some small wishes for the next Lout release.

[basile . starynkevitch]

Hello All,

I would like to emit some small wishes for the next Lout release.

**********
* First, some typographical wishes -but please note that I am not a
* typographical expert! Some of the wishes are inspired by LaTeX output. 

====================
1) Section and subsection headings should look different. I suggest
having

    named @ChapterHeadingFont        {  Bold 2.00f              }
    named @SectionHeadingFont        {  Bold 1.50f              }
    named @SubSectionHeadingFont     {  Bold                    }

and

    named @AppendixHeadingFont       {  Bold 2.00f              }
    named @SubAppendixHeadingFont    {  Bold 1.50f              }

Perhaps SectionGap-s should be made bigger.

(I know this is a very small change, but IMHO it should be made in
Lout distribution).

====================
2) Perhaps chapter start should (optionally) look fancier, eg like in
the red PostScript book -either the 1st or 2nd edition. Here
Postscript gives us better possibilities. For instance, the chapter
title could be boxed in a palegray background...

====================
3) Perhaps adding a small shell (or perl) script which generate a
customized layout by asking. I don't want to copy a booklayout into
mybooklayaout for changing just a few parameters.

====================
4) indexing should really be working. This is probably harder, but I
noticed that having two or more occurrence of the same index entries
don't work, eg I can't have in the same document :

  shell @Index {shell} ## in one chapter

  shell @Index {shell} ## in another chapter

In other words, an index entry (in the index) should contain an
ordered list of page number. (and @SubIndex is not the answer, since
it is not modular).

IMHO the lack of this essential feature makes lout indexing useless.

Perhaps lout could use the makeindex utility?

====================
5) margin notes could perhaps be supported.


**********
* some few miscellanous wishes

====================
6) lout customization should be more documented. I suggest adding a
summaryzing section which tells (at the same place) all is needed to
customize a document

====================
7) lout tayloring should be documented. I wish a chapter devoted to
extending the tl (toylayout) stuff.

====================
8) lout should tell -eg by output to stderr- the currently outputed
page (like tex, psutils, dvi, etc does). (this is just adding a few
lines to the C code which outputs %%Page). This would make the user a
lot less impatient.

====================
9) lout should not limit its input line length (ie the line buffer
should be malloc-ated and grown when needed). When used as a filter,
or as a backup program (eg, in HTML printers which convert HTML to
lout), such arbitrary limitations are bad.

====================
10) lout should be made faster. Perhaps having a less flexible dl
would make it faster? I don't know!


Thanks for reading.

(and although I'm not concerned, since my PC runs Linux, but having
Lout running on MessyLoss is essential for its popularity. Perhaps
jeff should have a lout.exe in the distribution...)
-- 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Basile STARYNKEVITCH   ----  Commissariat a l Energie Atomique
DRN/DMT/SERMA * C.E. Saclay bat.470 * 91191 GIF/YVETTE CEDEX * France
fax: (33) 1- 69.08.85.68; phone: (33) 1- 69.08.40.66; homephone: (33) 1- 
46.65.45.53
email: address@hidden (redirected to address@hidden);  
----------------------------------------------------------------------

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