Re: Changed list indentation behavior: how to revert?

[Kévin Le Gouguec]

Detlef Steuer <steuer@hsu-hh.de> writes:

> I'm constantly bitten by that change, but was too lazy to dig for the
> cause. But now that I know, I want to add 2c.
>
> If one writes prose it looks much more natural to have
>
> * Healine<Ret>
>
> start editing in column 1 of next row.
> (Personally I would prefer to start at row 3, but independent
>  of the depth of the heading. Probably there is a setting already?)
>
> C-j is fine and nice, but I *feel* the default should be the other
> way round.
>
> I'm in no way emotional about these changes, but as Arne demonstrates
> in his example text, org files become less readable when using the new
> default. Heavy indenting is not what we are used to see if we have
> subheadings in prose. Readability of org on the screen should be very high
> in list of usability target. (Most probably it indeed is for the developers!
> I'm not assuming you would neglect it!)
> Maybe all boils down to a matter of taste, but at least imho Arne's
> example shows the problem quite clearly.
>
> For lists or sequences of mostly empty headings this does not matter
> as much.
>
> Furthermore: If I understand correctly electric-ident mode is thought to
> be a helper for programming major modes. In my opinion org is no (not
> only, much more than a) programming mode, so maybe electric ident is not
> the optimal default. 

Note that indenting section bodies by default predates Org 9.4: in Org
9.3, hitting TAB on the first line of text after a heading indents it to
column LEVEL+1.

IMHO, the default value of org-adapt-indentation might be the issue here
(made more visible by the change in 9.4): I agree that hard-indenting
prose should not be the default behaviour.  FWIW the .dir-locals.el file
at the root of Org's own repository sets this variable to nil; maybe
that suggests that it would be a better default?

(As I said in my reply to Jean Louis: I've only skimmed over this
thread; apologies if I've missed anything.)