Re: [O] Re: unnumbered subsections in latex export

[Aankhen]

On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 00:57, Eric S Fraga <address@hidden> wrote:
> Aankhen <address@hidden> writes:
>
> [...]
>
>> Thank you for the clarifications.  I’m going to talk a bit more about
>> HTML as that’s where I have the most experience.  I am in agreement
>> with you when you say that builtin support for acronyms would be
>> useful (although I feel it would be good to generalize it to
>> abbreviations, if that can also be supported in other backends).  When
>> you have the following markup:
>>
>> ,----
>> | <acronym title="Hypertext Markup Language">HTML</acronym> is a
>> | language for marking up documents.  The most current version
>> | of <acronym title="Hypertext Markup Language">HTML</acronym> is 4.01.
>> | The successor to <acronym title="Hypertext Markup
>> | Language">HTML</acronym>, HTML5, is currently under development.
>> `----
>>
>> The expansion is invisible by default; it shows up in a tooltip when
>> you hover over the text.  You can try a live example to see for
>> yourself.[1] In this way, the expansion is always there when you need
>> it (and you can distinguish between multiple terms sharing the same
>> acronym, should the need ever arise), but it takes up no space if you
>> don’t.
>
> There are those of us that, for one reason or another, do *not* use a
> mouse or any other graphical pointer.  Tooltips do not appear ever in
> those cases.  I would like a solution that does not rely on any
> particular graphical interface paradigm, basically!
>
> Of course, I know that I am in the minority here... but accessibility is
> always an important factor and one that should not be ignored, IMO.

Yes, I absolutely understand the concern, and I must confess I had
overlooked it.  I’m not certain how text-based browsers deal with
‘title’ attributes in general.  I see that Lynx, for one, can make use
of them on links.[1] Unfortunately, I can’t find any material on other
text mode browsers.  Everything I read points at them mostly ignoring
‘title’.  Ideally, text mode browsers would provide a way to get at
it, as there is nothing tying the attribute to a graphical interface;
in practice, it would seem that they took the easy way out.
Understandable, given the rampant abuse of the tag.

>
>> I would suggest that, were Org to gain support for acronyms and/or
>> abbreviations, they be exported in HTML using ‘abbr’ (‘acronym’ is
>> deprecated thanks to HTML5) with the ‘title’ defined for each
>> occurrence, and with CSS to ensure consistent rendering, along these
>> lines:
>>
>> ,----
>> | abbr { font-variant: small-caps; border-bottom: 1px dashed; cursor: help; }
>> `----
>
> Does this still rely on tooltips?

Yes.  This CSS is only meant to standardize the presentation across
graphical browsers.  It is entirely possible to use CSS to display the
expansion, I’m just not sure of the utility (and it relies on the
browser not throwing away CSS):

,----
| abbr[title]:after, acronym[title]:after { content: " [" attr(title) "]"; }
`----

It defeats the purpose of the exercise in any case.

>> I can see the argument for having a list at the end and linking each
>> definition instead.  I feel that’s less convenient, however, as (a) it
>> means temporarily losing your place in the document and (b) bunched-up
>> anchors at the end of a document are a pain.  Of course,
>> alternatively, each acronym/abbreviation could be marked up only at
>> the first occurrence; that seems like it would be easy to implement as
>> a configuration option.
>
> I would like a combination of both, whenever possible: fully expanded
> def'n in the text at the first occurrence and links to the list of
> abbreviations/acronyms at the end for subsequent occurrences (modulo the
> problems with double-links etc, for which I cannot propose a solution
> unfortunately).

Taking into consideration the fact that text-based browsers seem to
ignore ‘title’, I can only agree with you.  How about something like
this:

,----
| <p>I’m going to introduce a new <abbr>TLA</abbr> (Three-Letter
| Acronym).  This <a href="#abbr-TLA">TLA</a> is a very
| special <a href="#abbr-TLA">TLA</a> as it comes straight from my
| heart.
| ⋮
| <h2>Acronyms &amp; abbreviations</h2>
| <dl>
|   <dt id="abbr-TLA">TLA
|   <dd>Three-Letter Acronym
|   <dt id="abbr-YAAA">YAAA
|   <dd>Yet Another Alliterative Acronym
|   <dt id="abbr-Dr">Dr.
|   <dd>Doctor
| </dl>
`----

In case of a nested link, maybe a break in the outer link could solve it:

,----
| Let us read <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/";>the
| HTML</a><sup><a href="#abbr-HTML">[def]</a></sup><a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/";>
| specification</a> together.
`----

Not particularly pretty, but it seems to get the job done.  Just one option.

At any rate, thanks for pointing this out.

Aankhen

[1]: http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_14_adding_titles_to_links.html