C-c *
    This command turns items and normal lines into headings, or headings into normal lines. When there is a region, everything depends on the first line of the region:

  • if it is a item, turn all items in the region into headlines.

    • if it is a headline, turn all headlines in the region

    into normal lines.

  • if it is a normal line, turn all lines into headlines.

Table formulas may now reference fields in other tables

You may now reference constants, fields and ranges from a different table, either in the current file or even in a different file. The syntax is

remote(NAME-OR-ID,REF)

where NAME can be the name of a table in the current file as set by a #+TBLNAME: NAME line before the table. It can also be the ID of an entry, even in a different file, and the reference then refers to the first table in that entry. REF is an absolute field or range reference, valid in the referenced table. Note that since there is no "current filed" for the remote table, all row and column references must be absolute, not relative.

A final hline is imagined in each table, for the sake of references

Even if a table does not end with a hline (mine never do because I think it is not pretty), for the sake of references you can assume there is one. So in the following table

| a | b |
|---+---|
| 1 | 2 |
| 3 | 4 |

a reference like @I$1..@II$2 will now work.

A tags-todo search can now ignore timestamped items

The variables org-agenda-todo-ignore-with-date, org-agenda-todo-ignore-with-date, and org-agenda-todo-ignore-with-date make it possible to exclude TODO entries which have this kind of planning info associated with them. This is most useful for people who schedule everything, and who use the TODO list mainly to find things that are not yet scheduled. Thomas Morgan pointed out that also the tags-todo search may serve exactly this purpose, and that it might be good to have a way to make these variables also apply to the tags-todo search. I can see that, but could not convince myself to make this the default. A new variable must be set to make this happen: org-agenda-tags-todo-honor-ignore-options.

\par can be used to force a paragraph break, also in footnotes

The LaTeX idiom \par will insert a paragraph break at that location. Normally you would simply leave an empty line to get such a break, but this is useful for footnotes whose definitions may not contain empty lines.

Version 6.18

Incompatible changes

Short examples must have a space after the colon

Short literal examples can be created by preceding lines with a colon. Such lines must now have a space after the colon. I believe this is already general practice, but now it must be like this. The only exception are lines what are empty except for the colon.

Details

Include files can now also process switches

The example and src switches like -n can now also be added to include file statements:

#+INCLUDE "~/.emacs" src emacs-lisp -n -r

Thanks to Manish for pointing out that this was not yet supported.

Examples can be exported to HTML as text areas

You can now specify a -t switch to an example or src block, to make it export to HTML as a text area. To change the defaults for height (number of lines in the example) and width of this area (80), use the -h and -w switches.

Thanks to Ulf Stegemann for driving this development.

LaTeX_CLASS can be given as a property

When exporting a single subtree by selecting it as a region before export, the LaTeX class for the export will be taken from the LaTeX_CLASS property of the entry if present.

Thanks to Robert Goldman for this request.

Better handling of inlined images in different backends

Two new variables govern which kind of files can be inlined during export. These are org-export-html-inline-image-extensions and org-export-latex-inline-image-extensions. Remember that links are turned into an inline image if they are a pure link with no description. HTML files can inline .png, .jpg, and .gif files, while LaTeX files, when processed with pdflatex, can inline .png, .jpg, and .pdf files. These also represent the default settings for the new variables. Note that this means that pure links to .pdf files will be inlined - to avoid this for a particular link, make sure that the link has a description part which is not equal to the link part.

Links by ID now continue to work in HTML exported files

If you make links by ID, these links will now still work in HTML exported files, provided that you keep the relative path from link to target file the same.

Thanks to Friedrich Delgado Friedrichs for pushing this over the line.

The relative timer can be paused

The new command `C-c C-x ,' will pause the relative timer. When the relative timer is running, its value will be shown in the mode line. To get rid of this display, you need to really stop the timer with `C-u C-c C-x ,'.

Thanks to Alan Davis for driving this change.

The attachment directory may now be chosen by the user

Instead of using the automatic, unique directory related to the entry ID, you can also use a chosen directory for the attachments of an entry. This directory is specified by the ATTACH_DIR property. You can use `C-c C-a s' to set this property.

Thanks to Jason Jackson for this proposal.

You can use a single attachment directory for a subtree

By setting the property ATTACH_DIR_INHERIT, you can now tell Org that children of the entry should use the same directory for attachments, unless a child explicitly defines its own directory with the ATTACH_DIR property. You can use the command `C-c C-a i' to set this property in an entry.

Version 6.17

Overview

  • Footnote support
  • Line numbers and references in literal examples
  • New hooks for export preprocessing
  • Capture column view into a different file

Details

Footnote support

Org-mode now directly supports the creation of footnotes. In contrast to the footnote.el package, Org-mode's footnotes are designed for work on a larger document, not only for one-off documents like emails. The basic syntax is similar to the one used by footnote.el, i.e. a footnote is defined in a paragraph that is started by a footnote marker in square brackets in column 0, no indentation allowed. The footnote reference is simply the marker in square brackets inside text. For example:

The Org homepage[fn:1] now looks a lot better than it used to.
...
[fn:1] The link is: http://orgmode.org

Org-mode extends the number-based syntax to named footnotes and optional inline definition. Using plain numbers as markers is supported for backward compatibility, but not encouraged because of possible conflicts with LaTeX syntax. Here are the valid references:

[1]
A plain numeric footnote marker.
A named footnote reference, where `name' is a unique label word or, for simplicity of automatic creation, a number.
A LaTeX-like anonymous footnote where the definition is given directly at the reference point.
An inline definition of a footnote, which also specifies a name for the note. Since Org allows multiple references to the same note, you can then use use `' to create additional references.

