From: David A. <da...@bo...> - 2003-03-10 17:56:45
|
David Goodger <go...@py...> writes: > [David Abrahams] >>>> I can think of one way to beautify cases like this: introduce a kind >>>> of quotation which removes all spaces in what it surrounds as a >>>> postprocessing step. >>>> >>>> ''*re* ``Structured`` *Text'' >>>> >>>> This would be analogous to re.VERBOSE, if memory serves. > > [David Goodger] >>> I'll add it to the character processing discussion in the To Do list, >>> but I doubt the feature is worth the cost. > > [David Abrahams] >> Has any progress been made in this general area? > > No. I did add your idea to the To Do list, after this: > > - Escaped period or quote or dash as a disappearing catalyst to > allow character-level inline markup? > > (<http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#character-processing>) > > I have strong reservations about the use of double-single-quotes as syntax, > since they may be used in unrelated ways: as ''double quotes''; as empty > strings as in text=''; or in ``TeX-style quotes'', although these have other > problems. I'm not wedded to the syntax. ``` could work. >> I am finding myself with the need for much finer character >> processing control, like the ability to switch between ``code`` and >> normal text on character boundaries, super/subscripts, and >> bold-italic fonts. > > How do you do super/subscripts in reStructuredText? A1: You don't A2: See below > Could you show us specific examples where you'd like to do character-level > markup? In a pseudocode example, F(a1, a2,... aN) you might want most of the 'a's to be represented as ``code`` while the numbers and the 'N' are represented in an italic variable-width font (subscripted). >> It's very disappointing when I run up against limitations of ReST since >> it is otherwise such a pleasure. > > reStructuredText is inherently limited due to its WYSIWYG nature. To get > past these limitations, ugly workarounds have to be added. I think it might be enough to add a generalized escape which allows arbitrary ugliness when it's absolutely needed. That would still allow the rest of our ReST to stay pretty. Just off-the-cuff: ``X``..[subscript]*1*..[], ``X``..[subscript]*2*..[],...``X``..[subscript]*N*..[] > Here's another idea: a "squeeze" directive used in a substitution:: > > Here's how to make |reStructuredText| do character-level markup. > > .. |reStructuredText| squeeze:: > > *re* ``Structured`` *Text* > > "Squeeze" will remove whitespace from its contents. The problem is that it squeezes a whole paragraph. Unless... maybe we could have a category of directive which embeds a paragraph in the surrounding ones. That would allow nearly arbitrary markup changes without adding too much ugliness to the ReST language. > ----------- > > Unfortunately for Docutils, I'm currenly trying to fulfill a > low-level need [*]_ (get a job), so I don't feel much impetus to > fulfill higher-level needs like writing open-source software. Sorry to hear that; I wish I could help you. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com |