restraining @center location and add other centering environments?

[Patrice Dumas]

Hello,

I am unhappy with @center because it is both a usefull command one may want 
to use anywhere, and a command which nesting may be ambiguous, because it
uses the end of line to be closed. The consequence is that constructs like

@address@hidden Centered and in code text}

and 

@center A centered address@hidden is 
a footnote for centered text} with a footnote

are not easy to interpret, which is a source of headaches for the 
implementations and of confusion for users.

What I propose is that @center should only be used in toplevel text
and that any @-command opened in @center should be closed before the
end of line.

To still be able to center some text flexibly I think that a new environment
similar with @flushleft and @flushright (maybe called @flushcenter?) should 
be introduced.

Also a bracketed environment could be introduced, to be used in paragraphs
or in @item or in titles or other in-text environments. Like, for example

@centeredtext{Some text centered}

This is less obvious, since the wanted result is not obvious. In html, it
could be a <span> with the apropriate css, but in info it is not obvious what
the result should be. I think that it should be centered relative 
with the current location in the line and trigger an end of line.
Maybe this one is not a good idea.

What do you think about that issue? Also TeX has to be considered, I don't
know anything about that part.

--
Pat