Footnote labels can be created automatically, or you create names yourself. This is handled by the variable org-footnote-auto-label and its corresponding #+STARTUP keywords, see the docstring of that variable for details.

The following command handles footnotes:

C-c C-x f

The footnote action command. When the cursor is on a footnote reference, jump to the definition. When it is at a definition, jump to the (first) reference. Otherwise, create a new footnote. Depending on the variable `org-footnote-define-inline' (with associated #+STARTUP options fninline and nofninline), the definitions will be placed right into the text as part of the reference, or separately into the location determined by the variable org-footnote-section. When this command is called with a prefix argument, a menu of additional options is offered:

s
Sort the footnote definitions by reference sequence. During editing, Org makes no effort to sort footnote definitions into a particular sequence. If you want them sorted, use this command, which will also move entries according to org-footnote-section.
n
Normalize the footnotes by collecting all definitions (including inline definitions) into a special section, and then numbering them in sequence. The references will then also be numbers. This is meant to be the final step before finishing a document (e.g. sending off an email). The exporters do this automatically, and so could something like `message-send-hook'.
d
Delete the footnote at point, and all references to it.
C-c C-c
If the cursor is on a footnote reference, jump to the definition. If it is a the definition, jump back to the reference. When called with a prefix argument at either location, offer the same menu as `C-u C-c C-x f'.
C-c C-o or mouse-1/2
Footnote labels are also links to the corresponding definition/reference, and you can use the usual commands to follow these links.

Org-mode's footnote support is designed so that it should also work in buffers that are not in Org-mode, for example in email messages. Just bind org-footnote-action to a global key like C-c f.

The main trigger for this development came from a hook function written by Paul Rivier, to implement named footnotes and to convert them to numbered ones before export. Thanks, Paul!

Thanks also to Scot Becker for a thoughtful post bringing this subject back onto the discussion table, and to Matt Lundin for the idea of named footnotes and his prompt testing of the new features.

Line numbers and references in literal examples

Literal examples introduced with #+BEGIN_EXAMPLE or #+BEGIN_SRC do now allow optional line numbering in the example. Furthermore, links to specific code lines are supported, greatly increasing Org-mode's utility for writing tutorials and other similar documents.

Code references use special labels embedded directly into the source code. Such labels look like "(ref:name)" and must be unique within a document. Org-mode links with "(name)" in the link part will be correctly interpreted, both while working with an Org file (internal links), and while exporting to the different backends. Line numbering and code references are supported for all three major backends, HTML, LaTeX, and ASCII. In the HTML backend, hovering the mouse over a link to a source line will remote-highlight the referenced code line.

The options for the BEGIN lines are:

-n
Number the lines in the example
+n
Like -n, but continue numbering from where the previous example left off.
-r
Remove the coderef cookies from the example, and replace links to this reference with line numbers. This option takes only effect if either -n or +n are given as well. If -r is not given, coderefs simply use the label name.
-l "fmt"
Define a local format for coderef labels, see the variable org-coderef-label-format for details. Use this of the default syntax causes conflicts with the code in the code snippet you are using.

Here is an example:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp -n -r
(defmacro org-unmodified (&rest body)                   (ref:def)
  "Execute body without changing `buffer-modified-p'."
  `(set-buffer-modified-p                              (ref:back)
    (prog1 (buffer-modified-p) ,@body)))
#+end_src
[[(def)][Line (def)]] contains the macro name.  Later at line [[(back)]],
backquoting is used.

When exported, this is translated to:

(defmacro org-unmodified (&rest body)                   (ref:def)
  "Execute body without changing `buffer-modified-p'."
  `(set-buffer-modified-p                              (ref:back)
    (prog1 (buffer-modified-p) ,@body)))

Line (def) contains the macro name. Later at line /ndwarshuis/org-mode/src/commit/56692965b707fc2d544e432311a81e2bda46f930/ORGWEBPAGE/(back), backquoting is used.

Thanks to Ilya Shlyakhter for proposing this feature set. Thanks to Sebastian Rose for the key Javascript element that made the remote highlighting possible.

New hooks for export preprocessing

The export preprocessor now runs more hooks, to allow better-timed tweaking by user functions:

org-export-preprocess-hook
Pretty much the first thing in the preprocessor. But org-mode is already active in the preprocessing buffer.
org-export-preprocess-after-include-files-hook
This is run after the contents of included files have been inserted.
org-export-preprocess-after-tree-selection-hook
This is run after selection of trees to be exported has happened. This selection includes tags-based selection, as well as removal of commented and archived trees.
org-export-preprocess-before-backend-specifics-hook
Hook run before backend-specific functions are called during preprocessing.
org-export-preprocess-final-hook
Hook for preprocessing an export buffer. This is run as the last thing in the preprocessing buffer, just before returning the buffer string to the backend.

Capture column view into a different file

The :id parameter for the dynamic block capturing column view can now truly be an ID that will also be found in a different file. Also, it can be like file:path/to/file, to capture the global column view from a different file.

Thanks to Francois Lagarde for his report that IDs outside the current file would not work.

Version 6.16

Cleanup of many small bugs, and one new feature.

Details

References to last table row with special names

Fields in the last row of a table can now be referenced with $LR1, $LR2, etc. These references can appear both on the left hand side and right hand side of a formula.

Version 6.15f

This version reverses the introduction of @0 as a reference to the last rwo in a table, because of a conflict with the use of @0 for the current row.

