> Hello, > > On Fri, Mar 14, 2003 at 10:50:02AM -0800, Wilson, Peter R wrote: >> I had a go at such a beast (called xhead) about a year ago. >> I'll be interested in any comments about it; be gentle, though, as >> it's my first attempt. > > Why did you chose to have one template containing all four > head-/footlines (even/odd head/foot)? Wouldn't it be simpler to instead > use four instances, one for each of these cases? That's the approach my > one head-package used (which never made it to the experimental > directory, but it should be somewhere in the mailing list archives). Actually, I think LaTeX running heads have a serious design flaw: the two-step mechanism and the fact \bot/top/firstmarks contain formatted information (ie, number and title are already gathered and with \MakeUppercase). IMO, the mechanism of the current \chapter/sectionmarks should be hidden to the user (at least in most of cases), and the chapter/section/etc titles and numbers should be made available as macros named, say, \chaptertitle, \chapternumber, etc., directly available in the place where running heads are defined. (If you have used my titlesec package, you will understand what I mean). Another useful addition would be the possibility to define arbitrary head/foot areas (not only a top or and a bottom line) where this information could be placed. For example: the chapter title could go in the headline and the chapter number at the outer margin (vertically centered) in a shaded box. (Well, the code of titlesec has a hook for that, but I've never implemeted it...). Javier ___________________________________________________________ Javier Bezos | TeX y tipografia jbezos at wanadoo dot es | http://perso.wanadoo.es/jbezos/ ........................................................... CervanTeX http://www.cervantex.org