From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Titus von der Malsburg Subject: Re: Feature request: lists with letters Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2017 20:42:27 +0100 Message-ID: <87r33gbcrg.fsf@posteo.de> References: <87shnwbiyx.fsf@posteo.de> <87tw8ccwae.fsf@nicolasgoaziou.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="=-=-="; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:52825) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cZNHD-0007wH-IZ for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 02 Feb 2017 14:42:40 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cZNH9-0007Dx-Jd for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 02 Feb 2017 14:42:39 -0500 Received: from mout02.posteo.de ([185.67.36.66]:59400) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cZNH9-0007Ct-99 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 02 Feb 2017 14:42:35 -0500 Received: from submission (posteo.de [89.146.220.130]) by mout02.posteo.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7C4A920BC3 for ; Thu, 2 Feb 2017 20:42:29 +0100 (CET) In-reply-to: <87tw8ccwae.fsf@nicolasgoaziou.fr> 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@gnu.org Sender: "Emacs-orgmode" To: Nicolas Goaziou Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org --=-=-= Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 2017-02-02 Thu 17:55, Nicolas Goaziou wrote: > Hello, > > Titus von der Malsburg writes: > >> Items in lists can start with -, +, N), or N. (with N being an >> integer). It=E2=80=99s currently not possible, to use letters as in the >> following examples: >> >> a. First item >> b. Second item >> >> or >> >> a) First item >> b) Second item >> >> I believe it would make sense to allow letters in org-mode because >> that=E2=80=99s a very common way to label items in lists. I know that t= his has >> been discussed previously but to my knowledge there was no >> resolution. The counter argument against letters was that we wouldn=E2= =80=99t >> know what labels to use when there are more items than letters, but I >> think this shouldn=E2=80=99t stop us. Reasons: >> >> a) Most lists have fewer items and cases where more than 26 labels are >> needed are rare. >> b) If a list has more than 26 items, the user is free to switch to >> bullet points or numbers. >> c) The limited number of letters hasn=E2=80=99t stopped people from using >> letters in many other contexts. For example, LaTeX offers letters >> and people think it=E2=80=99s useful. >> d) Similarly, people often use Roman numerals (e.g., iv.) although >> they also quickly become impractical (999 =3D CMXCIX). >> e) In some (academic) contexts, e.g. in linguistics, letters are >> conventionally used to label items in lists. >> f) Letters worked perfectly fine in this list. >> >> As to the question what org mode should do if a list is two long for >> letters: Here are two possible solutions: >> >> a) Label all items beyond the 26th with z, to make it visually very >> salient that there are not enough letters. >> b) Start over from letter a after z. >> c) Count in base 26 using letters as digits: a =E2=80=A6 z aa =E2=80=A6 = az ba =E2=80=A6 bz =E2=80=A6 >> >> Personally, I would prefer solution c because it gives each item a >> unique label to which we can refer. But solutions a and b would be ok, >> too. It doesn=E2=80=99t really matter because this is just an uninteres= ting >> edge case and we shouldn=E2=80=99t obsess about it when the default case= (<=3D26 >> items) is complete unproblematic. >> >> Thanks for considering this proposal. > > This proposal was implemented exactly 6 years ago. See > `org-list-allow-alphabetical'. > > They introduce false positives, so they are not allowed by default. > Also, they probably should be implemented visually (i.e., with overlays, > =C3=A0 la `org-bullets') not syntactically. Anyway, here they are. Great, and thanks for the response. I had actually checked the documentation but it=E2=80=99s very easy to overlook the footnote in which = this is mentioned. One issue with org-list-allow-alphabetical is that we get numbers instead of letters when we export to HTML and LaTeX. I saw the earlier thread [0] that gives the reasoning for this but I find it unsatisfying. If Org allows us to distinguish between -, +, 1., 1), a., A., a), A), this should also be honored by the exporter. Otherwise it=E2= =80=99s rather pointless to allow that distinction in the first place. IMHO, a clean solution would be to either drop everything but - and 1. or to keep all these and make the exporters honor them. The former would breaks existing documents and is therefore out of the question. This leaves us with the second solution. Any chance you are willing to reconsider the decision to ignore allow-alphabetical during export? I think it would be very useful to have that. I know there are other ways to get alphabetical bullets in exported documents but they are all specific to certain export targets and the beauty of Org mode is precisely that we can export to many different targets. Thank you for your work on Org mode. I use it for everything and without it, I just wouldn=E2=80=99t know what to do. Titus [0] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2013-06/msg00221.html --=-=-= Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJYk4ujAAoJEK40WfPGE2idwC4IAIwC/jLlBpLgJY3mWW9+F+Qw eI2KXQjd/6BBvTEEgrPZ5f66kPIeq/xm6WOeXQxBdqjT1P3hGQWCSZVVuxvGr7le liL/7dD+huCr1UYTcSNwXEAq4zEknYCez+Myq+pydQ8GF4cw1VrG48yiEFIUOdby JRKkt6ieswnv4DjpEE3KEz2QOoYo63XpznZ+cb1P1hJ0RxnVIFG6Zpe7PCIcDajE 8w+aPMllb7sX+pSrsH2/hQQEcyXoo2jFR0MflJPDwA1kC1XYVLM4IGs1A2dI3Zbo jMzUXyQhYAbjGH4L8CDrvY+zlH5MIZvG6jCEzoGTAx++aa3IbNk6MWsTZ6Zuhtc= =gm/q -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-=-=--