[O] refile workflow -- move to same heading in different file?

[Raymond Zeitler]

How do I customize org to refile from one file to another?  I am baffled that org-refile is not set up to do this out-of-the-box.

 

versions:

Org mode version 9.0.9 (9.0.9-30-g796a78-elpa @ c:/Users/rayz/AppData/Roaming/RZHOME/.emacs.d/elpa/org-20170703/)

GNU Emacs 25.2.1 (x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2017-04-24

Windows 7 SP1

user is a member of the local administrator group

 

Details…

C-c C-w cannot seem to recognize any of my agenda files, even though org-refile-targets is set to (in custom-set-variables):

(org-refile-targets (quote ((org-agenda-files :regexp . "Tasks"))))

 

Suppose org-agenda-files contains "~/proj1.org" "~/proj2.org" "~/proj3.org" "~/todo.org".

 

My expectation is that when I press C-c C-w with point on a subheading of Tasks in todo.org, I can specify, say proj1.org and get the subheading moved to proj1.org under Tasks.  However, org-refile responds [No Match], even if I provide the file as ~/proj1.org.  And Emacs is visiting proj1.org in another buffer.

 

So I now do this manually:

 

Visit todo.org

For Each subheading of Tasks related to proj1…

    Place point at the start of subheading

    Invoke set-mark-command at end of subheading

    ; and BTW this is very tricky business, I guess due to narrowing

    kill

    switch buffer to proj1.org

    place point as close to column 1 under the Tasks line

    ; again very tricky business

    yank

    switch buffer back to todo.org

Next

 

(Sorry for posting pseudocode that resembles Vi$ual Ba$ic!  The org-babel question for *that* is in queue.)

 

- Ray