two bugs? Features?

[Jeff Henrikson]

Hmm, so I have just learned lout the past two days and used it to 
format my resume.  There are two behaviors which I yet do not 
understand, which I have distilled down to short examples.  My lout 
version is 3.28.

First, bug1.lout.  Two nested VeryWideTaggedList produce an extra 
carriage return on the second level.  Look at the PDF, which I will 
attach.  (To the right of "ZEEBER" there is a space instead of text.)


@Include { mydoc }
@SysInclude { tbl }

@Document
        @InitialFont { Times Base 10p }
        @InitialSpace { tex }

@Text @Begin

@VeryWideTaggedList
@TagItem
{ FIRST } { Greetings and salutations. }
@TagItem
{ ZEEBER } {
@VeryWideTaggedList
@TagItem {happy} {Quick brown foxes, baby.  Very quick.  And very 
brown, jumping over the lazy dogs back.  Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.  Quick 
brown foxes, baby.  Very quick.  And very brown, jumping over the lazy 
dogs back.  Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.  Quick brown foxes, baby.  Very 
quick.  And very brown, jumping over the lazy dogs back.  Yeah yeah, 
yeah yeah. }

@TagItem {happy} {Quick brown foxes, baby.  Very quick.  And very 
brown, jumping over the lazy dogs back.  Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.  Quick 
brown foxes, baby.  Very quick.  And very brown, jumping over the lazy 
dogs back.  Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.  Quick brown foxes, baby.  Very 
quick.  And very brown, jumping over the lazy dogs back.  Yeah yeah, 
yeah yeah. }
@EndList
}
@TagItem
{ THIRD } { Mommy, the clown scares me . . . }
@EndList

@End @Text





Next, bug3.lout.  This is more of a feature, I think.  What I want is a 
TaggedList object which does not indent in plaintext mode.  So I have 
some macros @TopList, @TopItem and @TopEnd which conditionally make a 
list or put @LPs between stuff if we're in text mode.

So of course this works fine in PDF mode.  In text mode, I get 
overstrike errors like crazy.  Unless there is a // at the end.  Now 
I'd be happy to just stick a // at the end, but that defeats the 
purpose of my macros.  Look at the definition of @TopEnd.  I tried to 
stick a // in there, but with {} surrounding, it doesn't work.  How can 
I condition with @OrIfPlain or equivalent?

A second gripe, which I learned to live with, is that I don't see how I 
can parameterize these macros.  What I want is to be able to say 
@TopList labelwidth {5f}, but I can't, because then I don't get a 
@OrIfPlain condition.  And if I use def instead of a macro, the list 
system totally freaks out, unable to match beginning and end of list 
because of the enclosing {}.  Ick.

Okay, signing off, thanks in advance for any help.


Jeff Henrikson




@Include { mydoc }
@SysInclude { tbl }

def @JeffsGap {0.2f}
def @JeffsListGap {0.7f}
def @JeffsListGapX {//1fx}
def @JeffsSmallGapX {//0.5fx}

macro @TopList {
        { @TaggedList   labelwidth {8f}
                        gap address@hidden
                        indent {0i} }
        @OrIfPlain { }
}
def @TopItemHelp
        named mytag {}
        right x
{
        { @TagItem {mytag} {x} } @OrIfPlain { @LP mytag @LP x }
}
macro @TopItem { // @TopItemHelp mytag }
macro @TopEnd { address@hidden @OrIfPlain {//} }

@Document
        @InitialFont { Times Base 10p }
        @InitialSpace { tex }

@Text @Begin

{

@TopList

@TopItem
{TECHNOLOGY }
{
Quick brown foxes, baby.  Very quick.  And very brown, jumping over the 
lazy dogs back.  Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.  Quick brown foxes, baby.  Very 
quick.  And very brown, jumping over the lazy dogs back.  Yeah yeah, 
yeah yeah.  Quick brown foxes, baby.  Very quick.  And very brown, 
jumping over the lazy dogs back.  Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

@LP

Quick brown foxes, baby.  Very quick.  And very brown, jumping over the 
lazy dogs back.  Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.  Quick brown foxes, baby.  Very 
quick.  And very brown, jumping over the lazy dogs back.  Yeah yeah, 
yeah yeah.  Quick brown foxes, baby.  Very quick.  And very brown, 
jumping over the lazy dogs back.  Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

}
# uncomment these two lines, and lout -p will compile.  Comment them 
out,
# lout -p will produce errors.
address@hidden
#{ THIRD } { Mommy, the clown scares me . . . }
# this will also ease the situation
# //
@TopEnd
}

@End @Text