Version 6.15

Overview

  • All known LaTeX export issues fixed
  • Captions and attributes for figures and tables.
  • Better implementation for entry IDs
  • Spreadsheet references to the last table line.
  • Old syntax for link attributes abandoned

Incompatible changes

Old syntax for link attributes abandoned

There used to be a syntax for setting link attributes for HTML export by enclosing the attributes into double braces and adding them to the link itself, like

[[./img/a.jpg{{alt="an image"}}] ]

This syntax is not longer supported, use instead

#+ATTR_HTML: alt="an image"
[[./img/a.jpg] ]

Details

All known LaTeX export issues fixed

All the remaining issues with the LaTeX exporter have hopefully been addressed in this release. In particular, this covers quoting of special characters in tables and problems with exporting files where the headline is in the first line, or with an active region.

Captions and attributes for figures and tables.

Tables, and Hyperlinks that represent inlined images, can now be equipped with additional information that will be used during export. The information will be taken from the following special lines in the buffer and apply to the first following table or link.

#+CAPTION:
The caption of the image or table. This string should be processed according to the export backend, but this is not yet done.
#+LABEL:
A label to identify the figure/table for cross references. For HTML export, this string will become the ID for the <div class="figure"> element that encapsulates the image tag and the caption. For LaTeX export, this string will be used as the argument of a \label{...} macro. These labels will be available for internal links like [[label][Table] ].
#+ATTR_HTML:
Attributes for HTML export of image, to be added as attributes into the <img...> tag. This string will not be processed, so it should have immediately the right format.
#+ATTR_LaTeX:
Attributes for LaTeX export of images and tables.
For images, this string is directly inserted into the optional argument of the \includegraphics[...]{file} command, to specify scaling, clipping and other options. This string will not be processed, so it should have immediately the right format, like width=5cm,angle=90.
For tables, this can currently contain the keyword longtable, to request typesetting of the table using the longtable package, which automatically distributes the table over several pages if needed. Also, the attributes line may contain an alignment string for the tabular environment, like longtable,align=l|lrl

For LaTeX export, if either a caption or a label is given, the element will be exported as a float, i.e. wrapped into a figure or table environment.

Better implementation for entry IDs

Unique identifiers for entries can now be used more efficiently. Internally, a hash array has replaced the alist used so far to keep track of the files in which an ID is defined. This makes it quite fast to find an entry by ID.

There is a new link type which looks like this:

id:GLOBALLY-UNIQUE-IDENTIFIER

This link points to a specific entry. When you move the entry to a different file, for example if you move it to an archive file, the link will continue to work.

The file org-id.el contains an API that can be used to write code using these identifiers, including creating IDs and finding them wherever they are.

Org has its own method to create unique identifiers, but if the system has uuidgen command installed (Mac's and Linux systems generally do), it will be used by default (a change compared to the earlier implmentation, where you explicitdly had to opt for uuidgen). You can also select the method by hand, using the variable org-id-method.

If the ID system ever gets confused about where a certain ID is, it initiates a global scan of all agenda files with associated archives, all files previously known containing any IDs, and all currently visited Org-mode files to rebuild the hash. You can also initiate this by hand: M-x org-id-update-id-locations. Running this command will also dump into the *Messages* buffer information about any duplicate IDs. These should not exist, and Org will never make the same ID twice, but if you copy an entry with its properties, duplicate IDs will inevitably be produced. Unfortunately, this is unavoidable in a plain text system that allows you to edit the text in arbitrary ways, and a portion of care on your side is needed to keep this system clean.

The hash is stored in the file ~/.emacs.d/.org-id-locations. This is also a change from previous versions where the file was ~/.org=id-locations. Therefore, you can remove this old file if you have it. I am not sure what will happen if the .emacs.d directory does not exists in your setup, but in modern Emacsen, I believe it should exist. If you do not want to use IDs across files, you can avoid the overhead with tracking IDs by customizing the variable org-id-track-globally. IDs can then still be used for links inside a single file.

IDs will also be used when you create a new link to an Org-mode buffer. If you use org-store-link (normally at C-c l) inside en entry in an Org-mode buffer, and ID property will be created if it does not exist, and the stored link will be an id: link. If you prefer the much less secure linking to headline text, you can configure the variable org-link-to-org-use-id. The default setting for this variable is create-if-interactive, meaning that an ID will be created when you store a link interactively, but not if you happen to be in an Org-mode file while you create a remember note (which usually has a link to the place where you were when starting remember).

Spreadsheet references to the last table line.

You may now use @0 to reference the last dataline in a table in a stable way. This is useful in particular for automatically generated tables like the ones using org-collector.el by Eric Schulte.

Version 6.14

Overview

  • New relative timer to support timed notes
  • Special faces can be set for individual tags
  • The agenda shows now all tags, including inherited ones.
  • Exclude some tags from inheritance.
  • More special values for time comparisons in property searches
  • Control for exporting meta data
  • Cut and Paste with hot links from w3m to Org
  • LOCATION can be inherited for iCalendar export
  • Relative row references crossing hlines now throw an error

Incompatible Changes

Relative row references crossing hlines now throw an error

Relative row references in tables look like this: "@-4" which means the forth row above this one. These row references are not allowed to cross horizontal separator lines (hlines). So far, when a row reference violates this policy, Org would silently choose the field just next to the hline.

Tassilo Horn pointed out that this kind of hidden magic is actually confusing and may cause incorrect formulas, and I do agree. Therefore, trying to cross a hline with a relative reference will now throw an error.

If you need the old behavior, customize the variable `org-table-error-on-row-ref-crossing-hline'.

