Re: [Orgmode] Footnotes and org-export, revisited

[Matthew Lundin]

Hi Carsten,

Carsten Dominik <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi Matt,
>
> the bug is fixed now, thanks for the report.
>
> Also, you can set org-footnote-section to nil
> if you want non-inline footnotes to be defined
> in the outline node where they are referenced, instead
> of a special outline node "Footnotes".

Thanks for alerting me to this option. I'm assuming that
org-footnote-section is meant to control the initial placement of
non-inline footnotes and not their placement after sorting or
normalizing. (When I sort or normalize the footnotes, they are placed
at the end of the last section of the outline.) Would it be possible
to have this option also control the placement of sorted footnotes?
I.e., during sorting or normalizing, footnotes would be placed in the
outline section corresponding to their reference. 

A few other *wishlist* items/ideas regarding this wonderful addition
to org-mode. Please feel free to consider or disregard these ideas at
your leisure.

A. For visibility in org-mode files, it might be nice if there were a
special face for the footnote markup. One of the things I really like
about AUCTeX is its nice color highlighting of macros such as
footnotes. (And, of course, I like the same thing about hyperlinks in
org-mode!)

B. Also for visibility in org-mode files, it might nice to have the
option of making the content of inline footnotes invisible (similar to
AUCTeX macro folding). For instance, if this option were turned on...

Here is a footnote.[fn:: Footnote text.]

     would appear as...
     
Here is a footnote.[fn] 

Perhaps then a function/keybinding could allow editing the footnote
text in the minibuffer, similar to C-c C-l for links.

C. The in-buffer conversion from inline footnotes to numbered
footnotes is fantastic for creating readable documents. It might be a
nice feature to have a similar conversion in reverse: that is, from
non-inline footnotes to inline footnotes? As far as I understand it,
the pre-process hook for org-latex-export already does something
similar (line 1310). It converts regular footnotes like this:

Here is a footnote.[1]

[1] Footnote text.

    to...

Here is a footnote.\footnote{Footnote text.} 

I wonder whether something similar could be available in org-mode
buffers--i.e., conversion to the inline [fn:: Footnote text] instead
of the LaTeX macro.

The chief rationale for such a feature would be to make footnotes
portable from one org-mode file to another. Let's say I have a lot of
numbered/labeled footnotes defined under an outline heading titled
"Footnotes." Let's say, additionally, that I'd like to copy one
subtree of text from that file to a different file, but that I want to
ensure that only those footnotes referred to in the subtree are
copied. Being able to convert all footnotes in the file to inline
footnotes would ensure that the correct footnotes are
attached/included. Then, of course, it would be easy to normalize
footnotes once again in both files.

D. When normalizing inline footnotes, it would be nice if there were
an option for automatically filling the resulting paragraphs and
footnotes. Currently the following source:
 
A long inline footnote.[fn:: Here is a long inline footnote that
stretches on and on.] Another footnote appears here.[fn:: Footnote
text.] And here is another inline footnote.[fn:: Inline footnote
number 3.]

       normalizes to...

A long inline footnote.[1] Another footnote appears here.[2] And here is 
another inline footnote.[3]

[1] Here is a long inline footnote that
stretches on and on.

[2] Footnote
text.

[3] Inline footnote
number 3.

Sorry for this exceedingly long email. Again, these are simply
wishlist items that I respectfully submit for your consideration.

Already the footnote markup does more than I ever imagined I'd be able
to do in plain text. Thanks again!

- Matt