OT: I'd be interested to know where folding editors first originated? We have or...

jessegrosjean · on Dec 15, 2017

I'm think Engelbart's "Mother of all demos" included folding headings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos

I think the first "popular" ones were made by Dave Winer (http://davewiner.com). Here's a list of some (http://outliners.scripting.com)

pm215 · on Dec 15, 2017

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer says that the Inmos D700 Transputer Development System had a folding editor. That would have been in the early 1980s I think?

delhanty · on Dec 15, 2017

Then I remember David Lavender joining Parasolid in 1992 - not liking Teddy that much - a little bit of elisp later he had folds working in Emacs. *

So folds in Emacs date from at least 1992.

* It could occasionally create corrupt folded files though, which was annoying if he checked them in to the SCM.

qualitytime · on Dec 15, 2017

Yes, 1992, by a classmate friend of mine Jamie Lokier!

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/folding.el

cschmidt · on Dec 15, 2017

Dave Winer's http://outliners.scripting.com/ site has some interesting history. You can download the old programs there.

I remember using MORE on the Mac in the late '80s.

simmons · on Dec 15, 2017

I haven't used org-mode, so I may be a bit unclear on exactly what is meant by folding editors. However, if we're talking about collapsing sections of text, I wonder if the oN-Line System (NLS) would qualify, as shown in Douglas Engelbart's 1968 "The Mother of All Demos" [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY&t=5m48s

Someone · on Dec 15, 2017

Wikipedia claims IBM’s SPF in 1974 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_folding#History), using indentation to identify blocks (one may call that cheating, as folding would break down if the code wasn’t indented consistently, but for 1974, I wouldn’t hold it against them)