Message-ID:  <99110115125076@man.ac.uk>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Date:         Mon, 1 Nov 1999 15:12:50 +0100
From: Phillip Helbig <helbig@MAN.AC.UK>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Subject:      Re: Combining sequences of identical elements
Status: R

> I would just like to give some more examples where the idea of combined
> formatting for consecutive elements of the same type might be
> applicable:
>
>   \cite{foo}\cite{bar}  -> [19,35] instead of [19] [35]
>
> The above usage would allow each \cite to have its own optional arg,
> something that is not possible with current syntax.

Yes that would be nice.  Maybe a future version of natbib?  While we're
on the subject, I often have stuff like

   It has been shown by \citet[hereafter Paper~I]{PHelbigMQ99a}

and then EDIT THE .BBL BY HAND to insert the `Paper~I'.  This is,
perhaps, something which natbib could be coaxed into doing, by having a
THIRD optional argument which would write this information to the .aux
so BibTeX could pick it up.  Also, since defining it as Paper~I or
whatever is a context-thing, that should be done by hand, but it would
be nice if the `Paper~I' were to occur automatically at further
citations, rather than hard-wiring `Paper~I' into the text.  Also, a
variant to suppress this would be useful, perhaps for a figure caption
which should be more or less independent of the text.

If a future version of natbib can do it, I'm happy, but if one is
talking about things like modifying the \cite command, why not build in
much-needed functionality like this at a low level?


--
Phillip Helbig                          Email ......... p.helbig@jb.man.ac.uk
University of Manchester                Tel. ... +44 1477 571 321 (ext. 2635)
Jodrell Bank Observatory                Fax ................ +44 1477 571 618
Macclesfield                            Telex ................ 36149 JODREL G
UK-Cheshire SK11 9DL                    Web ... http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~pjh/

************************ currently working at *******************************

Kapteyn Instituut                 Email (above preferred) helbig@astro.rug.nl
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen       Tel. ...................... +31 50 363 4067
Postbus 800                       Fax ....................... +31 50 363 6100
NL-9700 AV Groningen
The Netherlands                   Web ... http://gladia.astro.rug.nl/~helbig/