142 lines
5.7 KiB
Plaintext
142 lines
5.7 KiB
Plaintext
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||
OCTOBER 2021
|
||
Release 9.5
|
||
|
||
TEC
|
||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||
|
||
|
||
2021-10-31
|
||
|
||
|
||
Turns out that life became busy enough that instead of
|
||
delaying, last month’s post had to be cancelled. We’re now
|
||
back to business as usual though 🙂.
|
||
|
||
There have been some cool recent developments in Org over the past two
|
||
months, but you’ll have to learn about those is next month’s edition as
|
||
/Org 9.5 has been released/ 🎉. So, let’s go over some of the changes
|
||
I’m most excited about, in no particular order. To get a more complete
|
||
picture of the latest changes, see [ORG-NEWS].
|
||
|
||
|
||
[ORG-NEWS]
|
||
<https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/org-mode.git/tree/etc/ORG-NEWS?h=release_9.5#n14>
|
||
|
||
|
||
The new citation engine
|
||
═══════════════════════
|
||
|
||
As tempted as I am to wax lyrical about the lovely new citation
|
||
engine, I’ve already dedicated [July’s post] to it, and so will simply
|
||
highlight how versatile the syntax is. Combined with the ability to
|
||
swap out the default backends (basic, CSL, natbib, and bib(la)tex) for
|
||
a 3rd party backend (for example, provided by a package) it is capable
|
||
of meeting your citation and technical document publishing needs,
|
||
whatever they may be.
|
||
|
||
<file:figures/citation-structure-full.svg>
|
||
|
||
Since the announcement of org-cite, the ecosystem has continued to
|
||
expand with a number of promising packages like Bruce D’Arcus’ [citar]
|
||
(previously /bibtex-actions/), which currently provides what is
|
||
arguably the best citation insertion experience.
|
||
|
||
<file:figures/org-citar-insertion.png>
|
||
|
||
|
||
[July’s post] <file:2021-07-31-citations.org>
|
||
|
||
[citar] <https://github.com/bdarcus/citar>
|
||
|
||
|
||
Asynchronous session evaluation
|
||
═══════════════════════════════
|
||
|
||
Since being featured in [May’s post], we’ve had the initial python
|
||
support expanded with support for R too. I have good reason to believe
|
||
that more backends will join this list in the future.
|
||
|
||
To get started, just add `:async' to the header arguments of Python or
|
||
R source blocks with a `:session'.
|
||
|
||
|
||
[May’s post] <file:2021-05-31-async.org>
|
||
|
||
|
||
LaTeX environment `#+results' are now removed
|
||
═════════════════════════════════════════════
|
||
|
||
LaTeX environments (i.e. `\begin{} ... \end{}' blocks) have been added
|
||
to the list of `#+results' types that will be removed. This is bigger
|
||
news than one might think, as it means that raw LaTeX environments are
|
||
now a viable output for org-babel backends. This possesses a distinct
|
||
advantage over `:results latex' as LaTeX environments can be rendered
|
||
inline with `org-latex-preview' and are exported to more formats — for
|
||
example HTML with MathJax.
|
||
|
||
This is likely going to be first seen in the new `ob-julia' backend
|
||
(unreleased, currently in early development), but could well be
|
||
utilised by other backends such as `ob-octave', `ob-mathematica' (in
|
||
contrib), `ob-python' (using `SymPy'), `ob-calc' and more.
|
||
|
||
<file:figures/ob-julia-latexify-rendered.png>
|
||
|
||
|
||
More fontification
|
||
══════════════════
|
||
|
||
A number of new faces have been introduced to allow for improved
|
||
theming capability, and better contextual hints in the agenda, namely:
|
||
`org-agenda-date-weekend-today', `org-imminent-deadline',
|
||
`org-agenda-structure-secondary', and `org-agenda-structure-filter'.
|
||
|
||
Inline export snippets are now also fontified using the `org-tag' and
|
||
`font-lock-comment-face' faces, to better stand out from surrounding
|
||
text.
|
||
|
||
|
||
More link formatting options with org-capture
|
||
═════════════════════════════════════════════
|
||
|
||
A new formatting directive, `%L' has been introduced which provides
|
||
the bare link target. This allows for links with automatically
|
||
generated descriptions 🙂.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Export improvements
|
||
═══════════════════
|
||
|
||
The HTML and LaTeX backends have both been given some love in this
|
||
release of Org.
|
||
|
||
The HTML backend now supports customisation of the `<meta>' tags
|
||
included with `org-html-meta-tags', which should be particularly
|
||
useful to anybody using `org-publish' for blogs or websites (in fact,
|
||
this blog has been making use of it for some time now). A new variable
|
||
has been introduced to help with styling, `org-html-content-class'
|
||
(`"content"' by default) which is used as the CSS class for the
|
||
top-level content wrapper. To further improve styling capabilities,
|
||
`org-html-style-default' and `org-html-scripts' have been changed from
|
||
constants to customisable variables.
|
||
|
||
The LaTeX backend (`ox-latex') no longer has obsolete LaTeX packages
|
||
in `org-latex-default-packages-alist' (`grffile' and `texcomp' have
|
||
been removed). It also now supports arbitrary `:float' argument
|
||
values, and accepts a six new arguments (in total) for verse
|
||
(`:lines', `:center', `:versewidth', and `:latexcode') and quote
|
||
blocks (`:environment' and `:options').
|
||
|
||
|
||
Project changes
|
||
═══════════════
|
||
|
||
To reduce the maintainer burden, the `contrib/' folder and a
|
||
collection of rarely-used or barely-maintained `ob-*' backends have
|
||
been moved to a new repo, [org-contrib]. Support for Emacs 24
|
||
(2012–2014) has also been dropped, and Org will now aim to support the
|
||
three most recent major versions of Emacs.
|
||
|
||
|
||
[org-contrib] <https://git.sr.ht/~bzg/org-contrib>
|