Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Ihor Radchenko]

Hi,

I am now looking at
https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Footnote-Commands.html
and I feel slightly confused about how to refer to the same footnote
from multiple places.

Is it possible at all in texinfo?

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
> Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2022 11:41:32 +0000
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am now looking at
> https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Footnote-Commands.html
> and I feel slightly confused about how to refer to the same footnote
> from multiple places.
> 
> Is it possible at all in texinfo?

No.  Each @footnote directive creates a new footnote and a reference
to it.

(It is really unusual to have several footnote references to the same
footnote.  Usually, you do this once, and then assume the reader
already knows what the footnote says and doesn't need repetition.)

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Ihor Radchenko]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> I am now looking at
>> https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Footnote-Commands.html
>> and I feel slightly confused about how to refer to the same footnote
>> from multiple places.
>> 
>> Is it possible at all in texinfo?
>
> No.  Each @footnote directive creates a new footnote and a reference
> to it.

Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering if ox-texinfo is wrong, or
it is the limitation.

> (It is really unusual to have several footnote references to the same
> footnote.  Usually, you do this once, and then assume the reader
> already knows what the footnote says and doesn't need repetition.)

In this particular case, I was writing a manual patch that clarifies
about some defcustoms not being available until the discussed library is
loaded. Multiple places in the manual can share the same footnote in
such scenario.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2022 13:34:34 +0000
> 
> > (It is really unusual to have several footnote references to the same
> > footnote.  Usually, you do this once, and then assume the reader
> > already knows what the footnote says and doesn't need repetition.)
> 
> In this particular case, I was writing a manual patch that clarifies
> about some defcustoms not being available until the discussed library is
> loaded. Multiple places in the manual can share the same footnote in
> such scenario.

In that case, I suggest to make the "footnote's" text a @node, and
cross-reference to that node from each place that needs to do so.

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Stefan Kangas]

Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net> writes:

> In this particular case, I was writing a manual patch that clarifies
> about some defcustoms not being available until the discussed library is
> loaded. Multiple places in the manual can share the same footnote in
> such scenario.

If they share the same footnote _text_, add the text to a variable and
then use that variable.

(Have you ever seen a book where a footnote is referred to from more
than one place in the text?  I haven't.)

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Ihor Radchenko]

Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> writes:

> Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> In this particular case, I was writing a manual patch that clarifies
>> about some defcustoms not being available until the discussed library is
>> loaded. Multiple places in the manual can share the same footnote in
>> such scenario.
>
> If they share the same footnote _text_, add the text to a variable and
> then use that variable.

You mean TeX variable?

> (Have you ever seen a book where a footnote is referred to from more
> than one place in the text?  I haven't.)

Which does not mean that we cannot do it in software manual.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Ihor Radchenko]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> In this particular case, I was writing a manual patch that clarifies
>> about some defcustoms not being available until the discussed library is
>> loaded. Multiple places in the manual can share the same footnote in
>> such scenario.
>
> In that case, I suggest to make the "footnote's" text a @node, and
> cross-reference to that node from each place that needs to do so.

Sounds like a bit of overkill when the text is short, but thanks for the
idea.

Another suggestion I got was to put something like ~variable~
(=library.el=) and explain in the introduction that such notation
implies that the variable is only available upon loading the library.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Gregor Zattler]

Hi Stefan, emacs developers,
* Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> [2022-12-13; 11:08 -08]:
> (Have you ever seen a book where a footnote is referred to from more
> than one place in the text?  I haven't.)

yes.  I have.[1]

I also use it often, but not in published material.


And this is also standard on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Footnotes#Footnotes:_using_a_source_more_than_once


Ciao; Gregor

[1] For instance

    Ullrich, Otto (1977/ 3rd Ed. 1988): Technik und
    Herrschaft. Vom Hand-werk zur verdinglichten
    Blockstruktur industrieller Produktion; Frankfurt am
    Main

    uses footnotes to reference sources.  On the first
    occurrence the source is described in bibliographic
    detail, subsequent footnotes mentioning the same source
    mention the first footnote number which features the
    bibliography.  Therefore the same footnote number is
    used several times but only from within footnotes.

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Stefan Kangas]

Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net> writes:

>> If they share the same footnote _text_, add the text to a variable and
>> then use that variable.
>
> You mean TeX variable?

Yes, that was my idea.

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Ihor Radchenko]

Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> writes:

> Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net> writes:
>
>>> If they share the same footnote _text_, add the text to a variable and
>>> then use that variable.
>>
>> You mean TeX variable?
>
> Yes, that was my idea.

Well. It is what is already done then. Kind of.
Because Org manual is written in Org and Org does allow multiple
references to a footnote, we currently produce texinfo sources that
contain 2 footnotes with identical text.

But such footnotes look strange when referenced sequentially - texinfo
displays two identical footnotes one after another.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2022 04:47:37 +0000
> 
> Well. It is what is already done then. Kind of.
> Because Org manual is written in Org and Org does allow multiple
> references to a footnote, we currently produce texinfo sources that
> contain 2 footnotes with identical text.
> 
> But such footnotes look strange when referenced sequentially - texinfo
> displays two identical footnotes one after another.

In my book, this means a footnote is a wrong means to handle these
cases.  If you are talking about a reference to book or a URL, there
are other ways of doing that which don't use @footnote.  I'm guessing
people think they should use @footnote because the have something like
footnote-mode in mind.  But that's superficial similarity, based on
the presence of the same word and on nothing else.

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Ihor Radchenko]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> But such footnotes look strange when referenced sequentially - texinfo
>> displays two identical footnotes one after another.
>
> In my book, this means a footnote is a wrong means to handle these
> cases.  If you are talking about a reference to book or a URL, there
> are other ways of doing that which don't use @footnote.  I'm guessing
> people think they should use @footnote because the have something like
> footnote-mode in mind.  But that's superficial similarity, based on
> the presence of the same word and on nothing else.

Note that LaTeX does support multiple footnote references and such
footnote referencing style is a common practice in some research journals.

Also, I described my use case, which is not book referencing.

I do not agree that "multiple references" is a universally wrong idea.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>

Re: Multiple references to a footnote in texi sources

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
> Cc: stefankangas@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2022 08:02:03 +0000
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> >> But such footnotes look strange when referenced sequentially - texinfo
> >> displays two identical footnotes one after another.
> >
> > In my book, this means a footnote is a wrong means to handle these
> > cases.  If you are talking about a reference to book or a URL, there
> > are other ways of doing that which don't use @footnote.  I'm guessing
> > people think they should use @footnote because the have something like
> > footnote-mode in mind.  But that's superficial similarity, based on
> > the presence of the same word and on nothing else.
> 
> Note that LaTeX does support multiple footnote references and such
> footnote referencing style is a common practice in some research journals.

LaTeX is a general-purpose system for writing books and articles.  By
contrast, Texinfo is a more limited system aimed at writing software
documentation.  My comments should be read in the context of Texinfo
and its purpose.

> I do not agree that "multiple references" is a universally wrong idea.

Feel free to disregard my opinions in this matter, but they are based
on years of experience of writing Texinfo documentation.  I'll let
everyone who reads this make up their minds about the issue, but I
made mine long time ago.