Re: Are 'placement' and 'float' "obsolete terms" in inline images export

["Juan Manuel Macías" <maciaschain@posteo.net>]

Apologies for my delay in answering all the interesting questions
you raised in this last message. November and December have been
horrible work days for me (all publishers are always in a hurry) and I
haven't been able to attend to the mailing list as I would like...

Ihor Radchenko writes:

> Juan Manuel Macías <maciaschain@posteo.net> writes:
>
>>> What about :wrap?
>>
>> I like :wrap. What's more, remembering that old thread where
>> some questions about code before/after the image were discussed,
>> what if the expected value of :wrap were a kind of template? This would
>> allow code to be placed before and/or after (not just an environment)
>> the image, always within the float environment, if it exists. Something
>> like this:
>>
>> #+ATTR_LaTeX: :float nil :wrap \begin{minipage}[b]{10pc}\small\n%s\n\end{minipage} 
>> #+CAPTION: caption
>> [[file:foo.png]]
>> ...
>> #+ATTR_LaTeX: :float minipage :placement [b]{10pc} :caption \captionof{figure}{caption} 
>> [[file:foo.png]]
>>
>> I don't know if it would be appropriate to explain in the Manual that
>> doing so would not be... "correct"? I don't know if there is any term in
>> programming to designate these situations which, without being bugs, are
>> functionalities not consciously sought...
>
> What about making :wrap override :float completely + obsoleting :float.
> We can allow wrap to have special values like in float:
>
> :wrap t/:wrap multicolumn/:wrap sideways
>
> With these special values, :placement will be taken into account.

+1. Great idea.

> Further, we can make templates a bit more detailed.
> Starting from similar to what you proposed in the above
>
> :wrap \begin{minipage}[b]{10pc}\small\n%{body}\n\end{minipage}
>
> to more granular control over caption, centering, comment-include,
> and image-code:
>
> %{caption} %{caption-text} %{centering} %{comment} %{comment-text}
>  %{image} %{image-path}.
>
> If the :wrap text does not contain %{...} placeholder, it will be
> treated as what  :float artbirary-environment does.
>
> We may even consider something like
>
> #+name: latex-template
> #+begin_src latex :export none
>
> \begin{minipage}[b]{10pc}\small
> %{body}
> \end{minipage}
> #+end_src
>
> #+attr_latex: :wrap latex-template[]
>
> As a bonus, :wrap may allow prepending/appending arbitrary code to
> headings:
>
> * Heading starting at a new page
> :PROPERTIES:
> :ATTR_LATEX: :wrap \clarpage%{default}
> :END:

I really like what you propose, both the idea and the syntax. I think
that such a versatile template system (with such a level of granularity
but with a clear syntax at the same time) would be a killer feature. It
wouldn't be bad to also extend it to the case of tables and other
backends, such as html. I also think it would solve a "classic" Org
syntax issue (in my opinion) which is the difficulty in 'nesting things'.
Well, it can be done currently (for example, the special blocks do their job
pretty  well), but at the cost of increasing the verbosity of the code (I am
thinking, for example, of using the LaTeX threeparttable package through
nested special blocks...)

Best regards, and  happy New Year

-- 
Juan Manuel Macías