Note #2026-03-18-001

A small #Emacs #OrgMode quality-of-life tweak. I often need to replace an org heading's title while preserving the original text in the body. The problem is that pressing enter on a heading inserts a line above the properties drawer, which breaks things.

Here's function that moves the heading title into the body (below the properties drawer and metadata), and binds it to S-RET:

(defun my-org-demote-title-to-body ()
  "Move the current heading's title into the body, below the metadata.
  Point returns to the heading for editing."
  (interactive)
  (org-back-to-heading t)
  (let* ((element (org-element-at-point))
         (title (org-element-property :raw-value element)))
    (org-edit-headline "")
    (save-excursion
      (org-end-of-meta-data t)
      (insert title "\n"))
    (org-beginning-of-line)))

(defun my-org-shift-return ()
  "On a heading, demote title to body. In a table, copy down."
  (interactive)
  (cond
   ((org-at-heading-p) (my-org-demote-title-to-body))
   ((org-at-table-p) (org-table-copy-down 1))
   (t (org-return))))
  (define-key org-mode-map (kbd "S-<return>") #'my-org-shift-return)