Re: [O] [beamer] When are :BEAMER_envargs: used or ignored?

[James Harkins]

At Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:44:56 +0930,
Eric Fraga wrote:
> > But I still have the issue with it
> > that the user has to adapt the org-file structure to suit beamer's
> > requirements. Org-mode is all about reflecting the content in a way
> > that makes sense FIRST to humans, and only secondarily to exporting
> > engines.
> 
> I agree.  However, the problems arise when exporting because of
> fundamentally different structures between org and the export
> target.  This is why we have the various kludges (if people can forgive
> me for calling them this) like ATTR_HTML and ATTR_LATEX.  There is no
> easy or elegant mechanism in org for satisfying all the different export
> target requirements that are fundamentally inconsistent with org's
> outline heritage.

I understand. An elegant solution would take some mulling over (especially 
considering that I've only recently started using the export features, and my 
knowledge of LaTeX is superficial at best). In the meantime, I can live with 
the current situation.

That the headline title is used for the color specification is probably not 
such an unbearable thing in practice. How many color boxes are there likely to 
be on one slide? (Meaning, if you're tempted to load up a slide with so many 
color boxes that you get confused about the content, maybe the content needs to 
be restructured.) If it's the only color box on the slide, quite likely you can 
infer its content from the frame title or other headings nearby.

It just struck me as a loose end, and I'm glad I asked about it, because I have 
a better understanding of the issues now.

> For this particular case, it could be that the beamercolorbox
> environment could be made to expect a specific PROPERTY, much like the
> column environment does.  The question would then be: what should the
> headline be used for as beamercolorbox has no real text content
> argument.

There are other beamer tags that don't use the headline text, namely quote and 
quotation. According to the beamer user guide, there's no place for the 
headline:

\begin{quote}<action specification>
environment contents
\end{quote}

Compared to

\begin{block}<action specification>{block title}<action specification>
environment contents
\end{block}

So, there is already a situation where you have to put some dummy text into the 
headline that won't appear. Maybe there could be special handling for 
title-less environments, so that the headline would become the environment 
contents and colorbox could take its color from a property...

> I would guess that if you could suggest a consistent and more elegant
> solution, it would be considered favourably and maybe somebody would
> take it up and implement it.  No promises, however!

... but the elegance of that approach would be debatable, I suppose.

James


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James Harkins /// dewdrop world
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