[O] org-attach-directory

[John J Foerch]

Hello,

I have a collection of org files in a git repository, and am using
git-annex for attachments.  I had an idea for a feature related to
org-attach-directory that would improve the usability of git-annex in a
case like this.

Since all attachments from all org files in the repo go into the same
data directory, there isn't a simple way to operate on the attachments
related to a single org file in bulk.  For instance, if one wants to
git-annex-get all of the attachments for one org file, but not others,
one must git-annex-get each file individually.

One solution would be for each org file to live in its own subdirectory,
thus each org file would have its own data directory:

    org-file: org/work/work.org
    attachemts-in: org/work/data/

I don't especially like this solution because it adds a lot of
unnecessary structure to the repo.

Another solution would be for each org file to have its own data
directory alongside it:

    org-file: org/work.org
    attachments-in: org/work.org.data/

I don't especially like this one either because it makes a mess of the
repository root.

The solution I like best is to store attachments in data/, but to
introduce a subdirectory per org file:

    org-file: org/work.org
    attachments-in: org/data/work.org/

It keeps the repository root uncluttered, but attachments are grouped by
the file that owns them, so can be operated on in bulk by git-annex or
other tools.

I can set up this configuration with org-mode-hook, but I liked the idea
so well that I wanted to pass it along as something that org-mode might
want to provide itself as an option.  Perhaps org-mode could check for
the existence of data/{filename} and when it exists, set the local value
of org-attach-directory to that instead of to "data/".  If it were
automatic like this, then org files that used this feature would remain
portable.  Perhaps a file-local variable or an org directive would be a
better option.

Any thoughts?

Thank you,

John Foerch