Details

New relative timer to support timed notes

Org now supports taking timed notes, useful for example while watching a video, or during a meeting which is also recorded.

C-c C-x .
Insert a relative time into the buffer. The first time you use this, the timer will be started. When called with a prefix argument, the timer is reset to 0.
C-c C-x -
Insert a description list item with the current relative time. With a prefix argument, first reset the timer to 0.
M-RET
Once the time list has been initiated, you can also use the normal item-creating command to insert the next timer item.
C-c C-x 0
Reset the timer without inserting anything into the buffer. By default, the timer is reset to 0. When called with a C-u prefix, reset the timer to specific starting offset. The user is prompted for the offset, with a default taken from a timer string at point, if any, So this can be used to restart taking notes after a break in the process. When called with a double prefix argument C-c C-u, change all timer strings in the active region by a certain amount. This can be used to fix timer strings if the timer was not started at exactly the right moment.

Thanks to Alan Dove, Adam Spiers, and Alan Davis for contributions to this idea.

Special faces can be set for individual tags

You may now use the variable org-tag-faces to define the face used for specific tags, much in the same way as you can do for TODO keywords.

Thanks to Samuel Wales for this proposal.

The agenda shows now all tags, including inherited ones.

This request has come up often, most recently it was formulated by Tassilo Horn.

If you prefer the old behavior of only showing the local tags, customize the variable org-agenda-show-inherited-tags.

Exclude some tags from inheritance.

So far, the only way to select tags for inheritance was to allow it for all tags, or to do a positive selection using one of the more complex settings for `org-use-tag-inheritance'. It may actually be better to allow inheritance for all but a few tags, which was difficult to achieve with this methodology.

A new option, `org-tags-exclude-from-inheritance', allows to specify an exclusion list for inherited tags.

More special values for time comparisons in property searches

In addition to <now>, <today>, <yesterday>, and <tomorrow>, there are more special values accepted now in time comparisons in property searches: You may use strings like <+3d> or <-2w>, with units d, w, m, and y for day, week, month, and year, respectively

Thanks to Linday Todd for this proposal.

Control for exporting meta data

All the metadata in a headline, i.e. the TODO keyword, the priority cookie, and the tags, can now be excluded from export with appropriate options:

Variable Publishing property OPTIONS switch
org-export-with-todo-keywords :todo-keywords todo:
org-export-with-tags :tags tags:
org-export-with-priority :priority pri:

Cut and Paste with hot links from w3m to Org

You can now use the key C-c C-x M-w in a w3m buffer with HTML content to copy either the region or the entire file in a special way. When you yank this text back into an Org-mode buffer, all links from the w3m buffer will continue to work under Org-mode.

For this to work you need to load the new file org-w3m.el. Please check your org-modules variable to make sure that this is turned on.

Thanks for Richard Riley for the idea and to Andy Stewart for the implementation.

LOCATION can be inherited for iCalendar export

The LOCATION property can now be inherited during iCalendar export if you configure org-use-property-inheritance like this:

(setq org-use-property-inheritance '("LOCATION"))

Version 6.13

Overview

  • Keybindings in Remember buffers can be configured
  • Support for ido completion
  • New face for date lines in agenda column view
  • Invisible targets become now anchors in headlines.
  • New contributed file org-exp-blocks.el
  • New contributed file org-eval-light.el
  • Link translation
  • BBDB links may use regular expressions.
  • Link abbreviations can use %h to insert a url-encoded target value
  • Improved XHTML compliance

Details

Keybindings in Remember buffers can be configured

The remember buffers created with Org's extensions are in Org-mode, which is nice to prepare snippets that will actually be stored in Org-mode files. However, this makes it hard to configure key bindings without modifying the Org-mode keymap. There is now a minor mode active in these buffers, `org-remember-mode', and its keymap org-remember-mode-map can be used for key bindings. By default, this map only contains the bindings for C-c C-c to store the note, and C-c C-k to abort it. Use `org-remember-mode-hook' to define your own bindings like

(add-hook
 'org-remember-mode-hook
 (lambda ()
   (define-key org-remember-mode-map
     "\C-x\C-s" 'org-remember-finalize)))

If you wish, you can also use this to free the C-c C-c binding (by binding this key to nil in the minor mode map), so that you can use C-c C-c again to set tags.

This modification is based on a request by Tim O'Callaghan.

Support for ido completion

You can now get the completion interface from ido.el for many of Org's internal completion commands by turning on the variable org-completion-use-ido. ido-mode must also be active before you can use this.

This change is based upon a request by Samuel Wales.

New face for date lines in agenda column view

When column view is active in the agenda, and when you have summarizing properties, the date lines become normal column lines and the separation between different days becomes harder to see. If this bothers you, you can now customize the face org-agenda-column-dateline.

This is based on a request by George Pearson.

Invisible targets become now anchors in headlines.

These anchors can be used to jump to a directly with an HTML link, just like the sec-xxx IDs. For example, the following will make a http link //domain/path-to-my-file.html#dummy work:

,# <<dummy>>
*** a headline

This is based on a request by Matt Lundin.

New contributed file org-exp-blocks.el

This new file implements special export behavior of user-defined blocks. The currently supported blocks are

comment
Comment blocks with author-specific markup
ditaa
conversion of ASCII art into pretty png files

using Stathis Sideris' ditaa.jar program

dot
creation of graphs in the dot language
R
Sweave type exporting using the R program

For more details and examples, see the file commentary in org-exp-blocks.el.

