Re: [Texmacs-dev] Multiple column support

[Joris van der Hoeven]

> The Good News:
> After much thrashing about, I was able to implement multiple column
> support in the LaTeX converter. It was easy to introduce (only 2 lines
> added to the "with" drd table) however, I have learned that floating
> stuff such as "figure" and "table" environments do not work.
> Fortunately, there is a more generic environment in LaTeX called
> "minipage", which works well for both figures and floating tables.
> Consequently, I had to change the (tmtex-float-make ...) function to use
> the "minipage" environment.

What is wrong with the figure and table environments?

> The Bad News:
> Packages, packages, and more packages.  I needed to use two more:
> "multicol" to provide support for multiple columns within one page, like

We absolutely need something to generate an appropriate \usepackage...
in the header, where we mention only the packages which are really used.
I think we should create a clean drd-latex.scm file soon with
1) all LaTeX constructs, 2) the arities of these constructs,
3) the packages required by each construct, 4) miscellaneous other data.

> The Debatable News:
> So far, (tmtex-float-make ...) contained a statement whereby no caption
> was created if the caption string passed to the function was empty.  I
> think this is wrong.  A floating object should still say "Figure n" or
> "Table n", even if there is no caption.  This is the default in TeXmacs
> and, at least for \label and \ref purposes, it should be the same in
> LaTeX.

So you want to add an empty \caption ? That is OK with me.

> The Other News:
> I may also be able to do this:
>
>        +--------------+
>        |      __      |
>        |     /  \     |
>        |     \__/     |
>        |     _||_/    |
>        |    / ||      |
>        |    _/  \_    |
>        |              |
>        +--------------+
>     Figure 1.  Notice how
>     the caption of this
>     figure is bounded by
>     the width of the
>     graphic and not by
>     the width of the line
>
> This is doable using yet another LaTeX package called "calc", which
> contains the command "widthof" to be used like so:
>
> \widthof{\some{\LaTeX} code which \may{contain} anything, including \\
> new lines.}
>
> This command could then constitute the width parameter to the minipage,
> which would constrain the total width of the minipage, making it appear
> more like a TeXmacs figure.  Unfortunately, this means that we have to
> (tmtex ...) the contents of the figure twice, and it causes LaTeX to
> complain about "Runaway Argument" and such, especially if the figure
> contains a lot of text, instead of just an EPS image.

OK; I now understand your other email.

> Please have a look at the two patches (1400 - multiple columns and 1401
> - minipage instead of figure) and let me know.

I will, I will, dozens of things waiting...