Re: [dev] About a beamer back-end

[suvayu ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com>]

Hi Nicolas,

First a big thank you for all your efforts over the last year.

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 5:08 PM, Nicolas Goaziou <n.goaziou@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm wondering if it is really interesting to have every environment set
> up from headlines. I understand it allows to use column view but, from
> my experience, I've used previous Beamer exporter without ever resorting
> to this view.  Also, it introduces some hacks (like the "normal" block)
> when you want to insert some text after a block.
>
> On the other hand, I think special blocks could be used for
> environments.  For example:

[...]

>
> I do not mind keeping previous implementation, but it can be clunky at
> times. What do you think?

I have to agree with you, the block approach seems cleaner to me.
Environments like definition or quotes appear on beamer slides as
blocks, so I think your proposal fits in better logically compared to
using headlines.

There is an added bonus to this, now headlines could be used properly to
do what it is meant to do, sectioning. Something like this would be very
nice:

#+begin_src org

 #+BEAMER_FRAME_LEVEL: 3

 * Top level section 1
 ** sub-section 1
 *** frame 1
 some intro text

 #+ATTR_BEAMER: :title "Definition"
 #+BEGIN_BLOCK
 A *set* consists of elements.
 #+END_BLOCK

 some concluding text

 ** sub-section 2
 *** another frame

 * Top level section 2
 ** sub-section
 *** some frame

#+end_src org

With this syntax it would be very easy to write both really long (40-50
frames) as well as quick and short presentations.

However this breaks backwards compatibility for existing org documents.
As a very frequent beamer export user I would be willing to break
backwards compatibility for cleaner structuring in the future. If
backwards compatibility is too precious, one could move org-beamer to
contrib and rename it org-beamer-lagacy.

Another comment/request I have is better support for overlays. It seems
to me with the block approach overlaying for blocks could be supported
with block header arguments (like babel). I'm not sure though how one
could have overlays in lists though. Maybe the [@n] syntax for ordered
lists could be exploited to support overlays with list (although I admit
it feels like a big hack)?

Hopefully these comments are helpful.

PS: I can't wait to test the new beamer exporter. :)

--
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.