I think the existing link capability of org-mode is completely adequate for cross-references. LaTeX exports are almost completely covered in org-ref. I made a refproc ( https://github.com/jkitchin/org-ref/blob/org-ref-3/org-ref-refproc.el) that provides similar export behavior for other backends in a pre-processing hook. It supports the concepts in autoref and cleveref by replacing the org-links with an appropriate org syntax that then exports natively. For example, if cref:name references a table, it would get replaced by "Table [[name]]" in the buffer and then exported to the desired backend.
All of these are references to two tables named b1 and b2 - ref :: ref:b1 - autoref :: autoref:b1 - nameref :: nameref:b1 - pageref :: pageref:b1 - cref :: cref:b1 - cref, two :: cref:b1,b2 - Cref :: Cref:b1 - Cref, two :: Cref:b1,b2 and they are converted to this plain org syntax (which basically mirrors what would happen in a LaTeX export). - ref :: [[b1]] - autoref :: Tab. [[b1]] - nameref :: [[b1][this is a table b1.]] - pageref :: [[b1]] - cref :: Tab. [[b1]] - cref, two :: Tabs. [[b1]] and [[b2]] - Cref :: Tab. [[b1]] - Cref, two :: Tabs. [[b1]] and [[b2]] There are some options to control if the clever parts are abbreviated and/or capitalized. This should be part of org-ref on Melpa next week. John ----------------------------------- Professor John Kitchin (he/him/his) Doherty Hall A207F Department of Chemical Engineering Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 412-268-7803 @johnkitchin http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu On Sun, Oct 10, 2021 at 9:30 AM Bruce D'Arcus <bdar...@gmail.com> wrote: > Can we go back to this question of whether internal links are adequate > for cross-references, and if not, what's missing? > > On Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 11:22 AM Eric S Fraga <e.fr...@ucl.ac.uk> wrote: > > > > Hello John & co., > > > > I need to chime in when it comes to the UI: > > > > On Thursday, 12 Aug 2021 at 13:19, John Kitchin wrote: > > > I would say the UI that I like, have used for many years, and is the > > > default of org-ref is: > > > > > > 1. You type C-c ] to insert a citation > > > 2. You type C-u C-c ] to insert a cross-reference > > > 3. you type C-u C-u C-c ] to insert a new label. > > > > UI is a very personal thing. So long as there are 3 different functions > > that implement these actions, I would be happy... > > [snip] > > > In terms of the bigger picture, citations and cross-references, to me, > > are different things (one is external and the other usually internal, > > respectively) and I see no benefit in conflating them. I am also still > > not convinced that org links are not sufficient ... > > In reviewing and playing with this functionality a bit, it's clear to > me that internal links are intended to be cross-references, even if > they fall short for certain classes of users. > > Let's take a simple example of a figure, adapted from the manual: > > #+begin_example > #+CAPTION: This is the caption. > #+NAME: fig:SED-HR4049 > [[./img/a.jpg]] > > Here's a cross-reference to Figure [[fig:SED-HR4049]]. > #+end_example > > This internal link seems to produce consistent and correct output > across latex, html, and odt. > > The "fig" prefix is meaningful to ref in latex to enable it to type > that cross-reference. I'm unsure how typing in the odt context works, > but it does. > > The only downside is one has to manually, per the example, insert the > prefix (here "Figure ") in text (though this is a small price to pay > in my view). > > If one wants to use cleveref or autoref instead, as is now possible > with a recent commit, those packages handle that automatically. But of > course, this only works in latex, so you lose the consistency across > the backends. > > Also, you then need to be able to specify different variants locally > (for example, cref vs Cref), which is not possible currently. > > So I'm unclear: is that added functionality and complexity really > needed? Is there something else I'm missing? > > A separate, possibly more important (?), matter is UI and supporting > functionality. > > I think it would be nice to have better UI support for inserting these > references. > > To John's point, could we add interactive functions to insert labels > and cross-references (say as customizable functions?), using the > existing internal link support, and iterate that support over time? > > Bruce >
