Message-Id: <199402041152.AA11509@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Date:         Fri, 4 Feb 1994 10:01:27 LCL
From: Mike Piff <M.Piff@sheffield.ac.uk>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: additional features
Status: R

From:          Frank Mittelbach <MITTELBACH@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE>

%>as David pointed out it shouldn't be difficult to provide a package
%>that implements
%>
%>   \@startsection and \secdef so that they support
%>

At last! A reassurance! \@startsection is cast in stone and will never
disappear or change its meaning again. I notice that you mention LaTeX2e will
not be changing now, not LaTeX3 (and on the LaTeX-3 list, I note;-), but does
this assurance carry over to LaTeX-3?

This has *still* not been made clear, and I am going to start on this again.

(screams) WHAT EXACTLY IS A STYLE, PACKAGE, OR WHATEVER ALLOWED TO ASSUME
ABOUT THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF LaTeXn?

If we can assume that this will never change, then all those local
styles, packages, etc that we mugs volunteer to provide can be modified, if
necessary, just this once. If however next year or the year after it is going
to be \@commencesection or \@proceedwithsection then we have every right to
complain, even to people who have put in a lot of work on LaTeX, because *we
have too*!

And comments like "oh! yes I use LaTeXn in its standard form and it serves me
very well, and I wouldn't dream of altering anything!" are not helping things
one bit. For we people have to live with colleagues (and editors) who
constantly come to us with problems like:

* This list is like an enumerate, except that the second line should wrap to
the left margin.

* In this theorem environment, the number comes first, and the font is
roman.

* The footer should automatically change on the last page of the exam, but
the header should remain constant. Also, alternate pages should say
"continued" and "turn over". On any appendix to the paper, the headers and
footers should be different again.

* The chapter heading should wrap to the same indentation as the section
headings, and they should all be in a different, smaller font, with less
space above and below.

* We need a test format which can be printed with and without the answers in
the boxes, using a suitable switch in the preamble.

* We need an easily customizable letterhead format, where individual
elements, such as the department, name, address, telephone number(s), e-mail
address, etc, can be modified easily, and with the crest on the left, and a
couple of horizontal lines to boot.

* How can we process *this* file into individual results letters to all our
students? Oh, and our paper bin runs out every 100 pages, so they mustn't all
be page 1.

* How do I tell LaTeX to check if too many marks have been awarded on this
test?

* How do you bind problems to solutions in LaTeX, as in the TeXbook?

* How can I get a hanging indentation on this list?

* How do I put explanatory comments against the rows/columns of this matrix?

* How do I get this arrow and comment to point at this object
                                                _
                                                /|
                                              /
                                         like this?

* How do I use the AMS fonts in my LaTeX document? (pre nfss)

* Supply your own ad infinitum.

And I bet all of those will need you to coerce some internal of LaTeX into
behaving differently to normal, rewrite large chunks of the LaTeX code
yourself, or use some trick from plain TeX.

Mike pertinent Piff

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Dr M J Piff, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of %%
%% Sheffield, UK.                    e-mail: M.Piff@sheffield.ac.uk %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%