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Date:         Fri, 25 May 90 11:58:08 CET
Reply-To: LaTeX-L Mailing list <LATEX-L%DHDURZ1@unido.bitnet>
From: PZF5HZ@RUIPC1E.bitnet
To: Rainer Schoepf <BK4@DHDURZ1.uucp>
Status: R
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X-UID: 112

I'm know that Don Hoseks solution to the frontmatter will work
after carefully redefining all commands which are involved in
generating the frontmatter stuff. But nevertheless I'm not very
pleased with is approach.

Reason:

1) such a definition will only work for a specific layout and it
   will involve complicated definition which make it imposible
   for a style designer to specify something different without going
   very deep into TeX internals. It is far more difficult to change
   such a style without breaking it in some sense as it is with
   the current style files (which are bad enough). And our goal
   should be to make style definitions easier for expert designers.

2) His solution is to simply the trial to make something happen
   in a syntax which isn't build to support this. It tries to
   support a \begin{frontmatter} .... \end{frontmatter}
   syntax without saying so. This cries in my ears for a change
   of syntax.

3) The solution will  become nearly unhandable if we think about
   a proper style for books which involve extra parts in the
   front matter if we want to do it right.

On the other hand, we will need a compatibilty style option
anyway when we switch from 2.09 to 2.10 or 3.10 and I see no
problem to find a way to support the old syntax
in such a style option.

Some comment on Leslies answer:


      I'm afraid these plans are starting to get a
      little too grandiose.  I agree that it is more
      elegant to let the style decide where to put the
      talbe of contents and the list of figures.  But
      think of all the decisions this entails.  For
      example:

           Does the list of figures go before or after
           the list of tables.

This is the only option which is currently left to the user.
The posibilties below are determined by the style and/or by style
options which areadded to the \documentstyle command, e.g.,
`titlepage' in the article style.

           Do the list of figures and list of tables:
             (a) Go on successive pages?
             (b) Go on successive right-hand pages?
             (c) Go on the same page?

      The choice of (a), (b), or (c) might depend on
      the lenths of the lists.  Either the \frontmatter
      command would have an astronomical number of
      options, or the user would have to learn how to
      define his own \frontmatter command.

No, I don't believe that it is necessary to have an astronomical
number of options. What I want is a syntax both external and
internal (for the style designers) which is easy to understand
and easy to handle (i.e., changable if necessay).
I have nearly never seen a document starting with something different
(i.e., different in a different order) than

\maketitle
\tableofcontents
\listoffigures

but what the ordinary user doesn't understand is that the book style
*always* start the next stuff one a right-hand page.
What we need is a clear syntax which is easy to  specify usual
formats. If we find it it should be no problem to write a style option
where, for example, the abstract is placed between the title and
the tableofcontents etc.

      Let's not become so obsessed with the ideal of
      separating content from format that we produce
      something unwieldy.

It is not the ideal of separating content from format but rather
the problem of specifying often desired formats in a reasonable
way.

Frank