[Doc-SIG] Re: Docutils autonumbered lists

[David Goodger]

Dethe Elza wrote:
 > Today's issue is autonumbered lists.

This came up recently on docutils-users.  I wrote:

Some thought has gone into it, and a patch for one alternative has
been produced.  See
<http://docutils.sf.net/spec/rst/alternatives.html#auto-enumerated-lists>.

 > But after trying it and going through the docs, I appear to have
 > substituted footnote notation for list notation.

I don't follow.  An example is worth a lot of words.  ;-)

 > Is there a clear and present reason why we don't do autonumbering
 > for lists?

No clear winning syntax has presented itself.  The only implementation
done to date is for a candidate syntax that probably isn't a winner.
The issue requires discussion and implementation.  It isn't
interesting enough to me to make me want to implement it myself.

 > What is the order of magnitude of the work needed to add it?

It would require some parser work.  New syntax would require new
regexps.  It wouldn't be a huge task, but the parser code is a bit
hairy.

Contributions are, as always, most welcome.

 > I also wanted to share a success story.  After proseletizing
 > restructured text around the office, I finally gave up.

Often new & radical ideas take a while to percolate.

 > It's been relatively straightforward, very successful, and now
 > everyone in the office is learning to use reST.
 >
 > Thanks!

You're welcome.  May your office experience increased efficiency
through decreased reliance on Word.  :-)

David Goodger    http://starship.python.net/~goodger
For hire: http://starship.python.net/~goodger/cv
Docutils: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/
(includes reStructuredText: http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html)