Message-Id: <9302252137.AA12376@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
In-Reply-To:  <01GV4U8T0ZQAGW2B4P@MATH.AMS.ORG>
Date:         Thu, 25 Feb 93 22:37:47 CET
From: Michael Downes <MJD@MATH.AMS.ORG>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
To: Multiple Recipients of <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Subject:      Re: subdocuments
Status: R


Joachim posted Eve Maler's comments in comp.text.sgml about `reusing
division subtrees' (thank you Joachim):

> Lots of folks express the desire to reuse division "subtrees," and this
> seems to be the main reason that generic nested divisions get chosen.
> As Wayne points out, writers must be aware of the possibility of reuse;
> otherwise they will erect literary obstacles against the reuse (e.g.,
> "This chapter discusses..." introductions can't be reused at lower levels).
>
> I'm confused as to why there's such a strong desire for this, given the
> constraints it puts on writers to write naturally (at least in regular
> old book-like documents), given the alternatives, and given that such a
> DTD for regular books allows for documents that nest to unacceptable numbers
> of levels.

This reminded me, I neglected to include one other example where it
would be nice to be able to shift sectioning levels up or down: In the
process of writing an article, I would sometimes like to promote a
subsection to become a section, or vice versa. In current LaTeX this
can be awkward: I must change \subsection -> \section, \subsubsection
-> \subsection, \paragraph -> \subsubsection, ... and maybe also if I
was not foresightful enough, I have to change \label{ssec:xxx} to
\label{sec:xxx}, not to mention \ref's. I suppose here many of the
difficulties must be forestalled by the careful attention from the
writer mentioned by Eve and Joachim, but perhaps a few things can be
done by LaTeX to make it easier to promote or demote document
subdivisions while the writing is still unfinished.

Michael Downes                              mjd@math.ams.org (Internet)