[TxMt] New LaTeX sectioning structure

[Charilaos Skiadas]

Hi Will,

I believe you can already use \begin{section} and \begin{subsection}  
(And corresponding \end things), which might take you partly there  
without any changes, I think we support those variants. Changing the  
bundle to support something which is not standard, bound to be  
confusing (for instance should the top level correspond to a \section  
or a \chapter? or a \part?) and not offering much enhanced  
functionality is not something I look forward to.

There is of course a "Show outline" command, not sure how much that  
serves your needs. The safe moving of code around is the tricky part,  
if that's what you were hoping for. What exactly do you mean by  
"missing the nice outlining features"? In any case, I think it's  
preferable to make the current system work, instead of inventing a  
new system.

Haris Skiadas
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Hanover College

On May 26, 2008, at 2:17 AM, Will Robertson wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've been playing around recently with developing a different  
> technique for sectioning in LaTeX; put simply, instead of writing
>
> \section{}
> ...
> \subsection{}
> ...
> \subsection{}
> ...
> \subsubsection{}
> ...
>
> you write
>
> \begin{sect}{}
> ...
> \begin{sect}{}
> ...
> \end{sect}
> \begin{sect}{}
> ...
> \begin{sect}{}
> ...
> \end{sect}
> \end{sect}
> \end{sect}
>
> I'm not 100% convinced that this is an easier way to write than  
> LaTeX's absolute method as opposed to this sort of relative one,  
> but I'm willing to give it a try for my thesis to see how it works  
> out.
>
> The advantages are that folding is more easily supported :) and  
> that it's much easier to move sections around without having to  
> search/replace all of the \\(sub){0,2}section commands.
>
> But here's the thing...I know it would take you guys orders of  
> magnitude less time than it would take me to adjust the LaTeX  
> bundle to integrate this structure into it. (Starred sections look  
> like \begin{sect*}{} and optional ToC section titles are with \begin 
> {sect}[toctitle]{...}.)
>
> All I'm really missing is the nice outlining features. Is this an  
> easy change to make to the bundle?
>
> Many thanks,
> Will Robertson