Kudos to Eric Schulte for this new functionality, after org-plot.el already his second major contribution. Thanks to Stathis for this excellent program, and for allowing us to bundle it with Org-mode.

New contributed file org-eval-light.el

This module gives control over execution Emacs Lisp code blocks included in a file.

Thanks to Eric Schulte also for this file.

Link translation

You can now configure Org to understand many links created with the Emacs Planner package, so you can cut text from planner pages and paste them into Org-mode files without having to re-write the links. Among other things, this means that the command org-open-at-point-global which follows links not only in Org-mode, but in arbitrary files like source code files etc, will work also with links created by planner. The following customization is needed to make all of this work

(setq org-link-translation-function
      'org-translate-link-from-planner)

I guess an inverse translator could be written and integrated into Planner.

BBDB links may use regular expressions.

This did work all along, but only now I have documented it.

yank-pop works again after yanking an outline tree

Samuel Wales had noticed that org-yank did mess up this functionality. Now you can use yank-pop again, the only restriction is that the so-yanked text will not be pro/demoted or folded.

Link abbreviations can use %h to insert a url-encoded target value

Thanks to Steve Purcell for a patch to this effect.

Improved XHTML compliance

Thanks to Sebastian Rose for pushing this.

Many bug fixes again.

Version 6.12

Overview

  • A region of entries can now be refiled with a single command
  • Fine-tuning the behavior of `org-yank'
  • Formulas for clocktables
  • Better implementation of footnotes for HTML export
  • More languages for HTML export.

Details

A region of entries can now be refiled with a single command

With transient-make-mode active (zmacs-regions under XEmacs), you can now select a region of entries and refile them all with a single C-c C-w command.

Thanks to Samuel Wales for this useful proposal.

Fine-tuning the behavior of org-yank

The behavior of Org's yanking command has been further fine-tuned in order to avoid some of the small annoyances this command caused.

  • Calling org-yank with a prefix arg will stop any special treatment and directly pass through to the normal yank command. Therefore, you can now force a normal yank with C-u C-y.
  • Subtrees will only be folded after a yank if doing so will now swallow any non-white characters after the yanked text. This is, I think a really important change to make the command work more sanely.

Formulas for clocktables

You can now add formulas to a clock table, either by hand, or with a :formula parameter. These formulas can be used to create additional columns with further analysis of the measured times.

Thanks to Jurgen Defurne for triggering this addition.

Better implementation of footnotes for HTML export

The footnote export in 6.11 really was not good enough. Now it works fine. If you have customized footnote-section-tag, make sure that your customization is matched by footnote-section-tag-regexp.

Thanks to Sebastian Rose for pushing this change.

More languages for HTML export.

More languages are supported during HTML export. This is only relevant for the few special words Org inserts, like "Table of Contents", or "Footnotes". Also the encoding issues with this feature seem to be solved now.

Thanks to Sebastian Rose for pushing me to fix the encoding problems.

Version 6.11

Overview

  • Yanking subtree with C-y now adjusts the tree level
  • State changes can now be shown in the log mode in the agenda
  • Footnote in HTML export are now collected at the end of the document
  • HTML export now validates again as XHTML
  • The clock can now be resumed after exiting and re-starting Emacs
  • Clock-related data can be saved and resumed across Emacs sessions
  • Following file links can now use C-u C-u to force use of an external app
  • Inserting absolute files names now abbreviates links with "~"
  • Links to attachment files
  • Completed repeated tasks listed briefly in agenda
  • Remove buffers created during publishing are removed

Details

Yanking subtree with C-y now adjusts the tree level

When yanking a cut/copied subtree or a series of trees, the normal yank key C-y now adjusts the level of the tree to make it fit into the current outline position, without losing its identity, and without swallowing other subtrees.

This uses the command org-past-subtree. An additional change in that command has been implemented: Normally, this command picks the right outline level from the surrounding visible headlines, and uses the smaller one. So if the cursor is between a level 4 and a level 3 headline, the tree will be pasted as level 3. If the cursor is actually at the beginning of a headline, the level of that headline will be used. For example, lets say you have a tree like this:

* Level one
** Level two
,(1)
,(2)* Level one again

with (1) and (2) indicating possible cursor positions for the insertion. When at (1), the tree will be pasted as level 2. When at (2), it will be pasted as level 1.

If you do not want C-y to behave like this, configure the variable org-yank-adjusted-subtrees.

Thanks to Samuel Wales for this idea and a partial implementation.

State changes can now be shown in the log mode in the agenda

If you configure the variable org-agenda-log-mode-items, you can now request that all logged state changes be included in the agenda when log mode is active. If you find this too much for normal applications, you can also temporarily request the inclusion of state changes by pressing C-u l in the agenda.

This was a request by Hsiu-Khuern Tang.

You can also press `C-u C-u l' to get only log items in the agenda, withour any timestamps/deadlines etc.

Footnote in HTML export are now collected at the end of the document

Previously, footnotes would be left in the document where they are defined, now they are all collected and put into a special <div> at the end of the document.

Thanks to Sebastian Rose for this request.

HTML export now validates again as XHTML.

Thanks to Sebastian Rose for pushing this cleanup.

The clock can now be resumed after exiting and re-starting Emacs

If the option org-clock-in-resume is t, and the first clock line in an entry is unclosed, clocking into that task resumes the clock from that time.

Thanks to James TD Smith for a patch to this effect.

Clock-related data can be saved and resumed across Emacs sessions

The data saved include the contents of org-clock-history, and the running clock, if there is one.

