Re: [Docutils-develop] Image align in figure, and figure as generic container

[Guenter M. <mi...@us...>]

On 2011-11-16, Kirill Smelkov wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 05:20:44AM -0800, SourceForge.net wrote:

>> Patches item #3434887, was opened at 2011-11-08 02:31
>> https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=422032&aid=3434887&group_id=38414

>> latex2e: Propagate figure align to image

>> Previously figure alignment was not taken into account for
>> embedding-in-fugure images -- images were always center-aligned.

>> >Comment By: Günter Milde (milde)

>> Currently, the only way to configure the alignment of an image inside a
>> figure is via class arguments.

>> While re-using the :align: argument for "image in figure" alignment in
>> LaTeX seems an improvement over the current ignoring, it will prevent
>> image alignment setting once aligned figures (with pargraph reflow)
>> are supported.

> Thanks for clarifying this. Now, as I understand, the issue is that
> docutils .. figure:: directive is tightly coupled with image and
> automatically pass options to underlying image, without allowing user
> to customize that image further.

You can customize the image. All options (except "figwidth", "figclass",
and "align") are passed on to the contained image.

You might realize the inconsistency here: How to name a separate
option for the alignment of the image without backwards compatibility
problems?


> Mimicing what LaTeX does, for flexibility, it would be good to decouple
> figure and image, so that image inside a figure would be just a usual
> directive, and also now figures could contain not only images
...

I like this idea of a "figure wrapper" or "formal figure" element similar
to the LaTeX figure float environment or DocBook's "formal" elements.
There has been discussion about this already some years ago. 

Similar "formal" elements have been suggested for examples and listings.
http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/dev/todo.html#body-example
http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/dev/todo.html#body-listing

So, maybe a generic directive to define "formal" elements (numbered insets,
floats) might be best?

Günter