From: John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: Aaron Ecay <aaronecay@gmail.com>
Cc: emacs-orgmode <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: refontifying links
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2015 18:55:35 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <m2si3jgk94.fsf@andrew.cmu.edu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87610fb9i0.fsf@gmail.com>
>
> Links are currently defined by an open function and an export function.
> It might be interesting if org added a third function to this set, a
> fontification function.
>
> OTOH we would have to consider if links are the best place to add this
> functionality. The work you have done on org-ref and other projects
> (which I greatly admire!) (ab)uses links as an analogue of HTML’s span
> element: a way to encapsulate and attach attributes to a
> sub-paragraph-sized chunk of text whose semantics are somewhat
> amorphous. Your example here pushes that further, using the link for
> pure formatting: it no longer “links” to anything at all (and thus
> probably should not have an associated open function nor be click-active
> in the buffer).
Thanks! I have had a lot fun stretching the intended uses of the mighty
link ;) you might click on it to change its color, or remove the link,
maybe all red text is glossary word that you can click on to get a
definition... I think there is a lot of potential advantage in changing
the color of a link. org-ref does already, to differentiate cite, ref
and label links, but the faces are static.
> I think “Spans” are something org should support, but not by co-opting
> links to do it. We ought to either make new syntax, or change the name
> of “links” to “spans” and say the former are a special case of the
> latter (preserving backwards compatibility of existing documents to the
> extent possible of course, but also doing our best to free ourselves of
> link-specific implementation details like percent-escaping).
Spans sounds like a generalized link syntax to me. Something like here:
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2015/02/05/Extending-the-org-mode-link-syntax-with-attributes/
In the end I am not sure it makes much difference if we call it a link
or span. I have often wanted something different than a link, but that
was "linky", and still an org-element and more like the example above.
It would make a lot of things easier, like citations, annotations,
etc...
Wait till you see the (ab)use of the new citation syntax which looks
more like a span than anything else ;)
>
> FWIW, HTH,
> Aaron
>
> PS I think if we had spans 2-3 years ago, then you would have used them
> to implement org-ref, and that code would already be in core. I think
> the same would be true of annotations, for which we’ve recently had a
> well-responded thread with several code contribtions, including from you
> IIRC. On the other hand I don’t think we want org to become like Latex,
> where almost all documents require a complicated web of third-party
> dependencies to “work” at all. It’s a delicate balance...
Agreed. The documents are still plain text in the end, and readable if
you do it right.
--
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu
prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-12-03 23:55 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-11-25 2:12 refontifying links John Kitchin
2015-12-03 19:46 ` Aaron Ecay
2015-12-03 23:55 ` John Kitchin [this message]
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