Of course \[ 1+1 \] is valid LaTeX syntax, just as inline
\begin{displaymath} 1+1 \end{displaymath} is valid. In LaTeX you can
also separate paragraphs with \par without using any empty line, but
that's not very readable and in practice this method is only used
when constructing macros.
My point is that the two forms have identical meaning in LaTeX, but
they are represented differently in org-mode.
In my opinion a construct which will be displayed on a line by itself
and with some space separating it from the preceding and the following
text lines such as "\[ ... \]" would be better represented as a
latex-environment and not an inline latex-fragment. In this way the
org-mode text representation with proper fill-paragraph handling would
be much more readable and consistent with the meaning of the syntax
that it borrowed.
Regards,
Fede
On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 8:32 PM, Nicolas Goaziou <m...@nicolasgoaziou.fr> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Federico Beffa <be...@ieee.org> writes:
>
>> According to the LaTeX manual and reference "LaTeX: A Document
>> Preparation System", L. Lamport, \[ ... \] is a short form for a
>> displaymath environment. Citing the reference:
>> "... Because displayed equations are used so frequently in
>> mathematics, LaTeX allows you to type \[ ... \] instead of
>> \begin{displaymath} ... \end{displaymath}. ..."
>>
>> However, org-mode classify \[ ... \] as a latex-fragment, the same as
>> \(...\). The two are however very different in LaTeX because, while
>> the latter displays some mathematical expression *inline*, the former
>> makes its content stand out by putting it on *its own line*.
>
> AFAIK, LaTeX allows to inline "\[...\]" constructs, so something like
>
> Some \[1+1\] text
>
> is perfectly valid. Thus, I think we need to support them.
>
> The other thing to consider is that having the same syntax for an inline
> and a non-inline element could introduce some bugs (e.g. when filling
> a paragraph).
>
> OTOH, allowing inline \[...\] is pretty harmless.
>
>> What I do not like about this is that "org-fill-paragraph" considers
>> the \[ ...\] environment part of a paragraph and therefore the
>> environment gets "lost" in the middle of a line.
>
> This is a minor annoyance, indeed. However, you can use the verbose form
> in this case (i.e., "\begin{displaymath}").
>
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Nicolas Goaziou
