Re: wip-cite status question and feedback

[Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr>]

Hello,

"Bruce D'Arcus" <bdarcus@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 12:20 PM Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> wrote:
>

[...]

>>
>>   [cite/text: ...]
>>   [cite/paren: ...]
>>

> So in this approach, we have a single core "cite" command, and
> everything else is a namespaced extension?

Indeed.

> My understanding, though, is that org "cite" would default to your
> last example I quote above (in natibib, citep); that there's no need
> for a dedicated "cite/paren" command, either reserved or not.

Not necessarily. "cite" means default value, whatever that is. It could,
for example, mean: "cite/text" for every citation, if that is what you
use the most. In that case, "cite/paren" is necessary, to override it
locally. It could also be, e.g., "cite/footnote", then both "cite/text"
and "cite/paren" could be of some use. That was suggested by Richard
Lawrence in this thread, if my memory serves me right.

Does that make sense?

> So by default, the "cite" command might yield something like this on
> output (of course, depending on processor)?
>
> - to natbib/latex = "\citep{doe18}"
>
> For final HTML output (say using citeproc-el/org), something like:
>
> - author-date = "(Doe, 2018)"
> - number = "[3]"
> - note = "2" (represented as a footnote or endnote, of course)
>
> ... etc.
>
> And then we need a mechanism to do the textual variant (natbib citet);
> "cite/text" makes sense to me.

I assume this would be the more common configuration, indeed.

> Given how common that is (In natbib, it and citep are the two core
> commands), is there any downside to reserving that?

As I wrote, we can reserve "cite/text" already.

Could we find something shorter for such a common need? Well, I didn't
find any syntax compelling enough—I don't like special casing. For
example, having both "citeX" and "cite/XXX", as suggested by Denis
Maier, is a bit convoluted, IMO. E.g., having both "citet" and
"cite/text" would just add confusion to the system, IMO.

Besides, "cite/text" is not that difficult to type. Moreover, you would
probably use a tool to insert the citation anyway.

This is not an irrevocable decision, of course. I merely suggested and
implemented one syntax, but I'm still open to suggestions.

> And then I guess the "suppress-author" variant would be something like
> "cite/year" or "cite/suppress-author"?

The syntax still includes the "suppress-author" mechanism:
[cite:-@doe20].

It could be redundant with "cite/suppress-author", indeed. We can keep
it nonetheless. We can also decide to remove the "-@key" special syntax.
Or, we could also consider this idea to be an interesting one, and
extend it, with, e.g., [cite:!@doe20], which could be a shortcut for
[cite/text:@doe20].

Special cases… Everything's possible. You tell me.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou