Re: Insert #+BEAMER_HEADER_EXTRA before \begin{document}?

[Sebastien Vauban <sva-news-D0wtAvR13HarG/iDocfnWg@public.gmane.org>]

Suvayu Ali wrote:
> On Wed, May 07, 2014 at 07:26:26PM -0400, Nick Dokos wrote:
>> Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> writes:
>>> On Wed, May 07, 2014 at 09:01:39PM +0200, Sebastien Vauban wrote:
>>>
>>>> To insert a short title for a Beamer presentation, you can glean
>>>> the following answers on the Web:
>>>> 
>>>> - Using `#+BEAMER_HEADER_EXTRA' which -is- +was+ exported /after/ the
>>>>   `\title' command.
>>>
>>> I use this:
>>>
>>>   #+LATEX_HEADER: \subtitle{Some subtitle}
>>
>> Are you sure it worked with beamer? AFAICT, it just adds a subtitle
>> to the title slide, nothing more. In particular, beamer does not seem
>> to use it for the purpose that Seb wants it: a (limited-length) marker
>> on each slide.
>
> You are right.  I misunderstood Seb's question.  :-p

Yes.

> I think I looked into this sometime back and I don't think there was a
> nice resolution (as evidenced by Seb's links).  That said, I vaguely
> recall a discussion on this 1 and half to 2 years back (that would be
> the old exporter of course).  I think supporting this as a feature was
> bypassed since this is very much LaTeX specific.

While I think that LaTeX should be treated as a first-class backend (and
not just 1 out of 10 or so), I'm not asking for something new to be
added: just that #+BEAMER_HEADER is inserted before
the \begin{document} -- hence *after* things like \title, \author, \date,
and \usetheme.

Right now, in an Org Beamer document, we can add specific code via
3 different types of call (with example data):

- #+LaTeX_HEADER:       \institute[short name]{Full name}
- #+LaTeX_HEADER_EXTRA: \usepackage{lxfonts}
- #+BEAMER_HEADER:      \setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=craneblue}

If we simply allow the placeholder for #+BEAMER_HEADER to be somewhere
else (right before \begin{document}) than where it currently is, it will
allow one to:

- add a short title of the document for the footer
- add a short author name for the footer (see AnnArbor)
- add a short date version (for example, "May 2014" instead of the full
  "8 May 2014")
- customize some colors of the Beamer themes
- and many other things...

The above things are currently (almost, for some) impossible.  Changing
where the #+BEAMER_HEADER placeholder gets inserted makes them possible
and easy.

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban