X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil t nil]
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Date:         Thu, 19 Jul 90 10:15:00 UT+2
Reply-To: LaTeX-L Mailing list <LATEX-L%DHDURZ1@unido.bitnet>
From: POPPELIER@HUTRUU53.bitnet
Subject:      Re: Proposal for .. (by Rainer)
To: Rainer Schoepf <BK4@DHDURZ1.uucp>
Status: R
X-Status: 
X-Keywords:                  
X-UID: 204

Rainer's 'Proposal for a section heading concept' is, in my humble
opinion, not an elegant one: there are conventional headings,
exceptions to this, and exceptions to exceptions. The scheme is not a
2-level, but a 3-level one. We should try to define a scheme that is
as simple as possible.

1. It has been discussed several times that no macro can be designed
to handle *all* possible section-heading layouts. Most of the people
on this list agree on that, I would say.
Solution: the macro that specifies the section-heading layout should
reside in the document style -- see Frank's earlier proposal -- and
not in LaTeX's kernel, as is the case in version 2.09.

2. It *is* possible, however, to enumerate *all possible positions*
of the section heading -- Rainer calls this 'the rest of the cases'.
And if you can enumerate them, you can turn the position of the
heading into a parameter to the 'generic' macro.


     |           |
Let  |___________|   stand for the preceding paragraph,

     ******          for the sectional-unit heading,

and  |-----------|   for the next paragraph
     |           |


Then the most following 4 positions are most likely two occur

|           |  |           |          |           |    |           |
|___________|  |___________|          |___________|    |___________|

******

|-----------|  |******-----|    ******|-----------|    |-----------|******
|           |  |           |          |           |    |           |


and maybe also the following 2, although I find these a bit unlikely.

          |           |    |           |
    ******|___________|    |___________|******

          |-----------|    |-----------|
          |           |    |           |

Cases 1 and 2 are implemented in \@startsection of version 2.09, with
the actual layout hard-wired into the kernel macros.
All cases except number 2 can be generated by filling a box with the
appropriate contents (document style specifies layout), and putting
the box in the appropriate place (parameter to generic section
macro). Case number 2 is a matter of letting the title of the
sectional unit start the first paragraph.

Conclusion: levels 1 and 2 of Rainer's proposal can be made into one.

3. Now the question is: are there indeed exotic layouts that cannot
be implemented in this way? Maybe I lack imagination -- not unlikely:
I'm not a designer, just a physicist -- but I can't think of any!
Neither have I found section-heading layouts here at ESP that do not
fit into this scheme.
But: for exceptional cases there should be an escape.


Nico Poppelier
Elsevier Science Publishers, PSED, R&D Department
Sara Burgerhartstraat 25, 1055 KV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Phone: +(20)5862504. Fax: +(20)5862425. Email: n.poppelier@elsevier.nl