Re: Marking/highlighting text temporarily

[Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us>]

Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
>> We're just talking about annotations-plus-metadata here, right? Not
>> actual in-text TODOs?
>
> I'm not convinced in-text TODOs would be interesting, because they would
> make building the agenda an order of magnitude slower.

IMO you need not.  But perhaps I'm extrapolating from my use-case.  I
guess it would be inconsistent not to include it.

> My concerns about syntax are:
>
>   - it should not cripple readability of the document
>   - it needs to mark both objects (inline) and elements, even multiple
>     elements (e.g., two paragraphs)
>
> In particular, the last point is difficult to handle for the parser.
> Indeed, any syntax is either contained in a paragraph or stops one, so
> this syntax should be a bit "outside" the parser.
>
> Anyway, here we go for another proposal.
>
> In-text markers:
>
>   [@:ID]...[@]

While we have opening and closing tags for formatting (e.g. bold), I
dislike the above.  It seems like asking for trouble; it would seem one
could easily loose track and delete one end of the tag and not the other.
IOW: [@:ID1]... [@:ID2]...[@]...[@] seems like asking for trouble as I
could easily delete an opening pair.

But note that I am more interested in an inline noting/todo functionality
as opposed to annotation functionality.

Also, for annotation, would it not be annoying, in review session say, to
have the notes so "far away" from the text?  Perhaps not with the right
helping tools.

—Rasmus

> ID is expected to be unique, and consists of alphanumeric characters
> only. Markers are allowed anywhere standard syntax is (e.g., paragraphs,
> verse blocks, table cells, captions, parsed keyword).
>
> Both makers have to be found within the same section, i.e, one cannot
> annotate across headlines. Annotations can be nested but cannot
> partially overlap.
>
> From the parser point of view, Element can recognize such markers, but
> will not be able to "associate" them since they exist above structure of
> the document.
>
> One important limitation is that example or source blocks cannot be
> annotated, Therefore I also suggest creating a new affiliated keyword,
>
>   #+ANNOTATE: ID
>
> which will annotate the whole element it is applied to.
>
> Some examples:
>
>   [@:1]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
>   tempor incididunt ut labore et [@:2]dolore magna[@] aliqua.
>
>   Ut enimad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi
>   ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.[@]
>
>   #+ANNOTATE: foo
>   #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
>   (+ 1 1)
>   #+END_SRC
>
> Then references are collected in a dedicated section, much like
> footnotes (e.g., `org-annotation-section'), although it cannot be nil.
>
> Annotations start at column 0
>
>   [@:ID:AUTHOR-ID] OTHER-AUTHOR-ID
>   CONTENTS
>
> where:
>
>  - ID obviously refers to in-text markers' ID, 
>
>  - AUTHOR-ID consists of word and blank characters only. If empty, it
>    may default to `user-login-name'.
>
>  - OTHER-AUTHOR-ID is also optional. It is meant for empty contents.
>    During export, it could be possible to select annotation from
>    a single source, e.g.,
>
>      #+OPTIONS: @:student1
>
>  - CONTENTS consists of either comments and non-comments. Any
>    non-comment is considered as data to replace (if in-text markers are
>    not sticked to each other), or insert (when they are) during export.
>
>    Comments will be displayed as a conversation thread by a special
>    function in "org-annotate.el".
>    
> This syntax allows to copy annotation from another author, e.g.
>
>    [@:1:teacher]
>    # This is wrong, it should be "foo".
>    foo
>
>    [@:1:student1] teacher
>
>    [@:2:teacher]
>    # Please reformulate.
>
>    [@:2:student1]
>    # What about "bar"?
>    bar
>
> Timestamps, if needed, can be inserted in comments.
>
> WDYT?

-- 
Enough with the bla bla!