Org mode for Emacs – Release notes

ob-makefile.el by Eric Schulte and Thomas S. Dye

ox-man.el by Luis Anaya

ox-md.el by Nicolas Goaziou

ox-texinfo.el by Jonathan Leech-Pepin

ob-julia.el by G. Jay Kerns

ob-mathomatic.el by Luis Anaya

ob-tcl.el by Luis Anaya

org-bullets.el by Evgeni Sabof

org-favtable.el by Marc-Oliver Ihm

ox-confluence.el by Sébastien Delafond

ox-deck.el and ox-s5.el by Rick Frankel

ox-groff.el by Luis Anaya and Nicolas Goaziou

ox-koma-letter.el by Nicolas Goaziou and Alan Schmitt

ox-rss.el by Bastien

Export

• New export generic options
  

  If you use Org exporter, we advise you to re-read the manual section about it. It has been updated and includes new options.

  Among the new/updated export options, three are of particular importance:

  org-export-allow-bind-keywords

  This option replaces the old option org-export-allow-BIND and the default value is nil, not confirm. You will need to explicitely set this to t in your initialization file if you want to allow #+BIND keywords.

  org-export-with-planning

  This new option controls the export of SCHEDULED:, DEADLINE:, CLOSED: lines, and planning information is now skipped by default during export. This use to be the job of org-export-with-timestamps, but this latter option has been given a new role: it controls the export of standalone time-stamps. When set to nil, Org will not export active and inactive time-stamps standing on a line by themselves or within a paragraph that only contains time-stamps.

  To check if an option has been introduced or its default value changed in Org 8.0, do C-h v [option] RET and check if the documentation says that the variable has been introduced (or changed) in version 24.4 of Emacs.

• Enhanced default stylesheet for the HTML exporter
  

  See the new default value of org-html-style-default.

• New tags, classes and ids for the HTML exporter
  

  See the new default value of org-html-divs.

• Support for tikz pictures in LaTeX export
  
• org-man.el: New export function for "man" links
  
• org-docview.el: New export function for docview links
  

Structure editing

• C-u C-u M-RET inserts a heading at the end of the parent subtree
  
• Cycling to the CONTENTS view keeps inline tasks folded
  

  org-cycle-hook as a new function org-cycle-hide-inline-tasks which prevents the display of inline tasks when showing the content of a subtree.

• C-c - in a region makes a list item for each line
  

  This is the opposite of the previous behavior, where C-c - on a region would create one item for the whole region, and where C-u C-c - would create an item for each line. Now C-c - on the selected region creates an item per line, and C-u C-c - creates a single item for the whole region.

• When transposing words, markup characters are now part of the words
  

  In Emacs, you can transpose words with M-t. Transposing *these* _words__ will preserve markup.

• New command org-set-property-and-value bound to C-c C-x P
  

  This command allows you to quickly add both the property and its value. It is useful in buffers where there are many properties and where C-c C-x p can slow down the flow of editing too much.

• New commands org-next-block and org-previous-block
  

  These commands allow you to go to the previous block (C-c M-b or the speedy key B) or to the next block (C-c M-f or the speedy key F.)

• New commands org-drag-line-forward and org-drag-line-backward
  

  These commands emulate the old behavior of M-<down> and M-<up> but are now bound to S-M-<down> and S-M-<up> respectively, since M-<down> and M-<up> now drag the whole element at point (a paragraph, a table, etc.) forward and backward.

• When a list item has a checkbox, inserting a new item uses a checkbox too
  
• When sorting entries/items, only the description of links is considered
  

  Now Org will sort this list

  - [[http://abc.org][B]]
  - [[http://def.org][A]]
  

  like this:

  - [[http://def.org][A]]
  - [[http://abc.org][B]]
  

  by comparing the descriptions, not the links. Same when sorting headlines instead of list items.

• New option orgstruct-heading-prefix-regexp
  

  For example, setting this option to "^;;; " in Emacs lisp files and using orgstruct-mode in those files will allow you to cycle through visibility states as if lines starting with ";;; *…" where headlines.

  In general, you want to set orgstruct-heading-prefix-regexp as a file local variable.

• New behavior of org-clone-subtree-with-time-shift
  

  The default is now to ask for a time-shift only when there is a time-stamp. When called with a universal prefix argument C-u, it will not ask for a time-shift even if there is a time-stamp.

• New option org-agenda-restriction-lock-highlight-subtree
  

  This defaults to t so that the whole subtree is highlighted when you restrict the agenda view to it with C-c C-x < (or the speed command <). The default setting helps ensuring that you are not adding tasks after the restricted region. If you find this highlighting too intrusive, set this option to nil.

• New option org-closed-keep-when-no-todo
  

  When switching back from a DONE keyword to a TODO keyword, Org now removes the CLOSED planning information, if any. It also removes this information when going back to a non-TODO state (e.g., with C-c C-t SPC). If you want to keep the CLOSED planning information when removing the TODO keyword, set org-closed-keep-when-no-todo to t.

• New option org-image-actual-width
  

  This option allows you to change the width of in-buffer displayed images. The default is to use the actual width of the image, but you can use a fixed value for all images, or fall back on an attribute like

  #+attr_html: :width 300px
  

Scheduled/deadline

• Implement "delay" cookies for scheduled items
  

  If you want to delay the display of a scheduled task in the agenda, you can now use a delay cookie like this: SCHEDULED: <2004-12-25 Sat -2d>. The task is still scheduled on the 25th but will appear in your agenda starting from two days later (i.e. from March 27th.)

  Imagine for example that your co-workers are not done in due time and tell you "we need two more days". In that case, you may want to delay the display of the task in your agenda by two days, but you still want the task to appear as scheduled on March 25th.

  In case the task contains a repeater, the delay is considered to affect all occurrences; if you want the delay to only affect the first scheduled occurrence of the task, use –2d instead. See org-scheduled-delay-days and org-agenda-skip-scheduled-delay-if-deadline for details on how to control this globally or per agenda.

• Use C-u C-u C-c C-s will insert a delay cookie for scheduled tasks
  

  See the previous section for why delay cookies may be useful.

• Use C-u C-u C-c C-d will insert a warning delay for deadline tasks
  

  C-u C-u C-c C-d now inserts a warning delay to deadlines.

Calendar, diary and appts

• New variable org-read-date-minibuffer-local-map
  

  By default, this new local map uses "." to go to today's date, like in the normal M-x calendar RET. If you want to deactivate this and to reassign the "@" key to calendar-goto-today, use this:

  ;; Unbind "." in Org's calendar:
  (define-key org-read-date-minibuffer-local-map (kbd ".") nil)
  
  ;; Bind "@" to `calendar-goto-today':
  (define-key org-read-date-minibuffer-local-map
              (kbd "@")
              (lambda () (interactive) (org-eval-in-calendar '(calendar-goto-today))))
  

• In Org's calendar, ! displays diary entries of the date at point
  

  This is useful when you want to check if you don't already have an appointment when setting new ones with C-c . or C-c s. ! will call diary-view-entries and display the diary in a separate buffer.

• org-diary: only keep the descriptions of links
  

  org-diary returns diary information from Org files, but it returns it in a diary buffer, not in an Org mode buffer. When links are displayed, only show their description, not the full links.

Agenda

• New agenda type agenda* and entry types :scheduled* :deadline*
  

  When defining agenda custom commands, you can now use agenda*: this will list entries that have both a date and a time. This is useful when you want to build a list of appointments.

  You can also set org-agenda-entry-types either globally or locally in each agenda custom command and use :timestamp* and/or :deadline* there.

  Another place where this is useful is your .diary file:

  %%(org-diary :scheduled*) ~/org/rdv.org
  

  This will list only entries from ~/org/rdv.org that are scheduled with a time value (i.e. appointments).

• New agenda sorting strategies
  

  org-agenda-sorting-strategy allows these new sorting strategies:

  Strategy	Explanations
  timestamp-up	Sort by any timestamp, early first
  timestamp-down	Sort by any timestamp, late first
  scheduled-up	Sort by scheduled timestamp, early first
  scheduled-down	Sort by scheduled timestamp, late first
  deadline-up	Sort by deadline timestamp, early first
  deadline-down	Sort by deadline timestamp, late first
  ts-up	Sort by active timestamp, early first
  ts-down	Sort by active timestamp, late first
  tsia-up	Sort by inactive timestamp, early first
  tsia-down	Sort by inactive timestamp, late first

• New options to limit the number of agenda entries
  

  You can now limit the number of entries in an agenda view. This is different from filters: filters only hide the entries in the agenda, while limits are set while generating the list of agenda entries.

  These new options are available:

  org-agenda-max-entries

  limit by number of entries.

  org-agenda-max-todos

  limit by number of TODOs.

  org-agenda-max-tags

  limit by number of tagged entries.

  org-agenda-max-effort

  limit by effort (minutes).

  For example, if you locally set org-agenda-max-todos to 3 in an agenda view, the agenda will be limited to the first three todos. Other entries without a TODO keyword or beyond the third TODO headline will be ignored.

  When setting a limit (e.g. about an effort's sum), the default behavior is to exclude entries that cannot be checked against (e.g. entries that have no effort property.) To include other entries too, you can set the limit to a negative number. For example (setq org-agenda-max-tags -3) will not show the fourth tagged headline (and beyond), but it will also show non-tagged headlines.

• ~ in agenda view sets temporary limits
  

  You can hit ~ in the agenda to temporarily set limits: this will regenerate the agenda as if the limits were set. This is useful for example when you want to only see a list of N tasks, or a list of tasks that take only N minutes.

• "=" in agenda view filters by regular expressions
  

  You can now filter agenda entries by regular expressions using =. C-u = will filter entries out. Regexp filters are cumulative. You can set org-agenda-regexp-filter-preset to suit your needs in each agenda view.

• | in agenda view resets all filters
  

  Since it's common to combine tag filters, category filters, and now regexp filters, there is a new command | to reset all filters at once.

• Allow writing an agenda to an .org file
  

  You can now write an agenda view to an .org file. It copies the headlines and their content (but not subheadings) into the new file.

  This is useful when you want to quickly share an agenda containing the full list of notes.

• New commands to drag an agenda line forward (M-<down>) or backard (M-<up>)
  

  It sometimes handy to move agenda lines around, just to quickly reorganize your tasks, or maybe before saving the agenda to a file. Now you can use M-<down> and M-<up> to move the line forward or backward.

  This does not persist after a refresh of the agenda, and this does not change the .org files who contribute to the agenda.

• Use %b for displaying "breadcrumbs" in the agenda view
  

  org-agenda-prefix-format now allows to use a %b formatter to tell Org to display "breadcrumbs" in the agenda view.

  This is useful when you want to display the task hierarchy in your agenda.

• Use %l for displaying the headline's level in the agenda view
  

  org-agenda-prefix-format allows to use a %l formatter to tell Org to display entries with additional spaces corresponding to their level in the outline tree.

• org-agenda-write will ask before overwriting an existing file
  

  M-x org-agenda-write RET (or C-c C-w from an agenda buffer) used to overwrite preexisting file with the same name without confirmation. It now asks for a confirmation.

• New commands M-m and M-* to toggle (all) mark(s) for bulk action
  

  org-agenda-bulk-toggle

  this command is bound to M-m and toggles the mark of the entry at point.

  org-agenda-bulk-toggle-all

  this command is bound to M-* and toggles all the marks in the current agenda.

• New option org-agenda-search-view-max-outline-level
  

  This option sets the maximum outline level to display in search view. E.g. when this is set to 1, the search view will only show headlines of level 1.

• New option org-agenda-todo-ignore-time-comparison-use-seconds
  

  This allows to compare times using seconds instead of days when honoring options like org-agenda-todo-ignore-* in the agenda display.

• New option org-agenda-entry-text-leaders
  

  This allows you to get rid of the ">" character that gets added in front of entries excerpts when hitting E in the agenda view.

• New formatting string for past deadlines in org-agenda-deadline-leaders
  

  The default formatting for past deadlines is ="%2d d. ago: "=, which makes it explicit that the deadline is in the past. You can configure this via org-agenda-deadline-leaders. Note that the width of the formatting string is important to keep the agenda alignment clean.

• New allowed value repeated-after-deadline for org-agenda-skip-scheduled-if-deadline-is-shown
  

  When org-agenda-skip-scheduled-if-deadline-is-shown is set to repeated-after-deadline, the agenda will skip scheduled items if they are repeated beyond the current dealine.

• New option for org-agenda-skip-deadline-prewarning-if-scheduled
  

  This variable may be set to nil, t, the symbol `pre-scheduled', or a number which will then give the number of days before the actual deadline when the prewarnings should resume. The symbol `pre-scheduled' eliminates the deadline prewarning only prior to the scheduled date.

  Read the full docstring for details.

• org-class now supports holiday strings in the skip-weeks parameter
  

  For example, this task will now be skipped only on new year's day:

  * Task
    <%%(org-class 2012 1 1 2013 12 12 2 "New Year's Day")>
  

Capture

• Allow C-1 as a prefix for org-agenda-capture and org-capture
  

  With a C-1 prefix, the capture mechanism will use the HH:MM value at point (if any) or the current HH:MM time as the default time for the capture template.

• Expand keywords within %(sexp) placeholder in capture templates
  

  If you use a %:keyword construct within a %(sexp) construct, Org will expand the keywords before expanding the %(sexp).

• Allow to contextualize capture (and agenda) commands by checking the name of the buffer
  

  org-capture-templates-contexts and org-agenda-custom-commands-contexts allow you to define what capture templates and what agenda commands should be available in various contexts. It is now possible for the context to check against the name of the buffer.

Tag groups

Links

• C-u C-u M-x org-store-link RET will ignore non-core link functions
  

  Org knows how to store links from Org buffers, from info files and from other Emacs buffers. Org can be taught how to store links from any buffer through new link protocols (see "Adding hyperlink types" in the manual.)

  Sometimes you want Org to ignore added link protocols and store the link as if the protocol was not known.

  You can now do this with C-u C-u M-x org-store-link RET.

• C-u C-u C-u M-x org-store-link RET on an active region will store links for each lines
  

  Imagine for example that you want to store a link for every message in a Gnus summary buffer. In that case C-x h C-u C-u C-u M-x org-store-link RET will store a link for every line (i.e. message) if the region is active.

• C-c C-M-l will add a default description for links which don't have one
  

  C-c C-M-l inserts all stored links. If a link does not have a description, this command now adds a default one, so that we are not mixing with-description and without-description links when inserting them.

• No curly braces to bracket links within internal links
  

  When storing a link to a headline like

  * See [[http://orgmode.org][Org website]]
  

  org-store-link used to convert the square brackets into curly brackets. It does not anymore, taking the link description or the link path, when there is no description.

Table

• Switching between #+TBLFM lines
  

  If you have several #+TBLFM lines below a table, C-c C-c on a line will apply the formulas from this line, and C-c C-c on another line will apply those other formulas.

• You now use "nan" for empty fields in Calc formulas
  

  If empty fields are of interest, it is recommended to reread the section 3.5.2 Formula syntax for Calc of the manual because the description for the mode strings has been clarified and new examples have been added towards the end.

• Handle localized time-stamps in formulas evaluation
  

  If your LOCALE is set so that Org time-stamps use another language than english, and if you make time computations in Org's table, it now works by internally converting the time-stamps with a temporary LOCALE=C before doing computation.

• New lookup functions
  

  There are now three lookup functions:

  • org-loopup-first
  • org-loopup-last
  • org-loopup-all

  See the manual for details.

Startup keywords

Clocking

• New option org-clock-rounding-minutes
  

  E.g. if org-clock-rounding-minutes is set to 5, time is 14:47 and you clock in: then the clock starts at 14:45. If you clock out within the next 5 minutes, the clock line will be removed; if you clock out 8 minutes after your clocked in, the clock out time will be 14:50.

• New option org-time-clocksum-use-effort-durations
  

  When non-nil, C-c C-x C-d uses effort durations. E.g., by default, one day is considered to be a 8 hours effort, so a task that has been clocked for 16 hours will be displayed as during 2 days in the clock display or in the clocktable.

  See org-effort-durations on how to set effort durations and org-time-clocksum-format for more on time clock formats.

• New option org-clock-x11idle-program-name
  

  This allows to set the name of the program which prints X11 idle time in milliseconds. The default is to use x11idle.

• New option org-use-last-clock-out-time-as-effective-time
  

  When non-nil, use the last clock out time for org-todo. Note that this option has precedence over the combined use of org-use-effective-time and org-extend-today-until.

• S-<left/right> on a clocksum column will update the sum by updating the last clock
  
• C-u 3 C-S-<up/down> will update clock timestamps synchronously by 3 units
  
• New parameter :wstart for clocktables to define the week start day
  
• New parameter :mstart to state the starting day of the month
  
• Allow relative times in clocktable tstart and tend options
  
• The clocktable summary is now a caption
  
• :tstart and :tend and friends allow relative times like "<-1w>" or "<now>"
  

Babel

• You can now use C-c C-k for org-edit-src-abort
  

  This allows you to quickly cancel editing a source block.

• C-u C-u M-x org-babel-tangle RET tangles by the target file of the block at point
  

  This is handy if you want to tangle all source code blocks that have the same target than the block at point.

• New options for auto-saving the base buffer or the source block editing buffer
  

  When org-edit-src-turn-on-auto-save is set to t, editing a source block in a new window will turn on auto-save-mode and save the code in a new file under the same directory than the base Org file.

  When org-edit-src-auto-save-idle-delay is set to a number of minutes N, the base Org buffer will be saved after this number of minutes of idle time.

• New :post header argument post-processes results
  

  This header argument may be used to pass the results of the current code block through another code block for post-processing. See the manual for a usage example.

• Commented out heading are ignored when collecting blocks for tangling
  

  If you comment out a heading (with C-c ; anywhere on the heading or in the subtree), code blocks from within this heading are now ignored when collecting blocks for tangling.

• New option org-babel-hash-show-time to show a time-stamp in the result hash
  
• Do not ask for confirmation if cached value is current
  

  Do not run org-babel-confirm-evaluate if source block has a cache and the cache value is current as there is no evaluation involved in this case.

• ob-sql.el and ob-python.el have been improved.
  
• New Babel files only need to (require 'ob)
  

  When writing a new Babel file, you now only need to use (require 'ob) instead of requiring each Babel library one by one.

Faces

Spanish translation of the Org guide by David Arroyo Menéndez

poporg.el and outorg.el

MobileOrg for iOS