From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Titus von der Malsburg Subject: Feature request: lists with letters Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2017 18:28:22 +0100 Message-ID: <87shnwbiyx.fsf@posteo.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:49737) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cZLBO-0006DT-2x for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 02 Feb 2017 12:28:31 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cZLBL-0007MT-0y for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 02 Feb 2017 12:28:30 -0500 Received: from mout02.posteo.de ([185.67.36.66]:60433) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cZLBK-0007Lo-QF for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 02 Feb 2017 12:28:26 -0500 Received: from submission (posteo.de [89.146.220.130]) by mout02.posteo.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 52537209F8 for ; Thu, 2 Feb 2017 18:28:24 +0100 (CET) Received: from customer (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by submission (posteo.de) with ESMTPSA id 3vDn5g2LjKz106S for ; Thu, 2 Feb 2017 18:28:22 +0100 (CET) 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: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org 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 th= is 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 a= z 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 uninterest= ing 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. Titus