Lout customization

[basile . starynkevitch]

Hello All, 
Hello Jeff,

We are all glad that Jeff is working again on Lout! (I'm both quite
serious and cheerful here).


I have a wish and question regarding Lout customization. I would like
it to be really simple, even for Lout beginners. I feel that Lout
lacks some ease of customization. For instance, I don't know  very
well 

  * How can sub-sub-sub-section support be added (I know it is
    considered poor style, but what if I really need them...).

  * How can numbered theorem (with optional title) support be added
    (with a table of theorems, and numbering either thru the whole
    document or on a per chapter or per section basis, eg Theorem 23
    (Fermat), or Theorem 3.4 (Fermat), etc...)? And if I want to have
    (mixed into the text) theorems, axioms, definitions, lemma (with
    eg a table of theorems and a table of axioms, but no table of lemma)?

  * How can I add bilingual abstract (ie both English and French
    abstracts), or in 3 or 4 languages?

  * How can exercise sections be added, with, eg both answered and
    unanswered exercises, and a separate appendix for answers to
    selected exercises?

  * How can I add glossary support - @Glossary @Term{word} {sequence
    of letters} would produce in the text "word (= sequence of letters)"
    with the defined word in bold, and at the same time would add an entry
    to a glossary appendix, etc.

  * How could literate programming be done with Lout?

  * How could HTML be formatted by Lout?

I'm specifically *not* asking for all these features in standard Lout,
but I would like advice (and facilities) for adding them. This
probably means

   1) a modular /usr/local/lib/lout/include/dl file - perhaps it should
     be just a stub, which @Include-s several filed, eg dl_display dl_list
     etc... and end by including a dl_user which defaults to an empty
     file. 

   2) a better user guide documentation, and examples of how doing
     such things in Lout.. Perhaps even the Lout style files (ie dl,
     and reportf, etc...) should be literate programs (ie mixing Lout
     documentation and Lout sources).

   3) Perhaps a specific preprocessor which generate Lout style from
      higher level specifications.

   4) some guidelines and Lout programming style hints (with
      explanation and guidance about Lout scoping rules).

   5) How and when use the Lout @Filter feature (that I believe is
      very powerful and interesting).

I also have some remarks:

   A) Literate programming is, IMHO, a potential "market" for
Lout. Almost all LP tools are TeX based, and having an LP tool which
only needs Lout (the Lout distribution is about 15 times smaller in
disk space than a complete TeX distribution; this could be a decisive
advantage for people wanting LP without TeX!) could be a decisive
factor. I also think that some (if not all) of Lout should be a
literate program, because I think that Lout *implementation* (both in
include/dl and in the C code) should (also) be documented!

   B) I would like a position from Jeff regarding the hot debate about
active invocation by Lout of external programs (ie with @Filter or a
future @Pinclude to include pipes thru popen). I really don't wan't to
start a flame war again on that topic! I just hope that @Filter-ing
will still be possible (perhaps with a specific option -thru main's
argv- at the command line)


 --

N.B. Any opinions expressed here are solely mine, and not of my organization.
N.B. Les opinions exprimees ici me sont personnelles et n engagent pas le CEA.

Please cite a **pertinent part** of my mail in all answers
Veuillez citer une **partie pertinente** de mon courrier dans vos reponses



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Basile STARYNKEVITCH   ----  Commissariat a l Energie Atomique (civil)
DRN/DMT/SERMA * C.E. Saclay bat.470 * 91191 GIF/YVETTE CEDEX * France
fax: (33) [1] 69.08.85.68; phone: 69.08.40.66; homephone: 46.65.45.53
email: address@hidden (or else address@hidden);  
I speak french, english, russian. Je parle francais, anglais, russe.
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