Re: [Orgmode] org-exp-blocks: what about previewing blocks ?

[Eric Schulte]

Carsten Dominik <address@hidden> writes:

> On Jun 26, 2009, at 2:59 AM, Eric Schulte wrote:
>
>> Carsten Dominik <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> On Jun 18, 2009, at 11:32 AM, Nicolas Girard wrote:
>>>
>>>> 2009/6/18 Carsten Dominik <address@hidden>
>>>>
>>>> On Jun 17, 2009, at 2:40 AM, Nicolas Girard wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> currently the code in org-exp-blocks is intended for pre-processing
>>>> only.
>>>> It seems to me like org-mode would gain a very powerful feature, if
>>>> blocks could also be previewed in their own buffer, using the same
>>>> mechanism as the org-format-latex function.
>>>> What do you think ?
>>>>
>>>> I don't see how this could be done in a general way.  I guess you
>>>> mean in particular
>>>> the graphics blocks like ditaa?
>>>>
>>>> Yes. For any block type bt, if it makes sense, it would be possible
>>>> to write such org-block-<bt>-generate-image(body) that takes the
>>>> block as argument and returns the path of the image it produced.
>>>>
>>>> Then:
>>>> - for exporting: the existing org-export-blocks-format-<bt>
>>>> functions would simply call their respective
>>>> org-block-<bt>-generate-
>>>> image and work the same ;
>>>> - for previewing a block of type <bt>: if such org-block-<bt>-
>>>> generate-image exists, call it and display it the same way org-
>>>> format-latex does
>>>>
>>>> Wouldn't it be great ?
>>>
>>> Yes, it would be.  First you will need to talk Eric Schulte into
>>> splitting the image generation functions into separate functions.
>>> The I could look into the preview functionality.
>>>
>>
>> I recently sent out an email announcement of development on org-babel
>> which should provide a unified backend for evaluating source-code
>> contained in org-mode blocks.  If org-exp-blocks is using org-babel
>> for
>> it's source-code evaluation the ability to interactively evaluate
>> blocks
>> will come for free.  This would be my preference rather than
>> implementing a new code-evaluation schema for org-exp-blocks.
>>
>> I suppose that this would assume that org-babel is accepted into the
>> core of org-mode (for it to be a requirement of org-exp-blocks which
>> is
>> now part of the org-mode core).  While this would be my preference, it
>> is certainly not my decision to make, and I honestly haven't given it
>> much thought up until this point.
>
> From your post yesterday, without looking closer at org-babel,
> it sounded to me that it is still under heavy development,
> so maybe it is too early for the core at this moment?
>

Yes, I am very much in agreement that it is too soon to contemplate
moving org-babel into the core.  The intended point of my aside above is
that I don't plan on adding interactive evaluation directly to
org-exp-blocks.

Thanks -- Eric

>
> No principal objections, of course.
>
> - Carsten