processing order of legacysetupcode in the block templates

[u-fischer]

While itemsep can be changed in the second argument of \list, the start number can not be be set as the code overwrites it again:

\DocumentMetadata{
tagging = on, %switch
}
\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
List starting at 34
\begin{list}{(\theenumi)}{\usecounter{enumi}\setcounter{enumi}{33}\itemsep=3cm}
\item blub
\item blub
\end{list}
\end{document}

Output with the block code

Output without the block code

[FrankMittelbach]

I think the answer is going to be "not supported". Making it work would have a number of side effects that would need to be worked around for a usecase which could be better solved in a simpler way. If the starting value should really be set on this it could either be done by using \begin{list}[start=34]{... or by putting the \setcounter setting in the body of the environment, ie before first \item (which would then also work in a system using the old list implementation).

So bottom line it is not implementing what could be done in the old implementation in this case, but there are ways to fix the input. Supporting this use case in the new code which is extended by supporting a "start" key is going to be too fragile and likely to cause issues. So keeping full compatibility in this case is not likely to be happening.

[pablgonz]

@FrankMittelbach Hi, I'm the author of enumext, and if I understand what you're saying, this is what I should do (and I should figure out how to make resume work here as well). Could you conclude that the blocks code won't be modified at this point?

Working with lists isn't the easiest, and legacy code is more suited to what I can use (which is why I haven't used xtemplates).

Thanks for your time :D

[FrankMittelbach]

@pablgonz

@FrankMittelbach Hi, I'm the author of enumext, and if I understand what you're saying, this is what I should do (and I should figure out how to make resume work here as well).

I'm trying to say that there are two solutions for your use case (and that we aren't going to make it work in the second argument of legacy list environment).

The simple version is certainly to move the setting of the counter into the body of the env you define. However, long term it seems to make more sense to have a legacy version of the code and one that works using the new code directly (as that already offers the keys)

resume similar (there is a key for that so could be used directly) and it should also be possible to manage it on your own and set the counter to the desired value at the start of the body

Could you conclude that the blocks code won't be modified at this point?

no can't do that. The code is in latex-lab for a reason ... namely that we will change and improve as necessary. For example, we are currently normalizing key names, so some of them are still changing. And we will provide interfaces to set up things using the legacy enumitem interfaces, so that they can be used, etc

Working with lists isn't the easiest, and legacy code is more suited to what I can use (which is why I haven't used xtemplates).

xtemplate is gone (or rather deprecated), the core now defines our current view on using templates in lttemplates.dtx (and that is not expected to change).