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Message-ID:  <19189.17593.814557.704925@morse.mittelbach-online.de>
Date:         Sat, 7 Nov 2009 10:58:17 +0100
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Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
From: Frank Mittelbach <frank.mittelbach@LATEX-PROJECT.ORG>
Subject: an object type for heading commands
To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
Precedence: list
Status: R

I do want to try my hand on setting up some templates for headings and for
that the first step is to define a suitable 

  \DeclareObjecttype{headings}{?}

The initial question here is what are the arguments this object type should
carry? for that I hope some of you can help with some thoughts.

Note that each of the mandatory arguments could well be receiving \NoValue
from the outside and or disregard the argument altogether in most document
classes. So we do have somepossibilities and we need to weight them as whether
something is too esoteric or okay to be made part of the standard even if,
say, it will only get used in 10% of the cases.

Here is my current list of candiates:

  - title of the heading
  - title version to go in the TOC
  - title version to go in the running header
  - subtitle of the heading (e.g., an author name, copyright notice ...)
  - motto/quote text to display alongside the heading title
  - flag to number heading

do we need a way to specify that something is send to the TOC or to the
running header and if so how do we do that?

what else is missing or which of the above aren't sensible in the first place?

Remember that the while the object type (and thus the templates implementing
it) only expects mandatory arguments, this doesn't restrict us to have any
kind of optional argument structure on document level, eg the current LaTeX
\section*[...]{...} type command very well fits the above except that it
doesn't implement some of the arguments (passing \NoValue) and putting the
same document material in others. This not withstanding I think that the
current LaTeX2e sectinion command is too restricted in its syntax as several
things that should be manipulatable separately are bundled together there.

thanks
frank