Re: [RFC] Syntax for macros

[Florian Beck <fb@miszellen.de>]

On 30.01.2014 17:59, Nick Dokos wrote:

> Are you advocating that the macro syntax should be changed without
> worrying about backwards compatibility? That might work if almost nobody
> uses macros currently[fn:1], but my impression is that they are used fairly
> widely.

The main problem is that this will affect org files in weeks, months or 
years in the future, which then mysteriously fail to work as expected. I 
agree, however, with Sebastien that the current syntax is a bit heavy. 
Two brackets would be better, but still ugly.

A couple of alternative ideas:

1. How about using unicode characters? This would solve the problem of 
false positives and allow for light markup. E.g.:

(looking-at "\\(?:「\\|{{{\\)\\([a-zA-Z][-a-zA-Z0-9_]*\\)\\(([ \t\n]* 
\\([^\000]*?\\))\\)?\\(?:」\\|}}}\\)")

2. On the other hand a function to insert a macro might be all we need, 
e.g.:

(defun org-macro-insert ()
   (interactive)
   (let* ((macros (org-macro--collect-macros))
	 (macro (completing-read "Insert macro: " (mapcar 'car macros)))
	 (args (string-match "$[[:digit:]]" (cdr (assoc macro macros))))
	 pos)
     (insert (format  "{{{%s" macro))
     (when args (insert "(") (setq pos (point)) (insert ")"))
     (insert "}}}")
     (when pos (goto-char pos))))

Maybe even hide the brackets during fontification?

3. Of course, since macros are only relevant when exporting, it should 
be easy to write an export filter that translates arbitrary chars to 
brackets.

-- 
Florian Beck