spacing between items in plain text

spacing between items in plain text

[Julian Bradfield]

I've failed to find an answer to this by searching, so ...

Consider the following markdown:

------------------
1. A list
    * with sub lists
    * point 2

2. Second main item
    * subitem 1
    * subitem 2

3. main item without sublists

4. another main item without sublists
------------------

If I convert it to plain text (pandoc 2.5), I get:

------------------
1.  A list
    -   with sub lists
    -   point 2
2.  Second main item
    -   subitem 1
    -   subitem 2
3.  main item without sublists

4.  another main item without sublists
------------------

which is horribly inconsistent. I would like spaces before level 1
items, whether or not there are sublists.

How can I do this?


-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

Re: spacing between items in plain text

[Bastien DUMONT]

I guess that you could achieve this by adding a blank line after every level-1 item, but pandoc 2.17 handles your sample file as you expect.

Le Saturday 09 April 2022 à 10:01:07PM, Julian Bradfield a écrit :
> I've failed to find an answer to this by searching, so ...
> 
> Consider the following markdown:
> 
> ------------------
> 1. A list
>     * with sub lists
>     * point 2
> 
> 2. Second main item
>     * subitem 1
>     * subitem 2
> 
> 3. main item without sublists
> 
> 4. another main item without sublists
> ------------------
> 
> If I convert it to plain text (pandoc 2.5), I get:
> 
> ------------------
> 1.  A list
>     -   with sub lists
>     -   point 2
> 2.  Second main item
>     -   subitem 1
>     -   subitem 2
> 3.  main item without sublists
> 
> 4.  another main item without sublists
> ------------------
> 
> which is horribly inconsistent. I would like spaces before level 1
> items, whether or not there are sublists.
> 
> How can I do this?
> 
> 
> -- 
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "pandoc-discuss" group.
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Re: spacing between items in plain text

[Julian Bradfield]

Bastien DUMONT <bastien.dumont-VwIFZPTo/vqsTnJN9+BGXg@public.gmane.org>:
>I guess that you could achieve this by adding a blank line after every level-1 item, but pandoc 2.17 handles your sample file as you expect.

No, it doesn't. It puts space before the sublists as well.
What I want is line-spacing as in the original.
As far as I understand the Markdown spec, the level 1 list is loose
and the sublists are tight, so I would expect spacing to be as in the
original.


2.18:
----------------
1. A list
    * with sub lists
    * point 2

2. Second main item
    * subitem 1
    * subitem 2

3. main item without sublists

4. another main item without sublists
----------------

rendered as
----------------
1.  A list

    -   with sub lists
    -   point 2

2.  Second main item

    -   subitem 1
    -   subitem 2

3.  main item without sublists

4.  another main item without sublists
-----------------


-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

Re: spacing between items in plain text

[Bastien DUMONT]

> As far as I understand the Markdown spec, the level 1 list is loose
> and the sublists are tight

For the same reason, it seems to me that the current output is right. But you can achieve your intent with a filter. As `pandoc -t native` shows, loose items are internally represented as Para elements and compact items as Plain. What you wish is to replace Para elements followed by a BulletList in an OrderedList or a BulletList with Plain elements with the same content.

The following lua filter works with your sample file:

```
local function isCompactList(elem)
  return (elem.t == 'OrderedList' or elem.t == 'BulletList')
    and elem.content[1][1].t == 'Plain'
end

local function process_list(list)
  for _, item in pairs(list.content) do
    if #item > 1 and item[1].t == 'Para' and isCompactList(item[2]) then
      item[1] = pandoc.Plain(item[1].content)
    end
  end
  return list
end

return {
  { OrderedList = process_list },
  { BulletList = process_list }
}
```

However, if you have more than two levels of lists, you may have to run it twice. I wrote it as a proof of concept, so it may have shortcomings with more complex lists or corner cases.

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Re: spacing between items in plain text

[Julian Bradfield]

Bastien DUMONT <bastien.dumont-VwIFZPTo/vqsTnJN9+BGXg@public.gmane.org>:
>> As far as I understand the Markdown spec, the level 1 list is loose
>> and the sublists are tight
>
>For the same reason, it seems to me that the current output is
>right.

Oh, I see, I think: you mean that the list is loose by virtue of the
space between items, and therefore it must also have spaces between
the blocks within its items?


>The following lua filter works with your sample file:

Thank you very much! I have managed to avoid lua so far, and barely
use pandoc, so that's saved me a couple of hours of learning curve.

-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

Re: spacing between items in plain text

[gnpan]

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I think a good way to deal with lists that have sublists is to avoid empty 
lines and use four spaces before * so as to get the sublists indented: 

1. A list
    * with sub lists 
    * point 2 
2. Second main item
    * subitem 1 
    * subitem 2 
3. main item without sublists
4. another main item without sublists 

will give this:

1.  A list
    -   with sub lists
    -   point 2
2.  Second main item
    -   subitem 1
    -   subitem 2
3.  main item without sublists
4.  another main item without sublists

On Sunday, 10 April 2022 at 18:31:55 UTC+3 j...-9iOJEv++55WFxr2TtlUqVg@public.gmane.org wrote:

> Bastien DUMONT <bastien...-VwIFZPTo/vqsTnJN9+BGXg@public.gmane.org>:
> >> As far as I understand the Markdown spec, the level 1 list is loose
> >> and the sublists are tight
> >
> >For the same reason, it seems to me that the current output is
> >right.
>
> Oh, I see, I think: you mean that the list is loose by virtue of the
> space between items, and therefore it must also have spaces between
> the blocks within its items?
>
>
> >The following lua filter works with your sample file:
>
> Thank you very much! I have managed to avoid lua so far, and barely
> use pandoc, so that's saved me a couple of hours of learning curve.
>
> -- 
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>
>

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