Re: Open Discussion: Features of Templating

[Albert Krewinkel <albert+pandoc-9EawChwDxG8hFhg+JK9F0w@public.gmane.org>]

Stephan Meijer <me-nPKYAObcRdo6Blr+0TYHagC/G2K4zDHf@public.gmane.org> writes:

> Maybe at this stage it'd even be easier to be able to decouple the
> templating engine from Pandoc, so people can use their own templating
> engine.

It's almost possible to do that already, custom writers get us something
like 80 % of the way there: any Lua template engine with a compatible
interface could be used in theory. The limitations are:

- The pandoc.template.meta_to_context function is difficult to use with
  built-in writers.

- The custom writers cannot access the template variables that are
  auto-generated by a built-in writer.

Both limitations could be fixed by exporting more of the writer
internals from the respective Haskell modules, and then in turn to
expose those to Lua. Not difficult, but a good bit of typing, API
changes, and the need to break-down abstractions (making writers less
opaque). Could be nice to have, but I'm not sure if the result would
justify the effort and downsides.


-- 
Albert Krewinkel
GPG: 8eed e3e2 e8c5 6f18 81fe  e836 388d c0b2 1f63 1124