Hello, Titus von der Malsburg <malsb...@posteo.de> writes:
> Items in lists can start with -, +, N), or N. (with N being an > integer). It’s currently not possible, to use letters as in the > following examples: > > a. First item > b. Second item > > or > > a) First item > b) Second item > > I believe it would make sense to allow letters in org-mode because > that’s a very common way to label items in lists. I know that this has > been discussed previously but to my knowledge there was no > resolution. The counter argument against letters was that we wouldn’t > know what labels to use when there are more items than letters, but I > think this shouldn’t stop us. Reasons: > > a) Most lists have fewer items and cases where more than 26 labels are > needed are rare. > b) If a list has more than 26 items, the user is free to switch to > bullet points or numbers. > c) The limited number of letters hasn’t stopped people from using > letters in many other contexts. For example, LaTeX offers letters > and people think it’s useful. > d) Similarly, people often use Roman numerals (e.g., iv.) although > they also quickly become impractical (999 = CMXCIX). > e) In some (academic) contexts, e.g. in linguistics, letters are > conventionally used to label items in lists. > f) Letters worked perfectly fine in this list. > > As to the question what org mode should do if a list is two long for > letters: Here are two possible solutions: > > a) Label all items beyond the 26th with z, to make it visually very > salient that there are not enough letters. > b) Start over from letter a after z. > c) Count in base 26 using letters as digits: a … z aa … az ba … bz … > > Personally, I would prefer solution c because it gives each item a > unique label to which we can refer. But solutions a and b would be ok, > too. It doesn’t really matter because this is just an uninteresting > edge case and we shouldn’t obsess about it when the default case (<=26 > items) is complete unproblematic. > > Thanks for considering this proposal. This proposal was implemented exactly 6 years ago. See `org-list-allow-alphabetical'. They introduce false positives, so they are not allowed by default. Also, they probably should be implemented visually (i.e., with overlays, à la `org-bullets') not syntactically. Anyway, here they are. Regards, -- Nicolas Goaziou
