Re: text after sub headings?

[Tim Cross]

Robert Nikander <robert.nikander@icloud.com> writes:

> I see why this is not possible, given the text format of an org file. But I 
> am curious if people think it would be useful. This is a bit off-topic maybe, 
> but I’m imagining what I would do if I created something like org-mode using 
> another underlying format.
>
> Example: 
>
> * Top
>   Some text under “Top”
>   ** A level-2 heading 
>     Text under level-2 heading
>   ** Another level-2 heading
>     Text under the second level-2 heading
>   More text under “Top”
>   So if the level-2 headings were collapsed we would still see this.
>   ** Could have more sub-headings here
>   More top level text, etc.

While I can see how the structure you suggest could be useful in some
use cases, the big drawback is that to implement this, you would have to
add some new 'marker' to indicate where the contents of a
section/sub-section end. Personally, I would find the need to add
section end markers more inconvenient than having this feature, which is
something I would probably only use very rarely. I also suspect it would
have a processing penalty as org would now need to search for and track
matching end markers for each section rather than just searching for
another heading marker of the same level when performing folding.

In my use cases, it is extremely rare to have a situation where I have
sub headings and want to add something at the end which is part of the
parent heading, but which must follow the sub headings. Where I have
found such a structure useful, the contents of the sub headings tend to
be small and more suitable either for a list or one of the other
#+begin_* block types.

One of the original benefits of org mode was simplicity and a basis
built on simple text files. Maintaining that simplicity requires loss of
some flexibility. The more we complicate the model, the less simple it
remains and the more bugs we get.