To use this, you will need to add to your .emacs

(setq org-clock-persist t)
(setq org-clock-in-resume t)
(org-clock-persistence-insinuate)

Thanks to James TD Smith for a patch to this effect.

Following file links can now use C-u C-u to force use of an external app.

So far you could only bypass your setup in `org-file-apps' and force opening a file link in Emacs by using a C-u prefix arg with C-c C-o. Now you can call C-u C-u C-c C-o to force an external application. Which external application depends on your system. On Mac OS X and Windows, open is used. On a GNU/Linux system, the mailcap settings are used.

This was a proposal by Samuel Wales.

Inserting absolute files names now abbreviates links with "~".

Inserting file links with C-u C-c C-l was buggy if the setting of `org-link-file-path-type' was `adaptive' (the default). Absolute file paths were not abbreviated relative to the users home directory. This bug has been fixed.

Thanks to Matt Lundin for the report.

Links to attachment files

Even though one of the purposes of entry attachments was to reduce the number of links in an entry, one might still want to have the occasional link to one of those files. You can now use link abbreviations to set up a special link type that points to attachments in the current entry. Note that such links will only work from within the same entry that has the attachment, because the directory path is entry specific. Here is the setup you need:

(setq org-link-abbrev-alist '(("att" . org-attach-expand-link)))

After this, a link like this will work

     [[att:some-attached-file.txt]]

This was a proposal by Lindsay Todd.

Completed repeated tasks listed briefly in agenda

When a repeating task, listed in the daily/weekly agenda under today's date, is completed from the agenda, it is listed as DONE in the agenda until the next update happens. After the next update, the task will have disappeared, of course, because the new date is no longer today.

Remove buffers created during publishing are removed

Buffers that are created during publishing are now deleted when the publishing is over. At least I hope it works like this.

Version 6.10

Overview

  • Secondary agenda filtering is becoming a killer feature
  • Setting tags has now its own binding, C-c C-q
  • Todo state changes can trigger tag changes
  • C-RET will now always insert a new headline, never an item.
  • Customize org-mouse.el feature set to free up mouse events
  • New commands for export all the way to PDF (through LaTeX)
  • Some bug fixed for LaTeX export, more bugs remain.

Details

Enhancements to secondary agenda filtering

This is, I believe, becoming a killer feature. It allows you to define fewer and more general custom agenda commands, and then to do the final narrowing to specific tasks you are looking for very quickly, much faster than calling a new agenda command.

If you have not tries this yet, you should!

You can now refining the current filter by an additional criterion

When filtering an existing agenda view with /, you can now narrow down the existing selection by an additional condition. Do do this, use \ instead of / to add the additional criterion. You can also press + or - after / to add a positive or negative condition. A condition can be a TAG, or an effort estimate limit, see below.

It is now possible to filter for effort estimates

This means to filter the agenda for the value of the Effort property. For this you should best set up global allowed values for effort estimates, with

(setq org-global-properties
      '(("Effort_ALL" . "0 0:10 0:30 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00")))

You may then select effort limits with single keys in the filter. It works like this: After / or \, first select the operator which you want to use to compare effort estimates:

<   Select entries with effort smaller than or equal to the limit
>   Select entries with effort larger than or equal to the limit
=   Select entries with effort equal to the limit

After that, you can press a single digit number which is used as an index to the allowed effort estimates.

If you do not use digits to fast-select tags, you can even skip the operator, which will then default to `org-agenda-filter-effort-default-operator', which is by default <.

Thanks to Manish for the great idea to include fast effort filtering into the agenda filtering process.

The mode line will show the active filter

For example, if there is a filter in place that does select for HOME tags, against EMAIL tags, and for tasks with an estimated effort smaller than 30 minutes, the mode-line with show +HOME-EMAIL+<0:30

The filter now persists when the agenda view is refreshed

All normal refresh commands, including those that move the weekly agenda from one week to the next, now keep the current filter in place.

You need to press / / to turn off the filter. However, when you run a new agenda command, for example going from the weekly agenda to the TODO list, the filter will be switched off.

Setting tags has now its own binding, C-c C-q

You can still use C-c C-c on a headline, but the new binding should be considered as the main binding for this command. The reasons for this change are:

  • Using C-c C-c for tags is really out of line with other uses of C-c C-c.
  • I hate it in Remember buffers when I try to set tags and I cannot, because C-c C-c exits the buffer :-(
  • C-c C-q will also work when the cursor is somewhere down in the entry, it does not have to be on the headline.

Todo state changes can trigger tag changes

The new option org-todo-state-tags-triggers can be used to define automatic changes to tags when a TODO state changes. For example, the setting

(setq org-todo-state-tags-triggers
      '((done ("Today" . nil) ("NEXT" . nil))
        ("WAITING" ("Today" . t))))

will make sure that any change to any of the DONE states will remove tags "Today" and "NEXT", while switching to the "WAITING" state will trigger the tag "Today" to be added.

I use this mostly to get rid of TODAY and NEXT tags which I apply to select an entry for execution in the near future, which I often prefer to specific time scheduling.

C-RET will now always insert a new headline, never an item.

The new headline is inserted after the current subtree.

Thanks to Peter Jones for patches to fine-tune this behavior.

Customize org-mouse.el feature set

There is a new variable org-mouse-features which gives you some control about what features of org-mouse you want to use. Turning off some of the feature will free up the corresponding mouse events, or will avoid activating special regions for mouse clicks. By default I have urned off the feature to use drag mouse events to move or promote/demote entries. You can of course turn them back on if you wish.

This variable may still change in the future, allowing more fine-grained control.

New commands for export to PDF

This is using LaTeX export, and then processes it to PDF using pdflatex.

