Re: [ANN] ASCII back-end for new export engine

[Nicolas Goaziou <n.goaziou@gmail.com>]

Hello,

Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com> writes:

> Recent version errors with wrong type argument, but I can't
> privacy-wash yet to show the whole stack trace.

I don't need the whole stack trace, but there is at least one table in
your buffer that causes problems to the exporter. I'd need to see it.

If you don't know which one it is, you can successively mark each table
in that buffer and use org-export-dispatch with the region active (it
will only export the region) until the culprit is found.

> These comments are from an earlier version that worked:
>
> I like to separate things like this:
>
> ===
>
> The old exporter left it intact; the new one tries to interpret it

In Org syntax, this is really a verbatim equal sign. It is exported as
such.

There are a few solutions to your problem:

- Use Org's separator: "-----";
- Disable every emphasis interpretation in the buffer with option
  "*:nil";
- Configure format string for verbatim text
  (org-e-ascii-verbatim-format). That will affect ~code~, =verbatim= and
  inline src blocks.
- Use another separator (i.e. "= = =")

> Most lines are indented by 2 spaces.  I'd prefer flush to left.

You may customize `org-e-ascii-inner-margin'.

> It splits the window even though I have pop-up-windows set to nil.

This variable is related to `display-buffer', which isn't used to
display output.

You may want to tweak `org-export-show-temporary-export-buffer', though.

> Block quotes indent by 8 or so.  That's rather nice, but is there an
> option to change that to 2 or 4?

I've pushed a commit introducing variable `org-e-ascii-quote-margin' to
solve this.

> Lists are not indented although I always indent them by 2.

e-ascii back-end has its own (configurable) layout. In particular, it
doesn't bother with the indentation you use in the original Org buffer.

I'm not convinced that lists should be made special and have their own
margin variable. There are not many visual markers in the ASCII output,
indentation being one of them. I prefer to use them parsimoniously.

> Is there an option to set the fill column and refill paragraphs
> (roughly like the way HTML does)?  I'd find that highly useful.

By default, text is already filled at a fill column of 72. You may
customize `org-e-ascii-text-width' for different values.

> Feature requesti --export tables using tab characters.  If it doesn't
> exist already.  Maybe it does?

Do you mean inserting tabs instead of white spaces in cells? If that's
the case, I'd rather not implement it.

> Footnotes don't have a header.  HTML export inserts one.

I've pushed a commit introducing a header for the final footnotes.

> No final newline.

I've pushed a commit fixing this.

> One missing footnote .  It is going to take me a while to narrow it
> down.

I cannot help with so little information. Though, I'd be interested in
an ECM.

Thanks for your feedback.


Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou