On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 3:24 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> [Why private?]


Fumble fingered.

> > Fri, 22 Nov 2013 16:47:05 -0500, John Yates <john@yates-sheets.org>
wrote:
> >
> > I want to be able to say "This is a chapter title" or "This is a step
in a
> > recipe" or - most commonly - "This is a top level paragraph with no
> > particular distinctive property".  After that I want my tool have a
basic
> > sense of how each item ought to be formatted.  More importantly I want
it
> > to allow me to say, all elements of a particular type that I may have
> > created heretofore as well as any I may create in the future should be
> > formatted in some new manner.  I think of this as a declarative UI.
> >
> > If I understond your description correctly your model is one in which
(as
> > an inveterate emacs user :-) I would compose a command to say "find all
> > items matching the following pattern and change each's formatting
property
> > P from X to Y".  I think of that as an imperative UI.  My biggest
stumbling
> > block is that I do not understand how it allows me to express my
intentions
> > relative to content yet to be entered.
>
> We need to have both.  For the former, we have face customization,
> which does exactly what you describe.


Are you saying that I can customize an emacs face to specify
inter-paragraph space? a bullet glyph or numbering style? first line and
subsequent line indentation?  That is definitely not the case with my
emacs, current as of Nov 8th.

Perhaps you are saying that a viable design could extend faces with
additional attributes to support those concepts.  Hmm... I will give that
some thought.  At the very least, without introduction of any new
terminology, it will introduce yet another Humpty-Dumpty-esque "When
*I*use a word it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more
nor less"
for emacs new comers.

/john