make org-mode temporarily emulate traditional outlining keybindings?

Question

Most of the time, org-mode's keybindings M-return to create a heading, and TAB to cycle visibility, are quite useful.

But sometimes when brainstorming, it would be useful to use org-mode to create a traditional hierarchical bulleted list (of course using stars instead of bullets), and using the traditional keybindings used by outlining apps like Workflowy, Evernote, Taskpaper, etc:

• return creates the next item in the bulleted list
• tab demotes the item in the hierarchy
• S-tab promotes the item in the hierarchy

In org terms, this would mean:

• return binds to M-return
• tab binds to M-right
• S-tab binds to M-left

Is there some kind of org minor mode that will allow me to (temporarily) run org like it's a traditional outlining app?

Answer 1

I don't believe there is any existing minor mode that will do the trick, however one such as this should work:

(define-minor-mode zin/org-outline-mode
  "" nil
  :lighter " OOut"
  :keymap (let ((map (make-sparse-keymap)))
            (define-key map (kbd "<return>") 'org-meta-return)
            (define-key map (kbd "<tab>") 'org-metaright)
            (define-key map (kbd "S-<tab>") 'org-metaleft)
            map))