[DISCUSSION] Allowing footnote-references inside parsed keywords (#+AUTHOR, #+TITLE, etc) (was: [BUG] Footnotes in section titles)

[Ihor Radchenko]

Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> writes:

> On 26/01/2024 19:53, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
>> So, I am leaning towards reverting that commit - that will allow things
>> like
>> 
>> #+TITLE: This is a test title[fn::This is test]
>
> I hope, document metadata will be generated with stripped footnotes.

This is a good point.

For now, [fn::This is test], when passed to exporters, is simply treated
as plain text.

If we change the parser nesting rules, Org will pass footnote-reference
objects instead.

Then, in a number of parsers, if something like
(org-export-data (plist-get info :title) info) or
(org-export-data author info)
is used, footnotes may break export because metadata fields often have
special rules about markup that is allowed inside.

In particular, ox-odt will be broken; ox-latex will be broken.

Of course, we can adjust built-in backends to take into account the new
parsing rules, but we have no control over the third-party backends.

On the other hand, when user exports something like
#+AUTHOR: John Doe[fn::935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001]
it is probably not exported as expected anyway.
So, changing things from unexpected export to failing export may not be
a critical regression.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
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