[rfc-i] Should figures float?

[phill at hallambaker.com (Phillip Hallam-Baker)]

On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Joe Touch <touch at isi.edu> wrote:

> FWIW, 'float' is a lot more complex than it seems. The float is often
> tethered, i.e., there are constraints as to how far away from the original
> section the float can occur. Typically it has to stay within the smallest
> numbered subsection and can't precede it's first reference unless on the
> same page.
>
> I don't know whether any of that can be supported automatically within XML.


It is trivial to support it in XML. Its acting on it to produce a
presentation that is hard.

Doing it in lineprinter format is quite easy. In fact I might add it
anyway. But adding it to HTML is hard because you would typically want to
place constraints such as 'the image must come after this point in the text
but must come before the next major section.

Doing that in HTML is non trivial. It might be possible with some CSS magic
like putting in a control to make a soft break and dump out all pending
figures before a section break. But it might not be possible at all without
writing a custom text formatter for the PDF output.
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