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I don't seem to be getting the completion behavior in Org Mode that the manual says I should get (or see (info "(org)Completion")). It says that M-<TAB> will offer various Org specific completions in certain locations, for example:

• At the beginning of a headline, complete TODO keywords.

• After \, complete TeX symbols supported by the exporter.

• After *, complete headlines in the current buffer.

And a few other things like that. And the manual then says that "When point is anywhere else, complete dictionary words using Ispell."

OK, so here is what I actually get:

  • Prior to Org 9.2 (I tried with 9.1.9), both M-<TAB> and C-M-i call pcomplete which does everything the manual says except the last thing about using Ispell!

  • On Org 9.2, M-<TAB> calls pcomplete which does everything the manual says except the last thing about Ispell; and C-M-i calls ispell-complete-word that, obviously, just does the Ispell thing.

Weirdly, I cannot figure out where C-M-i is being bound to ispell-complete-word (according to C-h k the binding is in org-mode-map, but the Org Mode source files don't seem to mention ispell-complete-word at all).

I've tested both Org 9.1.9 and Org 9.2 starting from emacs -Q, so this shouldn't be a problem with my configuration.

  1. Is the manual just wrong about the behavior of completion? In which case I should file a bug, I guess.

  2. The behavior described in the manual sounds pretty sweet! How do I get it? That is, a single keybinding to do the Org specific completions and if none are possible, then use Ispell.

  3. Just out of curiosity: how the hell is Org Mode 9.2 binding C-M-i to ispell-complete-word and how could I have discovered where it happens?

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    I was also fighting the same problem yesterday. It used to work for me, but no longer does. I think C-M-i is a global ispell binding (but I could not find where this is done either), which used to be overridden by the local map in Org mode. Curiously, in the Org mode source for v 9.2, you will find the binding for M-<TAB> and ESC <TAB>, but not for C-M-i. For the time being, I bound it manually to pcomplete in org-mode-map and it seems to work (except for calling ispell "anywhere else").
    – gusbrs
    Jan 19, 2019 at 15:22
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    Regarding, 3. C-M-i is bound to ispell-complete-word in the text-mode-map here. outline-mode is derived from text-mode and org-mode from outline-mode. As for 1, I think it's a bug, as you say. 2 would indeed be cool.
    – aplaice
    Jan 21, 2019 at 12:19
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    Thanks for figuring out 3, @aplaice! If you type C-h k C-M-i in an Org Mode buffer, the help that pops out says the binding is found in org-mode-map, which you've taught me to not to take too literally. :)
    – Omar
    Jan 21, 2019 at 16:06
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    Actually, strictly speaking it is found in org-mode-map. :/ (If you inspect the variable org-mode-map you'll find it there...) Unfortunately, as you note, the help for C-M-i doesn't tell you that it was "inherited" from text-mode (I'm not sure if Emacs explicitly tracks this info); neither does the help for org-mode-map tell you that some of its binding were inherited from elsewhere. Only once you get to the help buffer for org-mode itself (linked to from org-mode-map) do you find out that outline-mode is org-mode's parent mode (and ditto for outline-mode -> text-mode).
    – aplaice
    Jan 21, 2019 at 17:25

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Not exactly sure how the change of behaviour was introduced, but it should be fixed as of today: https://code.orgmode.org/bzg/org-mode/commit/5fe9e6cbeaea12c020eeb495223ce359825121b8

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    Just to be clear: that change is not supposed to make completion behave as described in the manual, it is just intended to make completion behave as it did prior to 9.2, right?
    – Omar
    Jan 29, 2019 at 21:05
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    @Omar That's what I take from the discussion in the Org mailing list (lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2019-01/msg00395.html), even though this question was linked there.
    – gusbrs
    Jan 29, 2019 at 21:28
  • Can you add information on how to use these changes right now?
    – user12563
    Jan 29, 2019 at 23:14
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    @DoMiNeLa10 I use this in my init file, it will be obsolete once a new version of org-plus-contrib is published (should be next week). (eval-after-load 'org '(define-key org-mode-map (kbd "M-TAB") #'pcomplete))
    – johannes
    Jan 30, 2019 at 2:30
  • @Omar Right, the fallback completion is not happening still, this should be fixed - or the documentation instead
    – johannes
    Jan 30, 2019 at 2:39

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