Re: multipage html output

[Ihor Radchenko]

Orm Finnendahl <orm.finnendahl@selma.hfmdk-frankfurt.de> writes:

>> Yes, roughly like this.  Ideally, we should simply modify
>> `org-export-as', but handling output file name may be a bit tricky -
>> it is somewhat awkwardly placed in the current ox.el API (see the
>> discussion in
>> https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/25393.61240.135445.401251@gargle.gargle.HOWL/T/#u).
>
> Today I had a look at ox.el when upgrading my code to
> 9.8-pre. Unfortunately the code (and behaviour of org-element, etc.)
> has changed quite a bit and I had to fix many things.
>
> Especially in org-export-as the parsing of the tree is now done in the
> lexical context of a copy of the buffer which makes implementing a
> multipage backend even more awkward.
>
> IMHO the code is just the wrong way around: org-export-to-file calls
> org-export-as which combines the parsing with generating the output
> string. The multipage code has to split that part and that doesn't get
> easier when both parts have to be evaluated in the context of
> org-export-with-buffer-copy. I'd rather have that turned inside out:
> Instead of org-export-as being a part of
> org-export-to-file/buffer/etc., its functionality could be at the
> top-level and then call org-export-to... appropriately (either for
> multipage output, single-page output, buffer-output...). I will handle
> it by splitting org-export-as just before the
> org-export-with-buffer-copy, but consider it a bit ugly.

Or we can make `org-export-as' retain INFO channel when returning the
output. Then, we can make `org-export-to-file' make use of the INFO
channel to decide the file name. This way, there will be no need to
decide the file name before running the parsing.

> There is something else: A lot of my energy in the multipage backend
> went into getting links and footnotes correct. Footnotes aren't a big
> deal, but I have no idea how to handle cross document links if
> different backends are present (e.g. linking from html to a pdf
> document and vice versa ;-) I think this requires quite a bit more
> thinking and maybe is unrealistic altogether, but at least the
> framework could be changed to be able to tackle that in the distant
> future...

Yes, it is an important feature we would need to implement - turning
internal links into external when they no longer point inside the same
document.

Somewhat relevant code: `org-export--update-included-link' and ox-publish.

For links to external pdfs and co, we have discussed what can be done in
https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/87a5rpoi4c.fsf@localhost/
TL;DR: In latex, \href{file.pdf#anchor} works; In web, anchors should
also work with pdfjs.

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