Re: LaTeX export of lists

[tsd@tsdye.com (Thomas S. Dye)]

Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> tsd@tsdye.com (Thomas S. Dye) writes:
>
>> Nicolas Goaziou <n.goaziou@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> tsd@tsdye.com (Thomas S. Dye) writes:
>>>
>>>> Nicolas Goaziou <n.goaziou@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> That raises an interesting question: can a list belong to a paragraph in
>>>>> Org? According to paragraph-related regexps, it can't, for now. And your
>>>>> request is more a "LaTeXism" than an "Orgism" (!).
>>>
>>>> I probably don't understand your question fully, but it seems obvious to
>>>> me that a list can either belong to a paragraph or it can be separate.
>>>> I'm not certain why Org-mode would want to choose one over the other.
>>>
>>> It isn't obvious. For example, in HTML, a list within a paragraph
>>> doesn't even make sense[1].
>>>
>>> There's no harm in it, but you're basically faking Org and its LaTeX
>>> exporter, as lists and paragraphs are two distinct entities[2].
>
> [...]
>
>>
>> Aloha Nicolas,
>>
>> Interesting observations.  Thanks.
>>
>> The relation seems obvious to me because my model comes from printed
>> works, which commonly include enumerated lists typeset within
>> paragraphs.  
>>
>> Perhaps given the limitation of the HTML spec and the structure of
>> paragraphs in Org-mode it will always be necessary to have the LaTeX
>> exporter take care of setting lists inside paragraphs.
>>
>> Thanks again for your help with this.
>>
>> All the best,
>> Tom
>
> Latex does have the concept of lists within paragraphs in that
> paragraph boundaries are defined by blank lines.  So, if you have a
> begin{itemize}...end{itemize} with no blank lines before and after, the
> list implicitly is part of the enclosing paragraph.
>
> whether lists exported from org should automatically be within
> paragraphs or not is unclear.  I personally prefer having them outside
> but that's because, in latex, I tend to have 0 paragraph separation with
> indented first lines.  If I want a list to look like it's embedded
> within a paragraph, I put a \nonindent on the "paragraph" following the
> list.

Hi Eric,

I'm thinking of enumerated lists inside paragraphs, of the kind (i)
found frequently in print, and (ii) made possible in LaTeX with the
paralist package's =inparaxxxx= commands.  Here the list can either end
the paragraph, or not.  If Org-mode's lists are going to serve this
purpose, then there will need to be some way to indicate that the list
is to be part of the paragraph.  

LaTeX uses blank lines (which is how I typically get paragraph breaks in
Org-mode, though perhaps this isn't the only way to do so?) and a year
or so ago the presence/absence of a blank line following an Org-mode
list was used to trigger whether or not the following text would be set
as a continuation of the paragraph or set as a new paragraph.  A blank
line feels natural to me because I've written in LaTeX for a long time,
but I'd be happy with some other solution if the blank line turns out to
be too difficult to maintain in the Org-mode code.

IIUC, you are describing the case where a displayed (not set within a
paragraph) list is followed immediately by flush left text.  I agree
that it is useful to be able to do this, but it wasn't what I had in
mind.

All the best,
Tom

-- 
Thomas S. Dye
http://www.tsdye.com