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From: eero%cadillac@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Hierarchical program editing
Message-ID: <8705051614.AA01839@cadillac>
Date: Tue, 5-May-87 12:14:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: cadillac.8705051614.AA01839
Posted: Tue May  5 12:14:51 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 7-May-87 01:56:23 EDT
Sender: daemon@eddie.MIT.EDU
Lines: 31

I am a new Gnu user and after reading the manual (5th edition,
December, 1986), I have a question/suggestion.  It seems to 
me that the worst aspect of Emacs is that it doesn't take 
advantage of the hierarchical directory structure of Unix
in Dired mode, or the hierarchical structure of source code
files themselves.  I am suggesting a sort of Dired Outline mode
in which one could Dired a subdirectory and have its contents
appear in the same buffer under the line containing the 
subdirectory name, indented.  In code files, there could
also be an outline mode.  Upon first entering the file, only 
top level lines (ie defuns and defvars for LISP, typedefs and
functions for C, etc.) would be visible.  The subforms of any 
function could be expanded hierarchically.  An option to hide
all comments would also be useful.  Such a mode would only require
8 functions:

	move-to-next-visible-heading
	move-to-prev-visible-heading
	move-to-parent-heading
	move-to-first-child-heading  (expand current heading if necessary)
	
	move-up-on-same-level
	move-down-on-same-level

	hide-subtree
	show-children

It doesn't seem like it would take much time to modify the
present Emacs Outline mode to do this.

Replies to eero@media-lab.mit.edu  (I'm not on any Emacs mailing lists).