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Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:49:37 +0100
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From: Joseph Wright <[log in to unmask]>
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Frank Mittelbach wrote:

> not able to digest that right now, but one question up front ...

No problem - there is no rush.  I will probably stick with my current
approach first in any case (as I have a model to follow) then revise it
later.  So what I'm aiming at will essentially implement what is in the
pgf/tikz manual under "Utilities -> Key management" but with everything
built using expl3 (I'm currently working on \pgfkeys ~ \keys_manage:n,
etc.).

> have you had a look at the template approach?

Morten pointed out that template needs to do a lot of clever stuff.  I
think much of that is overkill for most people looking at using keyval
input (I could be wrong, of course).  I'm mainly thinking about stuff
like keyval package options (from my own packages, siunitx comes to mind
for lots of simple options, or something like biblatex) or stuff like
PStricks or pgf/tikz.  Both of the later use a lot of keys, and the
model of pgfkeys should at least cover pgf/tikz-type requirements (it is
the key engine used!).

I'm still trying to understand template, by the way.

> whatever we do for property mappings the template system should use the same
> interface (which might well mean changing what is there)

Very true.  I'm just exploring things: this came up as when I looked at
the current l3keyval (for my xnotes2bib implementation) I couldn't find
anything for reproducing what I do in notes2bib with xkeyval.  The more
I've worked with keyval packages, the less I like how xkeyval works (I
challenge anyone to remember the full syntax for the macros).  I think
the "/path/key/.property" model is pretty clear and also flexible. Hence
looking at pgfkeys for a staring point.

(As an aside, I would shift my current packages to pgfkeys, but as it is
 only available as part of the entire pgf bundle its a bit of a big ask
as a dependency, hence stick with xkeyval for the moment. So I'm hoping
that LaTeX3 will provide this type of thing "out of the box", making my
life easier.)
-- 
Joseph Wright

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