[O] C-c ^ not fully useful

[François Pinard]

Hi, Org people.

"C-c ^" (org-sort) is not as useful to me as I would like it to be.  I
often have lists in which each item start with a link.  When sorting
such lists, because of the  [[URL][TITLE]] coding, entries are sorted
along the domain of the link (the URL), which is useful in itself of
course, but often not as comfortable as if the sort was done on TITLE.

One could provide a function for extracting the sorting key out of the
current line (I did not try this facility yet, I presume this is how it
works), so I could likely solve my own problem, as described above.

The ideal for me would be that some Lisp function exists to extract the
visual line out of the physical line, that is, the line once all
invisible parts have been removed.  This would take care not only for
links, but also for highlighting marks (like =~*/) when they happen to
be hidden.

However, I guess I'm not alone wanting "C-c ^" to do what is most
expected.  So, these few suggestions:

- Could org-sort, by default and for most of its current option letters,
  sort alphabetically (or lexicographically as they say!) over the
  visual aspect of the line instead of its physical contents?  It might
  be difficult if Emacs has no function to reach the visual aspect of a
  line.  I guess that most users would expect a visual sort.

- Options might be added to sort over the physical contents of the line
  instead.  And there always is M-x sort-lines RET !).

- Could some parameterisation be added so one could map user written
  functions over (free) option letters?

François