C-c C-e p     process to PDF.
C-c C-e d     process to PDF, and open the file.

LaTeX export

  • \usepackage{graphicx} is now part of the standard class definitions.
  • Several bugs fixed, but definitely not all of them :-(

New option `org-log-state-notes-insert-after-drawers'

Set this to t if you want state change notes to be inserted after any initial drawers, i.e drawers the immediately follow the headline and the planning line (the one with DEADLINE/SCHEDULED/CLOSED information).

Version 6.09

Incompatible

org-file-apps now uses regular expressions, see below

Details

org-file-apps now uses regular repressions instead of extensions

Just like in auto-mode-alist, car's in the variable org-file-apps that are strings are now interpreted as regular expressions that are matched against a file name. So instead of "txt", you should now write "\\.txt\\'" to make sure the matching is done correctly (even though "txt" will be recognized and still be interpreted as an extension).

There is now a shortcut to get many file types visited by Emacs. If org-file-apps contains `(auto-mode . emacs)', then any files that are matched by `auto-mode-alist' will be visited in emacs.

Changes to the attachment system

  • The default method to attach a file is now to copy it instead of moving it.
  • You can modify the default method using the variable `org-attach-method'. I believe that most Unix people want to set it to `ln' to create hard links.
  • The keys c, m, and l specifically select copy, move, or link, respectively, as the attachment method for a file, overruling `org-attach-method'.
  • To create a new attachment as an Emacs buffer, you have not now use n instead of c.
  • The file list is now always retrieved from the directory itself, not from the "Attachments" property. We still keep this property by default, but you can turn it off, by customizing the variable org-attach-file-list-property.

Version 6.08

Incompatible changes

  • Changes in the structure of IDs, see here for details.
  • C-c C-a has been redefined, see here for details.

Details

The default structure of IDs has changed

IDs created by Org have changed a bit:

  • By default, there is no prefix on the ID. There used to be an "Org" prefix, but I now think this is not necessary.
  • IDs use only lower-case letters, no upper-case letters anymore. The reason for this is that IDs are now also used as directory names for org-attach, and some systems do not distinguish upper and lower case in the file system.
  • The ID string derived from the current time is now reversed to become an ID. This assures that the first two letters of the ID change fast, so hat it makes sense to split them off to create subdirectories to balance load.
  • You can now set the `org-id-method' to `uuidgen' on systems which support it.

C-c C-a no longer calls `show-all'

The reason for this is that C-c C-a is now used for the attachment system. On the rare occasions that this command is needed, use M-x show-all, or C-u C-u C-u TAB.

New attachment system

You can now attach files to each node in the outline tree. This works by creating special directories based on the ID of an entry, and storing files in these directories. Org can keep track of changes to the attachments by automatically committing changes to git. See the manual for more information.

Thanks to John Wiegley who contributed this fantastic new concept and wrote org-attach.el to implement it.

New remember template escapes 

%^{prop}p   to insert a property
%k          the heading of the item currently being clocked
%K          a link to the heading of the item currently being clocked

Also, when you exit remember with C-2 C-c C-c, the item will be filed as a child of the item currently being clocked. So the idea is, if you are working on something and think of a new task related to this or a new note to be added, you can use this to quickly add information to that task.

Thanks to James TD Smith for a patch to this effect.

Clicking with mouse-2 on clock info in mode-line visits the clock.

Thanks to James TD Smith for a patch to this effect.

New file in contrib: lisp/org-checklist.el

This module deals with repeated tasks that have checkbox lists below them.

Thanks to James TD Smith for this contribution.

New in-buffer setting #+STYLE

It can be used to locally set the variable `org-export-html-style-extra'. Several such lines are allowed-, they will all be concatenated. For an example on how to use it, see the publishing tutorial.

Version 6.07

Overview

  • Filtering existing agenda views with respect to a tag
  • Editing fixed-width regions with picture or artist mode
  • org-plot.el is now part of Org
  • Tags can be used to select the export part of a document
  • Prefix interpretation when storing remember notes
  • Yanking inserts folded subtrees
  • Column view capture tables can have formulas, plotting info
  • In column view, date stamps can be changed with S-cursor keys
  • The note buffer for clocking out now mentions the task
  • Sorting entries alphabetically ignores TODO keyword and priority
  • Agenda views can sort entries by TODO state
  • New face org-scheduled for entries scheduled in the future.
  • Remember templates for gnus links can use the :to escape.
  • The file specification in a remember template may be a function
  • Categories in iCalendar export include local tags
  • It is possible to define filters for column view
  • Disabling integer increment during table Field copy
  • Capturing column view is on `C-c C-x i'
  • And tons of bugs fixed.

Incompatible changes

Prefix interpretation when storing remember notes has changed

The prefix argument to the `C-c C-c' command that finishes a remember process is now interpreted differently:

C-c C-c       Store the note to predefined file and headline
C-u C-c C-c   Like C-c C-c, but immediately visit the note
              in its new location.
C-1 C-c C-c   Select the storage location interactively
C-0 C-c C-c   Re-use the last used location

This was requested by John Wiegley.

Capturing column view is now on `C-c C-x i'

The reason for this change was that `C-c C-x r' is also used as a tty key replacement.

Categories in iCalendar export now include local tags

The locally defined tags are now listed as categories when exporting to iCalendar format. Org's traditional file/tree category is now the last category in this list. Configure the variable org-icalendar-categories to modify or revert this behavior.

This was a request by Charles Philip Chan.

Details

Secondary filtering of agenda views.

