Re: [O] [Feature Request] Make property-drawers exportable

[Thorsten Jolitz]

Nicolas Goaziou <address@hidden> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Thorsten Jolitz <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> for me property-drawers are a very useful feature of Org-mode, since
>> the need to store meta-data for a document is so frequent and
>> property-drawers are human- and machine-readable, easy to handle
>> interactively and programmatically, and avoid all that nasty redundancy
>> and accidental variation of giving meta-data as free text.
>>
>> However, property-drawers are not exported except separating blank
>> lines. This is a real pity in my eyes, since parts of an Org-mode
>> document that can't be exported are visible only to the author of the
>> document and a few fellows that use the raw Org document too. This might
>> make sense in some cases, but in others the property information should
>> be visible in the exported docs too.
>
> This has been requested before.

I know, because I missed that feature before, and I remember others did
ask for it too.

> Property drawers are Org meta data, they are not for user's
> cosumption. Though you can export some properties with macros (see
> {{{property{NAME}}}} macros).

I don't really agree. Property drawers are for meta data used by
Org-mode too, obviously, but they are perfectly suited for meta-data
about the document, as well as those simple data-base features described
in the manual. Why deny Org users the full benefit of these other uses
for property-drawers by denying them the possibility to export their
document meta-data or data-bases?

I mean, everything else in Org-mode is more or less configurable, why
hardcode in this case that export is (by default) impossible?

Whats wrong e.g. with

,-------------------------------
| * My Source-file
|     :PROPERTIES:
|     :github-repo: <<repo-url>>
|     :licence:  <<licence>>
|     :END:
`-------------------------------

?

This is not Org meta-data, its meaningless to Org-mode, but its
meta-data about the document, easily stored and accessed, readable, and
stays in the background during visibility cycling. And its for user
consumption, thus there should be a way to export this.

And whats wrong with a simple CD collection database implemented with
property-drawers, as described in the manual? Why shouldn't people be
allowed to export their CD database to some text-formatting backend?

IMO there should be transoder functions for property-drawers just like
for other elements in the main backend libs, not in some derived
backend. If by default they are not exported, nothing changes, but at
least the user has a choice.

--
cheers,
Thorsten