[l2h] "variable" commands in latex2html

[andiw@uk2.net]

Hello Ross,

I'm not sure that you received my mail sent on April 23 and May 6, so I'll just 
send it again. I didn't send it to the list because your reply wasn't on the 
list either, but now I suspect that mailing to you directly doesn't work, so I 
try it once again on the list.

Greetings,
Andi

====

thank you for your quick reply. Unfortunately I still didn't get it to work. I 
tried it in three different ways (in order of descending flexibility and thus 
descending degree of preferation):

1. use a command inside the \htmlimage that yields text depending on the 
current state of a counter so that I could use \htmlimage{\alternatingtext}. 
This doesn't work because the argument to \htmlimage (seems to me) is not 
really executed. If it is a command defined with \newcommand{}, it is simply 
replaced by its definition which in turn isn't executed; if it is not defined 
with \newcommand{} (but in a .perl extension file), simply the command name an 
some brackets are stripped and what remains are the parameters. (when used in 
normal text, the \alternatingtext command produces the expected output)

2. use a command inside the figure environment that "calls" \htmlimage with the 
respective parameter. Doesn't work because \htmlimage (as seems to me) isn't 
really a command (the sub do_cmd_htmlimage just prints that it should only be 
used in figure environments) but is explicitly scanned for in the latex2html 
main script. So I can't call it from my command.

3. use a command that produces the complete figure environment. I don't know 
exactly how to do this. I tried to write a sub, say 
do_cmd_alternatinghtmlimage, which should create a figure. Since I can't use 
latex in the perl script, I guessed I'd have to call do_env_figure directly, so 
I captured the parameters of do_env_figure from a standard call and found it 
was something like "\n\n\\htmlimage<<25>>blabla<<25>>\n\\includegraphics[bla]
<<26>>blabla<<26>>\n". But if I just call do_env_figure with this string as 
parameter, the produced images.tex file contains "\begin{}" instead of "\begin
{figure}". 
So I think maybe I have to call some "higher level" function than 
do_env_figure, but can you tell me which one? Or am I completely wrong? But can 
it be so hard to do this (for one having but a vague idea of how latex2html 
really processes a document :-) )?

> Use LaTeX commands to advance the counter
> at each figure that needs to be aligned.
> (Presumably you do something like this anyway, in LaTeX;
> or do you use boolean \if.... \...true \...false macros?)

In the LaTeX (print) version I don't need alternating images since it contains 
only few of the images. If you'd like to see the documents, they're available 
on www.andreaswitzel.de via the first two links (unfortunately in German...). 
On some HTML pages there are many fotographs at the bottom of the page (and 
there are more to come) which would fit into the text if they were placed 
alternatingly...

I'd be really happy if you could help me further!
Best regards,
Andi


----------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using                 http://uk2.net
NEWS - CHEAPEST DEDICATED SERVERS IN THE WORLD -  25/month
FREE UK DIAL 0845 609 1370 - username uk2: - password: uk2
UK's FREE Domains, FREE Dialup, FREE Webdesign, FREE email