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Date:         Fri, 23 Feb 90 21:55:00 MET
Reply-To: LaTeX-L Mailing list <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.bitnet>
Sender: LaTeX-L Mailing list <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.bitnet>
From: "Nico (Poppelier@Hutruu51.Bitnet)" <POPPELIER@HUTRUU51.bitnet>
Subject:      Suggestions from Utrecht (III)
To: Rainer Schoepf <BK4@DHDURZ1.uucp>
Status: R
X-Status: 
X-Keywords:                  
X-UID: 28

User interface
(or: which commands should be visible and re-definable?)


Teaching LaTeX has taught me a few things about the things users would
like to do. Or to be precise: what scientific staff order their
secretaries to do. These requests are often quite horrible. In all
cases the users spend more time thinking about the way the document
looks instead of about the contents.

Sometimes I reply that a lot of the constructions the professors
prefer will be removed by desk editors if the document is submitted
for publication, such as display-style fractions and \int\limits in
in-line math. Scientists + sound typography = 2!

But anyway, some users want to exert more control over the layout and
want things like

  - control over dimension parameters in `pre-fab' list environments
    like itemize and enumerate; most of them find building their own
    lists too difficult
  - changing from display section and subsection headings to run-in
    headings with one simple switch (if you could re-define the
    counter reset lists from within the document, you could (ab)use
    paragraph and subparagraph for this, but that's beside the point)

What should the new LaTeX present: document styles with a few
options, or document styles with lots of switches and knobs?
(End of part III)


Nico