Re: Org mode and Emacs

[Ihor Radchenko]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>   > It is not export backend fault per se - Org markup simply does not
>   > define specialized markups more granular than ~code~.
>   > So, users have to use macros like {{{kbd(C-c SPC)}}} that expands to
>   > direct texinfo export snippet ...
>
> That source construct might be acceptable, though it has 6 extra characters
> and that would be rather inconvenient.  Could you manage to reduce the number
> of them?

> Could you explain what is implied/presumed by "direct texinfo export"?
> Are you saying that Org would be a front-end for Texinfo, for all
> output formats?  I'd hope it could generate Info files and HTML directly.

To clarify, I was describing what already exists in Org. We leverage
Texinfo itself as intermediate format to export to Info. The above "kbd"
macro is specifically designed for Texinfo export.

We may eventually have an option to export to Info directly, but not
yet. Though nothing stops people from implementing such functionality.
Adding new export Backends is not very hard:
https://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-export-reference.html#back-end

>   > Though we do not provide similar macros for @var/@env/etc. We might.
>
> They are very often used.  To make org adequate as a replacement for
> Texinfo, they would have to be predefined.  (It is ok if the file
> has to specify loading some extension to define them.)
>
>   > Or we might allow custom inline special markup as I suggested in
>   > https://orgmode.org/list/87bkqx4jyg.fsf@localhost
>
> I skimmed that long message but I couldn't see any suggestion about
> @var, @env, etc.  Could you please send me the actual proposal, by
> itself, rather than an indirection to it?

For more complete support of software manual-specific markup, we plan to
introduce more versatile, hackable markup that can be extended by users
to fit their needs. See
https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/87a6b8pbhg.fsf@posteo.net/ and
https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/87mtaez8do.fsf@localhost/ 

One of the ideas was to follow TeXinfo markup closely, extending with
some Org-specific needs:

Simple case:
@name{<contents>}

If we need to escape { or } inside:
@name{{<contents}}

Extra configuration:
@name[:key value ...]{<contents>}

@color[:name red]{[[file:image.png][description]]}

Then, users or packages can define the details of how to fontify or
export a given @name{...} markup. That way, we can add anything,
including @var/@env/...

We already do something similar for links:
https://orgmode.org/manual/Adding-Hyperlink-Types.html (org-man-export),
except that links have limitations that prevent them from being used as
markup.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>