Re: Make code elements in prose unobtrusive [legibility 6/6]

[Tim Cross]

It strikes me that much of what seems to be required for 'legible' org
would possibly be handled by an org 'theme'. As it is possible to
combine themes, it should be possible to create a 'org pros theme',
which users could add to their existing theme. This theme could adjust
face sizes, colours, fonts etc. For things which cannot be modified
using a theme, we could define profiles e.g. a pros profile and a coding
profile. Provided these are adequately documented, new users will be
able to try them out.

Changing defaults is far more problematic as it has the potential to
impact a large number of existing users who have their environment
configured the way they like already. In this day and age of cut and
paste, pre-configured setups and stack overflow solutions, we cannot
assume that these users are advanced enough to 'fix' or restore their
setup when defaults change.

I also think it important to not consider this to be a simple pros v
code use case. Personally, while I do use org to write pros quite often,
my main use of org is for organisation of information, tracking tasks,
planning and notes. In the majority of my workflows, a lot of that
'code' information is important and not something I would want hidden or
de-emphasised all the time. Rather than changing defaults, what I think
is really needed is something along the 'profile' lines - a way to
reliably switch to a pros profile when I'm writing pros and switch out
to a 'standard' profile when not.

Texas Cyberthal <address@hidden> writes:

> Org intersperses bits of code in prose, such as datestamps, drawers,
> keywords, etc. The code distracts when reading the prose. The solution
> is to make the code less prominent.
>
> That way it's easy to read the paragraphs of prose without
> interruption. If one wants to focus on a code bit, it's still easily
> readable. Prose needs to be larger to be human-scannable, but the code
> bits aren't in paragraphs, so they can be smaller. Code only needs to
> be readable when the eye is centered on it, whereas a prose paragraph
> must be read with multiple saccades.
>
> Org should provide a way to make all the code bits smaller with one settings:
>
> #+begin_src elisp
> (custom-set-faces
>  ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
>  ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
>  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
>  ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
>  '(org-date ((t (:foreground "#7590db" :underline t :height 0.8 :width
> normal))))
>  '(org-drawer ((t (:foreground "LightSkyBlue" :height 0.7 :width condensed))))
>  '(org-special-keyword ((t (:foreground "#bc6ec5" :height 0.7 :width
> condensed)))))
> #+end_src


--
Tim Cross