Conference vaxuum::document_ft

761.0. "<BEGIN> & <END> environments" by TREK::WATERS (Lester Waters) Wed Aug 05 1987 14:24

    I would like to enter and exit other environments by having beginning
    and ending tags like <COMMENT> and <ENDCOMMENT>.  I'm not suggesting
    doing an <ENDxxxx> for every xxxx command, but rather something
    like this:
    
    		<BEGIN>(COMMENT)
    		   .
    		   . (text in this envrinment is here)
    		   .
    		<END>(COMMENT)
    
    This would be great for environments like <CENTER>.  For environments
    that require postmodifiers (like <EMPHASIS>), it might look like:
    
    
    		<BEGIN>(EMPHASIS\BOLD)
    		   .
    		   .
    		   .
    		<END>(EMPHASIS)
    
    Or, getting trickier with nested environments:
    
    		<BEGIN>(EMPHASIS\ITALIC)
    		   .
    		   <BEGIN>(EMPHASIS\BOLD)
    		      .
    		      <CENTER_LINE>(This line is centered.)
    		      .
    		   <END>(EMPHASIS)
    		   .
    		<END>(EMPHASIS)
    
    
    One might ask, well what is wrong with doing something like this:
    
    		<EMPHASIS>(. . . <EMPHASIS>(. . <CENTER_LINE>(This line
    		is centered.) . .) . .)
    
    Well, its for astetic and readability reasons.
    
    =================
    
    

    I can appreciate your interest in readability and aesthetics.
    
    THis suggestion is not likely to get far up the wishlist,
    however.   Using <BEGIN>(tagname) instead of <TAGNAME>
    means that the characters between the < and > no longer
    supply the markup intent.  SDML is based on an old version
    of what has now become an ISO standard (called SGML for
    "Standard Generalized Markup Language") and we don't want
    to vary any more from that standard than we have.
    
    And supplying alternate forms of the same tag is already a
    potential problem.  Implementing <BEGIN>(tagname) ... <END>
    would compound that problem, making DOCUMENT still harder
    to learn.
    
    bill

    Well, I can understand the point of < and > noting the markup
    intent.  Basically, the <BEGIN> and <END> are for those modes
    which don't have that concept.  Particularly, I would like to see
    
    
    	<BOLD>	...	<ENDBOLD>
    	<ITALIC> ...	<ENDITALIC>
    	<SMALLCAPS> ...	<ENDSMALLCAPS>
    	<CENTER> ...	<ENDCENTER>
    
    	<GROUP> ...	<ENDGROUP>	- see other note by me on this
    
    

    OK, it's on the wishlist.
    
    bill