You can now easily and interactively filter an existing agenda view with respect to a tag. This command is executed with the / key in the agenda. You will be prompted for a tag selection key, and all entries that do not contain or inherit the corresponding tag will be hidden. With a prefix argument, the opposite filter is applied: entries that do have the tag will be hidden.

This operation only hides lines in the agenda buffer, it does not remove them. Changing the secondary filtering does not require a new search and is very fast.

If you press TAB at the tag selection prompt, you will be switched to a completion interface to select a tag. This is useful when you want to select a tag that does not have a direct access character.

A double / / will restore the original agenda view by unhiding any hidden lines.

This functionality was John Wiegley's idea. It is a simpler implementation of some of the query-editing features proposed and implemented some time ago by Christopher League (see the file contrib/lisp/org-interactive-query.el).

Editing fixed-width regions with picture or artist mode

The command @<code>C-c '@</code> (that is C-c followed by a single quote) can now also be used to switch to a special editing mode for fixed-width sections. The default mode is artist-mode which allows you to create ASCII drawings.

It works like this: Enter the editing mode with @<code>C-c '@</code>. An indirect buffer will be created and narrowed to the fixed-width region. Edit the drawing, and press @<code>C-c '@</code> again to exit.

Lines in a fixed-width region should be preceded by a colon followed by at least one space. These will be removed during editing, and then added back when you exit the editing mode.

Using the command in an empty line will create a new fixed-width region.

This new feature arose from a discussion involving Scott Otterson, Sebastian Rose and Will Henney.

org-plot.el is now part of Org.

You can run it by simple calling org-plot/gnuplot. Documentation is not yet included with Org, please refer to http://github.com/eschulte/org-plot/tree/master until we have moved the docs into Org or Worg.

Thanks to Eric Schulte for this great contribution.

Tags can be used to select the export part of a document

You may now use tags to select parts of a document for inclusion into the export, and to exclude other parts. This behavior is governed by two new variables: org-export-select-tags and org-export-exclude-tags. These default to ("export") and ("noexport"), but can be changed, even to include a list of several tags.

Org first checks if any of the select tags is present in the buffer. If yes, all trees that do not carry one of these tags will be excluded. If a selected tree is a subtree, the heading hierarchy above it will also be selected for export, but not the text below those headings. If none of the select tags is found anywhere in the buffer, the whole buffer will be selected for export. Finally, all subtrees that are marked by any of the exclude tags will be removed from the export buffer.

You may set these tags with in-buffer options EXPORT_SELECT_TAGS and EXPORT_EXCLUDE_TAGS.

I love this feature. Thanks to Richard G Riley for coming up with the idea.

Prefix interpretation when storing remember notes

The prefix argument to the `C-c C-c' command that finishes a remember process is now interpreted differently:

C-c C-c       Store the note to predefined file and headline
C-u C-c C-c   Like C-c C-c, but immediately visit the note
              in its new location.
C-1 C-c C-c   Select the storage location interactively
C-0 C-c C-c   Re-use the last used location

This was requested by John Wiegley.

Yanking inserts folded subtrees

If the kill is a subtree or a sequence of subtrees, yanking them with C-y will leave all the subtrees in a folded state. This basically means, that kill and yank are now much more useful in moving stuff around in your outline. If you do not like this, customize the variable org-yank-folded-subtrees.

Right now, I am only binding C-y to this new function, should I modify all bindings of yank? Do we need to amend yank-pop as well?

This feature was requested by John Wiegley.

Column view capture tables can have formulas, plotting info

If you attach formulas and plotting instructions to a table capturing column view, these extra lines will now survive an update of the column view capture, and any formulas will be re-applied to the captured table. This works by keeping any continuous block of comments before and after the actual table.

In column view, date stamps can be changed with S-cursor keys

If a property value is a time stamp, S-left and S-right can now be used to shift this date around while in column view.

This was a request by Chris Randle.

The note buffer for clocking out now mentions the task

This was a request by Peter Frings.

Sorting entries alphabetically ignores TODO keyword and priority

Numerical and alphanumerical sorting now skips any TODO keyword or priority cookie when constructing the comparison string. This was a request by Wanrong Lin.

Agenda views can sort entries by TODO state

You can now define a sorting strategy for agenda entries that does look at the TODO state of the entries. Sorting by TODO entry does first separate the non-done from the done states. Within each class, the entries are sorted not alphabetically, but in definition order. So if you have a sequence of TODO entries defined, the entries will be sorted according to the position of the keyword in this sequence.

This follows an idea and sample implementation by Christian Egli.

New face org-scheduled for entries scheduled in the future.

This was a request by Richard G Riley.

Remember templates for gnus links can now use the :to escape.

Thanks to Tommy Lindgren for a patch to this effect.

The file specification in a remember template may now be a function

Thanks to Gregory Sullivan for a patch to this effect.

Categories in iCalendar export now include local tags

The locally defined tags are now listed as categories when exporting to iCalendar format. Org's traditional file/tree category is now the last category in this list. Configure the variable org-icalendar-categories to modify or revert this behavior.

This was a request by Charles Philip Chan.

It is now possible to define filters for column view

The filter can modify the value that will be displayed in a column, for example it can cut out a part of a time stamp. For more information, look at the variable org-columns-modify-value-for-display-function.

Disabling integer increment during table field copy

Prefix arg 0 to S-RET does the trick.

This was a request by Chris Randle.

Older changes

For older Changes, see /ndwarshuis/org-mode/src/commit/56692965b707fc2d544e432311a81e2bda46f930/ORGWEBPAGE/Changes_old.org