I, for one, find your ideas exciting, Marcin. If you're simply looking for votes in order to start work on this: +1.
Thanks! >>>>> Marcin Borkowski <mb...@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes: > On 2015-03-22, at 16:29, Rasmus <ras...@gmx.us> wrote: >> IMO it is. The only place where there's a "hack" is in ox-latex >> and that's cause article is the default class. If you prefer, it >> can just output to the \subtitle{·} by default and say it's >> KOMA-script only. That seems harsh, though. > Hi there, > being like a Pavlov's dog trained to dribble on seeing the word > LaTeX;-), let me add my 2 cents here. > [TL;DR: imho, the right way to do LaTeX export is to prepare a > dedicated package for Org-mode generated files (easy/medium), > arrange for it to be included in all major TeX distros (easy) and > simplify the LaTeX exporter to comply with it (easy). This could > greatly enhance the quality of PDFs produced by Org-mode and make > modifying their look easier on the Org side. I could do the LaTeX > side of the work. Now the question is: does the community /want/ > it.] > The (default) LaTeX markup sucks. (It’s not about > Org-mode-produced LaTeX files, it’s about LaTeX itself.) And I'm > telling that as a long-time TeX and LaTeX user and fan. I would > strongly suggest not caring too much about “what does LaTeX > support out-of-the-box” – in fact, it supports almost nothing > without a heap of packages. > What I really think Org-mode community should do is the following. > We (if I may use that pronoun here) should prepare a dedicated Org > LaTeX package, properly supporting all Org’s fancy stuff like > tags, timestamps, todo keywords etc., and allowing for > parametrizing their look-and-feel through a reasonable LaTeX > interface. I think it should /not/ be a class, since then people > would be free to use it with > article/amsart/koma-script/memoir/whatever. This is not very > difficult nor time-consuming, and in fact I might be tempted to do > it (more on that below). This would require (simple) changes in > the LaTeX exporter (generally, simplifying it); this I cannot do, > since I don’t have the FSF papers signed (and I don’t want to sign > them). OTOH, the package does not have this problem, since LaTeX > licensing is much more sane than Emacs’; this package should be > imho part of every TeX distro (which is important, and in fact > easy to arrange), so that we could send an Org-generated LaTeX > file to any TeX user. > The biggest advantage would be the possibility of exporting > e.g. TODO lists or agendas to LaTeX, and have them formatted as > TODO lists and agendas and not as “articles”. Currently, LaTeX > export is more or less limited to scientific articles (unless you > want to tweak it /a lot/ so that it looks even remotely > reasonable), where you don’t really care about layout and design, > since they are going to be changed by the journal anyway. > Just think about the possibilities. We could make a TODO list in > Org, and send it (as a pdf file) for non-Org-users to print, and > it could look like a TODO-list. (I guess there are still lots of > people who depend on paper todo lists; I do, for sure, though I > make them manually.) We could have an option (on Org side, which > would translate to a LaTeX one) to have more Word-like layout. > (You can say what you want about Word – my personal opinion is > that it is unsuitable for documents larger/more complex than a > piece of paper with an arrow showing the direction to the restroom > – but sometimes, especially for short memos/notes, LaTeX’s > extremely generic spacing can be annoying. Of course, you could > just load the savetrees package – but let me make a short, > informal and unscientific survey here: how many of you would find > it useful, but never thought that something like that exists? If, > OTOH, there would be such option for the LaTeX exporter, it would > be right there, in Org-mode manual. In fact, since not everyone > might follow this thread, let me start another one, with this very > question in a minute;-).) > The added benefit would be much cleaner structure of Org-generated > LaTeX files. Currently, they have a huge preamble and a few > hard-wired things. > Summing up: as we know, there are many ways people use Org-mode, > but the current PDF exporter (through LaTeX’s article class, > heavily biased toward scientific material) is suboptimal for all > but one of these ways. > As I said, if there is some consensus on whether something like > that is needed, I can start working on it. (In fact, it might be > a fun side-project.) I would estimate that I’d need a week or two > to come up with a proof-of-concept, sort-of-working thing, and > something like two months with a first production version. > (Though I don’t have time for a project like this now, > realistically I could start in August.) (Let me thank here for > Org-mode clocking feature – the above estimate is due to the fact > that I did some work on coding a dedicated, quite complex LaTeX > class for a journal, and I know that it has taken me about 32 > hours as of now. Assuming an average pace of 2-4 hours a week, > and assuming about 16 hours for a first version of this one – it > would be a much simpler project – gives 1-2 months or so. NB. Fun > fact: the work on the class for the journal I’m talking about > includes coding some Emacs Lisp to extract metadata from LaTeX > (and aux) files and generate XML files for uploading pdfs to the > journal site.) > WDYT? >> —Rasmus > Best, > -- Marcin Borkowski http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski > Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science Adam Mickiewicz > University