mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Joris van der Hoeven <address@hidden>]

On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 11:13:56PM -0500, Corey Sweeney wrote:
> <if|<xor|<equal|1|1>|<provides|book-style>>|xxx>
> 
> \not didn't seem to negate anything, it just put a line though
> everything, so i just used
> <xor|<equal|1|1>|z> instead of <not|z>.

Mmm, it is true that "not" should probably be a macro primitive...

> now, this correctly displays xxx when it is not a book, but when i go
> to put my abstract in there, I type \abstract and it dissapears.  I
> try inserting via the button and it dosn't happen. I try cutting a
> abstract and pasting it in there, and nothing.
> 
> So I try making a macro 
> <assign|bubbs-taco|<macro|<abstract|blah blah blah>>>
> 
> then 
> 
> <if|<xor|<equal|1|1>|<provides|book-style>>|<bubbas-taco>>
> 
> which does successfully print a abstract.  However, it does it without
> linewrapping, and the entire abstract is on one line.
> 
> It's not a style problem, as i put 2 plain copies of the abstract,
> without a if statement and without a macro, and all is perfect with
> them.
> 
> a abstract via that macro works fine outside of the if statement too. 
> it seems to be the if statement that causes the abstract not to wrap
> the lines.

This is indeed not really satisfactory, but a known complication,
described in the documentation of the if primitive. What you should do
is create a macro to be called in the "if" case and a macro to be
called in the "else" case and then use something like

        (compound (if condition if-macro else-macro) args)

This will correctly handle block structures.
You may take a look at the standard style files,
where this mechanism is used at several places.

Best wishes, Joris