From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Sebastien Vauban Subject: Re: [ox, patch] Add #+SUBTITLE Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 10:00:37 +0100 Message-ID: <867fu8w0ju.fsf@example.com> References: <87a8z7z20k.fsf@gmx.us> <87vbht2kri.fsf@nicolasgoaziou.fr> <87sicx6of8.fsf@gmx.us> <87oanku5d0.fsf@wmi.amu.edu.pl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-path: List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org To: emacs-orgmode-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Marcin Borkowski wrote: > On 2015-03-22, at 16:29, Rasmus wrote: > >> IMO it is. The only place where there's a "hack" is in ox-latex and >> that's cause article is the default class. If you prefer, it can just >> output to the \subtitle{·} by default and say it's KOMA-script only. That >> seems harsh, though. > > Hi there, > > being like a Pavlov's dog trained to dribble on seeing the word > LaTeX;-), let me add my 2 cents here. > > [TL;DR: imho, the right way to do LaTeX export is to prepare a dedicated > package for Org-mode generated files (easy/medium), arrange for it to be > included in all major TeX distros (easy) and simplify the LaTeX exporter > to comply with it (easy). This could greatly enhance the quality of > PDFs produced by Org-mode and make modifying their look easier on the > Org side. I could do the LaTeX side of the work. Now the question is: > does the community /want/ it.] > > The (default) LaTeX markup sucks. (It’s not about Org-mode-produced > LaTeX files, it’s about LaTeX itself.) And I'm telling that as > a long-time TeX and LaTeX user and fan. I would strongly suggest not > caring too much about “what does LaTeX support out-of-the-box” – in > fact, it supports almost nothing without a heap of packages. > > What I really think Org-mode community should do is the following. > > We (if I may use that pronoun here) should prepare a dedicated Org LaTeX > package, properly supporting all Org’s fancy stuff like tags, > timestamps, todo keywords etc., and allowing for parametrizing their > look-and-feel through a reasonable LaTeX interface. I think it should > /not/ be a class, since then people would be free to use it with > article/amsart/koma-script/memoir/whatever. This is not very difficult > nor time-consuming, and in fact I might be tempted to do it (more on > that below). This would require (simple) changes in the LaTeX exporter > (generally, simplifying it); this I cannot do, since I don’t have the > FSF papers signed (and I don’t want to sign them). OTOH, the package > does not have this problem, since LaTeX licensing is much more sane than > Emacs’; this package should be imho part of every TeX distro (which is > important, and in fact easy to arrange), so that we could send an > Org-generated LaTeX file to any TeX user. > > The biggest advantage would be the possibility of exporting e.g. TODO > lists or agendas to LaTeX, and have them formatted as TODO lists and > agendas and not as “articles”. Currently, LaTeX export is more or less > limited to scientific articles (unless you want to tweak it /a lot/ so > that it looks even remotely reasonable), where you don’t really care > about layout and design, since they are going to be changed by the > journal anyway. > > Just think about the possibilities. We could make a TODO list in Org, > and send it (as a pdf file) for non-Org-users to print, and it could > look like a TODO-list. (I guess there are still lots of people who > depend on paper todo lists; I do, for sure, though I make them > manually.) We could have an option (on Org side, which would translate > to a LaTeX one) to have more Word-like layout. (You can say what you > want about Word – my personal opinion is that it is unsuitable for > documents larger/more complex than a piece of paper with an arrow > showing the direction to the restroom – but sometimes, especially for > short memos/notes, LaTeX’s extremely generic spacing can be annoying. > Of course, you could just load the savetrees package – but let me make > a short, informal and unscientific survey here: how many of you would > find it useful, but never thought that something like that exists? If, > OTOH, there would be such option for the LaTeX exporter, it would be > right there, in Org-mode manual. In fact, since not everyone might > follow this thread, let me start another one, with this very question in > a minute;-).) > > The added benefit would be much cleaner structure of Org-generated LaTeX > files. Currently, they have a huge preamble and a few hard-wired > things. > > Summing up: as we know, there are many ways people use Org-mode, but the > current PDF exporter (through LaTeX’s article class, heavily biased > toward scientific material) is suboptimal for all but one of these ways. > > As I said, if there is some consensus on whether something like that is > needed, I can start working on it. (In fact, it might be a fun > side-project.) I would estimate that I’d need a week or two to come up > with a proof-of-concept, sort-of-working thing, and something like two > months with a first production version. (Though I don’t have time for > a project like this now, realistically I could start in August.) (Let > me thank here for Org-mode clocking feature – the above estimate is due > to the fact that I did some work on coding a dedicated, quite complex > LaTeX class for a journal, and I know that it has taken me about 32 > hours as of now. Assuming an average pace of 2-4 hours a week, and > assuming about 16 hours for a first version of this one – it would be > a much simpler project – gives 1-2 months or so. NB. Fun fact: the work > on the class for the journal I’m talking about includes coding some > Emacs Lisp to extract metadata from LaTeX (and aux) files and generate > XML files for uploading pdfs to the journal site.) > > WDYT? +1^{2} ;-) Best regards, Seb -- Sebastien Vauban