Loving org-mode: List Cycling

10 Sep 2023

I used Emacs as an editor out of necessity when I hacked a C project and figure out Emacs’ GDB integration is sublime.

Ever since then, I never stopped using Emacs.

Although I use Emacs for a long time - there’s so much depth and I haven’t scratched the surface.

One of those surfaces I did scratch that I love: org-mode.

There’s so much to org-mode that there are books written about it, extensions on it.

Today, I want to share a thing I love about org-mode: auto-cycling of lists by just pressing the tab key.

Example: this is the full list in a text file.

* level one
- item on level one
- another one for level one
** level two
- item on level two
- two for level two
*** level three
- three for three
**** level four
all the way down

Change Emacs’ mode to org-mode and the file becomes:

* level one...

The ... indicates additional items, pressing <tab> on the line with * level one and this happens:

* level one
- item on level one
- another one for level one
** level two...

What happened is that level one expanded to the next level, level two.

In org-mode, * - are level indicators, so the more, the deeper the hierarchy.

Pressing <tab> again expands out to the original text, as shown above.

This expansion just keeps working at every level - so at ** level two..., you can just expand only level two items:

* level one
- item on level one
- another one for level one
** level two
- item on level two
- two for level two
*** level three...

and repeat on *** level three... - and you get the original:

* level one
- item on level one
- another one for level one
** level two
- item on level two
- two for level two
*** level three
- three for three
**** level four
all the way down

This cycling feature of org-mode is something I use all the time in creating lists. Sorting them out and creating hierarchies for them. This is how my mind works and at the same time - I can just <tab> my way there!

Try this feature in org-mode - I love it. This feature just wants me to organize my thoughts more.

Additional articles on why I love org-mode: