Re: Ascii numbering

Hello, all ascii enthusiasts:

I've just realised, one might well have a draft of an faq
already using an ascii type number system, such as in
Margo Schulter's posts.

1.1. Most proximal quads, expansive and contractive

Now, the easiest way to make that tree friendly would be
to just add $. before it:

$.1.1. Most proximal quads, expansive and contractive

Then when included in the final FAQ, the $ at the beginning
would be expanded to give the number for the article itself
in the faq.

In a reference such as
see (Section 3)

you can just prefix the 3 with $$ like this

see (Section $$.3)

Using $$. instead of $. will help the program to make the distinction
between an actual new section heading, and a reference to one
already given.

Now, how will this fit in with the other method?

The other idea, to recall, was to use the likes of:

$.$.trines

as a bookmark just before the section heading, with the number
of $ signs showing how far in to nest the section heading in
the ascii numbering

With that idea, one doesn't need to number the sections at all, just
use bookmarks, and the numbers are all inserted automatically
by the program.

So, could they be combined?

Answer is yes.

Idea then is, in a bookmark like

$.$.trines

the number of full stops gives the number of levels of nesting of the
section heading (ignoring any final full stop).

So, $.1.1. will be treated by the program as just another level 2 bookmark

- would have same effect as
$.$.most_proximal
or
$.aaa.bbb
or whatever

It will replace the $.1.1. by the appropriate numbers for your section
but if you have got the numbering right, it will find the numbers
as ...1.1. again, so it will be just the same.

Since it is also going to replace all the (see section $$.1.1.) by
links to the section originally called $.1.1., then even if you left a gap
in the number system, your references to it will still work after the
program renumbers everything.

So I suggest we do that.

To avoid confusing the program, now that one may have the bookmark at the
beginning of a line of text, I suggest that the bookmark only continues
as far as the next space. If you want to make an ascii bookmark
called most proximal, then join the words together by replacing the
space with an underline character

$.most_proximal.
...
(see $$.most_proximal)

One might want to preserve a numbering system with gaps in it, for some reason
- one should allow for that eventuality.

So to tell the program that you want all your numbers preserved exactly as they
are, put
$.$.ok

as the first line in the file
instead of
$.$.$

It will then leave all your ascii bookmarks exactly as they are, and only
substitute for the $. part at the beginning.

I think this should work fine.

Any comments, or anyone foresee something else that might need to be addressed
in it?

Robert